高麗 <16羅漢圖> 考察

A Study of the Paintings of 16 Arahats in the Goryeo Period

A group of 500 Arhats (Buddha’s disciples) paintings have remained very important sources in study of the styles of Arhat paintings in the 13th century. In other words, these ink-and-wash paintings are different from Chinese Arhat paintings by Guanxiu (貫休) and Li Longmian (李龍眠) housed in the Japanese Imperial Household Agency (宮內廳) and Seiryou-ji (淸凉寺) in terms of the characteristic style of the time. Moreover, the writer believes that those paintings should be appreciated as masterpieces whose artistic level and technical perfection can rub shoulders with those of other renowned works created during this period. It should be noted that the Arhat paintings hint at Li-Guo style (李郭派) of the Northern Song Period (北宋代) in expression of rocks but that they also reveal the style of the Southern Song Period (南宋代) in representation of trees. When it comes to the 16 Arhats painting from the Goryeo Dynasty, however, there has been no clue whatsoever to identify its style and iconography. In this regard, it is significant that the Seventh Saint Gariga Painting manages to provide some critical information to reconstruct the style and iconography of the Goryeo Dynasty. In particular, the painting is known to have been created for the same purpose of the group of the aforementioned 500 Arhats paintings, which would reveal a new aspect of the work in the study of the Buddhist paintings in general.