Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 17. (Budapest, 1998)
Ildikó NAGY: The „Blazing Light " Buddha and his Heavenly Entourage in a Korean Painting at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts
Buddha, the most significant is the woodcut at the Ssanggyesa monastery (Nonsan, South-Ch'ungch'ong-namdo province, S. Korea), which dates back to 1580. 14 Of the later depictions the most famous dated pictures are those at Ch'onunsa monastery (1749). Kapsa monastery (1855), T'ongdosa Sounam monastery (1861), Hungguksa monastery (1868) and Hwaomsa Kumjongam monastery (1872). 15 In the numerically small Korean collection at the Ferenc Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts is a good-quality Buddhist painting: a ritual hanging scroll painted on specially woven "picture silk" canvas (85 x 133 cm; its wooden frame is not the original one), 16 which depicts the "Blazing Light" Buddha Trinity and its celestial attendants. 17 The horizontally arranged composition is painted in lively colours. In it two-thirds of the picture field is occupied by a seated Buddha and two of his principal attendants, the figures of two bodhisattvas. On the axis dividing the picture into two is placed an imaginary triangle with sides of equal length. The principal figiue, which in terms of its size dominates the picture, is in contemplative seated posture (Kor. pangabujwa; Skt. dhyanasana). He is placed on a blossomed lohis flower with a green stem and indigo-blue petals, symbolizing a throne. His left leg is placed in front of him, Iiis right leg is drawn in and held horizontally, wiüi its sole upwards. His hands are in contemplative posture (Kor. sonjongin; Skt. dhyanamudra): Üiey are placed horizontally in Iiis lap. His palms are held upwards, with die left first finger placed in front of the right first finger and with the tips of the thumbs touching each other. In Iiis palms Iiis attribute can be seen, the golden Wheel of the Law (Kor. kumyun, Skt. dliarmacakra). The hub of the Wheel of die Law is embellished with a stylized, eight-petalled lotus flower in a double-ringed disk. The figure has a light-coloured body. On die top of its tapered head is a characteristically high. flesh-coloured lump with red blood-vessels (Kor. yukkye, a symbol of enlightenment); above the forehead, from among dark curls, shines Iiis pate in a curved shape. Long earlobes stretch down to his shoidders (this is a characteristic Buddha feature). Above Iiis mouth is a thin moustache, beneath his lower lip and on his chin is a patch of beard. His shoulders arc covered by a cinnabar red shoid-der-clotli with a black border. His chest is uncovered. From his waist downwards he wears a monk's attire in pastel blue with wide dark-red strap tied with a red girdle. Behind him is a twin disk-shaped nimbus (Kor. kwangbaé), outlined behind his head with a malachite green disk and behind his body with orange disk bordered with white-red-indigobluc rings. His two principal attendants are similarly placed on indigo-blue lotuspetalled flowers symbolizing thrones (their feet are entirely covered by their garments). Both are in contemplative posture. On the head of each is a diadem embellished with a string of pearls characteristic of bodhisattvas; each has a lotus flower above its forehead as ornamentation. Both diadems are curved and end in a tip shaped ornament like a pu yi. However, their main characteristic is that the bodhisattva seated on the right of the main figure wears on its diadem the white disk of the Moon while the one seated on the left wears the red disk of the Sun. Their attire consists of a cinnabar-red shoulder-cloth with stylized gold-coloured motifs (diese resemble flowers and twin diamond sceptres); the shouldercloth of the right-hand bodhisattva is edged in black border. Beneath the shoulder-cloth a green garment edged in orange can be seen; the raiment of the left-hand bodhisattva, on the other hand, is cinnabar-red. Similarly to the main figure, both wear pastel-blue, skirt-like flowing attire from the waist down-wards. Their bodies are light in colour. Behind them, too, are twin disk-shaped nimbuses (behind their heads green and behind their bodies white).
