Goryeo Buddhist Painting: A Closer Look

Description:

Exquisite silk scrolls created with ink, rich mineral pigments, and gold characterize a distinctive school of Buddhist painting that emerged in Korea under the patronage of the imperial court by the thirteenth century. Relatively small in scale, these delicate works were made for intimate settings, such as private chapels maintained by members of the elite class. Today, only about 160 of these exceptional paintings dating from the second half of the Goryeo 고려 高麗 dynasty (918–1392) exist worldwide. Three are in the collections of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, while thirteen more belong to other museums throughout the United States.

Scholarship on these paintings, which are chiefly Pure Land images dominated by the Buddha Amitabha and deities associated with him, has developed quickly since the first study was presented by the Yamato Bunkakan 大和文華館 in Nara, Japan, in 1978. To help advance this research and deepen understanding of the sixteen examples in American collections, the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery approached the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea for assistance in creating this bilingual digital catalogue.

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