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- Korea
- East Asian arts
- Chosŏn style
- magatama
In 660 and 668, respectively, the Paekche and Koguryŏ kingdoms fell to the allied armies of the Silla king and the Tang Chinese emperor, creating a new political and cultural era referred to as the Unified Silla period. This was the golden age of ancient Korean art. Buddhism enjoyed a renewed prosperity, and great temples sprang up one after another in the Kyŏngsang province region. Monks and scholars traveled to Tang China to partake of its brilliant cosmopolitan culture. The capital city of Kyŏngju (like the contemporary Japanese capital of Heian-kyo, later Kyōto) was modeled after the Tang capital of Chang’an, with broad, straight avenues laid out on a rectangular grid pattern. From this time on, southern Korea, particularly the southeast, became the centre of Korean artistic development. Northern Korea, where once an energetic Koguryŏ art had flourished, diminished in importance.
The Unified Silla period produced more granite Buddhist images and pagodas than any other period. Architectural ornamentation, such as roof tiles decorated with floral and animal designs, was of high quality. The bronzesmiths of Unified Silla did excellent work, as exemplified in numerous huge temple bells, sharira boxes (containing sacred ashes of the Shakyamuni Buddha), and Buddhist statues. Toward the end of the reign, bronze seems to have been in short supply, and statues were cast in iron. One Buddhist painting has survived from the Unified Silla period. It depicts a Buddhist sermon held in a temple. Figures and architecture are represented in fine gold lines on blue-brown paper.
Sculpture
The sculpture of the Unified Silla period was the high point of Korean naturalism and is marked by an abundance of statues in granite. During the first phase of the period, Korean sculpture was under the fresh influence of Chinese sculpture of the early Tang period. Unified Silla works showed a certain vigour, though they were often stiff and had an imposing body mass. The tortoise base for the monument of King Muyŏl (died 661) in Kyŏngju and a Shakyamuni triad at Kunwi are good examples of the first phase.
At the outset of the 8th century, however, Unified Silla sculpture began to take on a softened naturalistic look. The standing Amitabha and Maitreya (dated 721) from the site of Kamsan Temple may be considered typical examples of the first half of the 8th century and as stylistic stepping stones leading to the fully mature sculptures of the Sŏkkuram cave temple of the mid-8th century. The main Buddha of the cave temple has a massive body and a full, round face. Yet this is no mere hulking physical mass of monumental stone. The tranquil facial expression, the solid massive curves of the upper torso, and the somewhat formalized, simple drapery are skillfully synthesized and radiate the spiritual power and grace of the Buddha. The surrounding reliefs on oblong slabs are of the same quality. In the case of the bodhisattvas, shapely feminine bodies are superbly reproduced on the rough granite surface; the curves, however, are covered by thin robes, executed in a stylized manner to de-emphasize the physical form and enhance the spiritual qualities. These figures may have been inspired by similar Tang figures, such as those executed in 703 for the Baojing Temple in Xi’an, China. The Sŏkkuram figures, however, lack the secular and erotic character of the Tang sculptures.
Stylistic and technical degeneration, however, had already begun in the second half of the 8th century, as is indicated by the two seated bronze Buddhas in the Pulguk Temple which probably date from the early 9th century. They retain the round, fleshy face of the Sŏkkuram Buddha, but their torsos are overly elongated and the drapery somewhat stylized, so that the spiritual quality is diminished. This mannered style of handling the image increased until the end of the century.
In the 9th century the Unified Silla kingdom itself began to decline. Sculptors were constrained to reduce the size of their pieces, both carved and cast. As a result statues were often out of proportion. A large square block representing the head might be placed on top of a small shrunken body with narrow, sloping shoulders. From about the mid-9th century, bronze came to be used only for small statuettes; large images were cast in iron, a practice that was continued in the Koryŏ period.
Decorative arts
A considerable number of ceramic urns have been discovered, mainly in the vicinity of Kyŏngju. They are covered with stamped floral patterns, and some have a yellowish green lead glaze. The stamping and glazing were techniques introduced by potters in the 7th century. Earthenware roof and square floor tiles also were produced. These were decorated with delicately molded lotus and other rich floral designs and were made for Buddhist temples and palace buildings.
Bronze work was outstanding in this period, especially the large bronze Buddhist bells. Four Unified Silla bells with inscribed dates survive, two of which are in Japan. A Korean bell of this period differs from a Chinese or Japanese example by the hollow cylindrical tube erected on the crown, alongside the traditional arched dragon handle, and in the surface decoration: the upper and the lower rims of the body are each surrounded by an ornamental horizontal band. Silla skill in casting is best seen in the colossal bronze bell of King Sŏngdŏk that was made in 771 for the Pongdŏk Temple and is now in the Kyŏngju National Museum. Its surface contains a relief of two flying angels, a superb example of Unified Silla sculpture. An inscription of some 830 characters praises the achievements of King Sŏngdŏk and expresses wishes for peace. The resounding tone of the bell is unique and carries for miles. Legend has it that this peculiar sound comes from the cry of a child thrown into the melting bronze in the process of casting.
