조선후기 영남지역 사찰벽화의 위계와 불전성향

Abstract

This study examines mural paintings as a way of sanctifying and decorating buddhist hall to identify intended arrangement to express hierarchy of buddhist realm. It aims at analysing mural painting as a means of expressing religious rank, which takes different research perspectives from that of previous studies focused on forms and styles of the paintings. Buddhist Halls in Youngnam region, which is examined in this paper, preserves mural paintings in its original form. By recording and documenting mural painting in situ, this paper examines religious hierarchy expressed in the painting in terms of vertical, horizontal, and symmetrical perspectives. It argues that elements and motif in the paintings corresponds to object of worship characterizing buddha hall and responds to the theological demands of the period. First, horizontal hierarchy are displayed in the arrangment of buddhas of different rank, such as three buddhas, 53 buddhas, or a thousand buddhas, in different space in a buildings. Mural Paintings in the Hall of Ultimate Enlightment Buddha of Eunhasa temple, Sakyamuni Hall of Songrimsa temple and Bonghwanssa temple are the examples to display such arrangement. Vertical hierarchy is expressed in different space of different hight of a wall in a hall whereas horizontal one takes the central space of the hall as the hight rank. Vertical hierarchy makes two-dimensional wall space into three -dimensional one as displaed in Sakyamuni hall of Jikji temple and Hall of Vulture Peak of Tongdosa temple. Such multi-bracketed timber building enables mural paintings to express vertical hierarchy in a wall space from three dimensional perspectives, by placing paintings of different buddhas by the distance from the main buddha. Symmetrical hierarchy is effective way of highlighting the dignity and perfection of the object of worship, by using four directions, east, west, south and north, in a space. Such arrangement has been adopted in most mural paintings. Main hall highlights the main buddha whereas subsidiary hall are given freedom and flexibility in selecting themes and elements of a painting. In addition, mural paintings in Youngnam region express various religious themes such as scenes from a record called Seokssiwonlyueunghwasajeok  which describes a biography of Sakyamuni buddha and his disciples, so that it provides useful information of understanding characters of buddha hall in the region. The scenes expressed in mural paintings in three temple of Youngnam region to depicts themes from Seokssiwonlyueunghwasajeok  and Seoyugi and a painting called Eoramkwanumdo matches to the boundaries of a specific group of monk paintings of Imhyu who were a talented monk painter of the 18th century around Tongdosa temple. Therefore period of those mural paintings and the way of sanctifying main hall can be identified by analysing the activities of monk painters of the region. The above characters are limited in mural paintings of Youngnam region, such as Bulguksa temple, Youngyeonsa temple, and Youngcheonsa temple deciding regional characters. Selection of themes reflects to the demand of lay community and such practice had become general principle in wall painting of the period in Youngnam region.