Koguryo tomb murals in the East Asian funerary art

책 소개

Forward It has been more than a century since modern scholars became aware of Koguryo tombs and their murals. Through these hundred years, new tombs have been uncovered in every decade. Today, approximately 15,000 tombs are identified as Koguryo and more than one hundred of them have murals. Chronologies have been proposed and researchers have highlighted architectural, stylistic, and thematic features shared by many of them. Yet even as excavation techniques become more sophisticated and the quality and extent of publications improve, the significance of Koguryo tomb murals in the global history of art has not been realized. Professor Ah-Rim Park’s book offers a new approach to Koguryo tombs and their decoration, one that leads the reader in uncharted directions to explain the murals, and through them, the kingdom. Koguryo was a major Asian empire for seven centuries (37 BCE-CE 668). At its zenith in the fifth century, the kingdom spanned most of the Korean peninsula and into Jilin and Liaoning provinces of China. Much of the empire coincided with the region known in the 20th century as Manchuria, and thus the study of Koguryo has reflected political circumstances. Excavation of Koguryo tombs has been undertaken by multiple governments of China, Korea, and Japan. Reports of the excavations are written in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese; and primary source material about the period in Korean and Chinese histories is recorded in Classical Chinese. Not one researcher has been permitted access to every single painted tomb. A few things about the tombs are certain. A dated inscription informs us that painting of tomb walls began in the middle of the fourth century. We know the kingdom became part of United Silla 668. During these three centuries, Paekche, Silla, and Kaya co-existed and contended with Koguryo in Korea, and Buddhism entered and came to flourish in Paekche, Silla, and Japan, as well as in Koguryo. China, already Buddhist, was ruled by Northern Wei, and then Eastern and Western Wei, and then Northern Qi and Northern Zhou in the north and by five different dynasties from a capital in Nanjing in the south; and the borders of those dynasties, particularly west of China, were contested by smaller kingdoms as each rose, made its claim for control, and fell. Koguryo was one among all these North and East Asian powers. Through war and peace, people and their ideas and customs migrated. Much of the record of the peoples of Northeast Asia during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries is vague. Yet their costumes and ceremonies, buildings and transportation, sports and cuisine, heroes and view of the heavens are painted on the structures they made for their eternal rest. It is these paintings and what they tell us about the life and beliefs of the people of Koguryo that Dr. Park illuminates. Her approach is unique. Taking as a premise that Koguryo was one among an international, competitive, multicultural groups of states, she explores detail by detail the paintings in Koguryo’s most important tombs. She uncovers sources for those details in the world of Asian images and symbols of the early CE centuries, and then demonstrates their importance in Koguryo and impact outside the kingdom. Koguryo Tomb Murals in East Asian Funerary Art Tradition leads the reader in new directions in the study of Koguryo and East Asian painting. It promises to change our views of this Northeast Asian empire and its art production. Nancy. S. Steinhardt, University of Pennsylvania

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