Buddhist bronze miniature shrines for sharira were sometimes placed inside stone pagodas. The best example, from the western pagoda of the Kamŭn Temple site, is a square platform on which a miniature glass bottle containing the sharira is placed under a rich canopy supported by four corner poles. The shrine was encased in a square outer box with a pyramidal cover, each panel of the box adorned with a bronze relief figure of one of the Four Guardians.
Koryŏ period (918–1392)
In 935 the Unified Silla monarchy was supplanted by the newly risen Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392). Buddhism once again prospered under royal patronage. Koryŏ’s close cultural ties with China during the Song period (960–1279) resulted in direct influences from the advanced Chinese urban culture, and highly refined lifestyles prevailed among the aristocrats, the more important court officials, and the high-ranking Buddhist priests. The peace of the realm, however, was often disrupted by invaders from Manchuria, first Khitan, then Juchen (Jin), and finally Mongols (Yuan dynasty). In 1232 the Koryŏ court fled to Kanghwa Island at the mouth of the Han River, a short distance west of Seoul, leaving the country to Mongol devastation and control. The art of Koryŏ never again equaled its pre-Mongol achievements.
Few original examples of Koryŏ architecture have survived. Koryŏ stone sculpture and stone pagoda construction took different forms from that of the Unified Silla period. For example, multisided, multistory pagodas and funerary pagodas for noted high priests were constructed in quantity. Good bronze temple bells were cast, although they were smaller in size than those produced in the Unified Silla kingdom. Monks painstakingly copied Buddhist sutras in gold and silver ink on thick dark blue paper. Printing and wood-block engraving were innovations that reached a high state of development. A Koryŏ book is comparable in printing technique to the finest Chinese editions of the Song period. The famous wood-block edition of the entire Tripitaka, a long Buddhist canonical text, was created on Kanghwa Island in the mid-13th century as a commission of the government in exile. More than 80,000 engraved woodblocks—today stored at Haein Temple—were used to print this edition. Another major artistic achievement of the Koryŏ period was the production of porcelain with a celadon glaze. Sets of celadon ware were customarily buried with the dead, and it is from these tombs that most of the Koryŏ celadon on exhibit in the 21st century came.
Painting
Only about 10 examples of original Koryŏ painting are extant, and most of these are in Japan. They are mainly minor works on Buddhist themes except for several badly worn fragments of a hunting scene attributed to King Kongmin (1351–74) and two landscapes by other artists. There is little to be said about these isolated works except that they are in varying degrees in the style of Chinese painting of the Song period (960–1279). Among the few examples of Koryŏ temple wall paintings are the Buddhistic images in the Chosa-dang (Founder’s Hall) at Pusŏk Temple (1377) and the paintings of flowers in the main hall of the Sudŏk Temple (1308). Among the important examples of Koryŏ tomb painting is an image of a flying deva (from the 12th or 13th century; one of a group of heavenly beings who are the guardians of Buddhism) discovered in 1971 on the wall of a tomb at Kŏch’ang in southeastern South Korea.
Sculpture
Compared with that of the Unified Silla period, Koryŏ sculpture shows a decline in both quantity and quality. However, before the decline a momentary surge of naturalism, a traditionally northern Korean quality, revitalized the period. Large images with imposing bodies were successfully cast in iron, a medium not used since the late Unified Silla period. These cast-iron images were plastered and painted. Direct copies from 8th-century Unified Silla models were often attempted. The colossal seated iron Buddha in Seoul’s National Museum of Korea is the best example of this revival style. This image of the Buddha was clearly influenced by the large Shakyamuni of the Unified Silla cave temple of Sŏkkuram. Only the long narrow eyes, the sharpened nose, and a certain angularity in the treatment of the drapery give the Buddha a unique Koryŏ coldness that heralds the rather abstract quality found in later iron images.
In stone sculpture, also, the revival style is noticeable. The trend, however, was short-lived, and by the 12th century Koryŏ sculptors seem to have lost the art of working large, fully rounded figures in stone or metal. The decline in technique was manifested in the abstract tendency of certain figures of the middle of the Koryŏ period, such as the seated iron Buddha in Ch’ungju.
Although the sculpture produced by the major workshops suffered a decline, good sculptors could still be found in the countryside. One of the best known is the master who carved a set of wooden play masks for the village of Hahoe near Andong in southeastern South Korea. These masks are marked by an exotic realism. The deep-set eyes are arranged asymmetrically so as to become mobile under the play of changing light and shade. The nose, very un-Korean, is extraordinarily long and aquiline. The separately made chin, like the nose, is massive. Models for these exotic masks must have come from China, as early as the Tang dynasty, when elements of Persian and Central Asian art found their way into China. These Korean masks might well have served as the intermediary links through which the Japanese mask for the Noh drama developed from original Chinese models.
