Masterpieces of Goryeo Buddhist Painting

- A Long Lost Look after 700 Years

In celebration of the fifth anniversary of its relocation to Yongsan, the National Museum of Korea, under the leadership of director Choe Kwang-shik, is holding the special exhibition "Masterpieces of Goryeo Buddhist Painting - A Long Lost Look after 700 Years" in its Special Exhibition Gallery from Tuesday, Oct. 12 to Sunday, Nov. 21.

This exhibition brings together Goryeo Buddhist paintings from all over the world in the largest exhibition of these works in history. It is an event with particular significance as South Korea celebrates its hosting of the G-20 Summit and the National Museum of Korea commemorates the fifth anniversary of its relocation to Yongsan.

Currently, there are known to be approximately 160 Goryeo Buddhist paintings around the world. Of these, a total of 61 are to be included in this exhibition, including Hyeheo's Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara, currently housed at Japan's Senso-ji temple. These 61 paintings include 27 from Japanese collections, ten from U.S. collections, five from European collections, and nineteen from Korean collections. In addition, the exhibition will feature 20 Buddhist paintings from China's Southern Song and Yuan Dynasties and Japan's Kamakura period, allowing visitors to examine contemporary trends in East Asian Buddhist painting. Also on display will be five Buddhist paintings from the early Joseon period, inheritors to the tradition of Goryeo Buddhist painting, along with 22 Buddhist sculptures and metal crafts from the Goryeo period, for a total of 108 paintings and other artworks.

61 Goryeo Buddhist paintings including Hyeheo's Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara

(in the middle) will be on display.

Goryeo Buddhist paintings are widely seen as some of the most beautiful religious art in the world. Their delicate and graceful forms indicative of the high aesthetic standards of the Goryeo people, their brilliant primary colors and resplendent gold pigment, and their beautiful yet powerful flowing lines combined to create an unparalleled world of beauty in the East Asia of the day. Today, they offer a complete picture of Goryeo culture, harboring within them the sublimated spirituality of Goryeo Buddhism and even the energy of the Goryeo people themselves.

The most noteworthy aspect of this exhibition is the fact that it brings together Goryeo Buddhist paintings not only from Korean collections but also from places like Japan, the U.S., and Europe, allowing visitors to view and compare dozens of works at one time when it is ordinarily difficult to see even one or two. Most of the works on display, including the Senso-ji collection's Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara as well as the Nezu Museum's Kshitigarbha and the Otaka-ji temple's Illustration of the Visualization Sutra, are being shown for the first time in Korea. In particular, Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara, also known as Water Droplet Avalokiteshvara, is familiar from its appearance in textbooks and famously difficult for even Japanese scholars to glimpse.

A total of 44 institutions have lent their holdings for this exhibition, include the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Korea; Tokyo National Museum, Nara National Museum, and Kyushu National Museum in Japan; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in the United States; the Musee Guimet in France; the Museum of East Asian Art, Berlin, and Museum of East Asian Art, Cologne, in Germany; and the State Hermitage Museum in Russia.

Admission is 1,000 won for ages 7 to 18, 2,000 won for ages 19 to 25, and 3,000 won for ages 26 to 64. Paintings are alternated during the exhibition period, so exhibition times for the different works may vary.