Unlike
most books about Korean shamanism in English language primarily focused on the
lives of shamans (mudangs) and their ritual performances, God in Pictures
in Korean Contexts: The Ownership and Meaning of Shaman Paintings by Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang
and Yul Soon Yoon, discusses the creation and utility of the physical
materiality of ritual artworks (taenghwa), and the rising number of institutions (a few
museums and their curators and conservators) and individuals (dealers and
collector of ethnographic materials) who have opened up the market for these
objects.
This
relatively small, illustrated and well-considered text is described as “both a
study of material religion that takes seriously the use of paintings inside
Korean shaman practice and a study of the circulation of shaman paintings from
sacred to secular space, exploring the motivations and activities of dealers
and collectors, a subject of interest in museum and material culture studies.”
Koreans
for the most part have yet to romanticize their past, given the century of
cultural and political devastation during the majority of the 20th century.
Kendall[1],
an American anthropologist who has many books about Korean shamanic culture to
her credit, is chair of the Division of Anthropology and curator in charge of
Asian Ethnographic Collections at the American
Museum of Natural History and president (2016-17) of the Association for Asian Studies. Yoon
established the Gahoe Museum[2] for his folk art collection in the
Gahoe neighborhood north of Insadong in Seoul, and previously self-published the
predominantly bilingual (Korean – English) Searching
for Origin of Folk Religion – Painting of Shamanism[3], full of colored imagery of a
multitude of spirits and brief explanations of their identities. The former curator of the National Folk Museum of
Korea, Yang now operates a Museum
of Shamanism, also in Seoul, as a place where shamanism may be observed in
practice. The most frequent visitors to
these establishments, Yang notes, are shamans themselves who express pride and
wonder at what they see there.
As we
learn from these scholars’ thoughtful reflections, taenghwa, painted portraits of iconic images
of the pantheon of spirits that
populate the back walls of gutdang / shindang (ritual or spirit rooms), are not
simply reflections of ubiquitous characters from cultural history (judges,
saints, military and civil officials, venerable ancestors, spirits of the
mountains and sea, etc. embellished with other auspicious symbols including the
elixir of life, mushrooms, turtles, dragons, the seven-star constellation, pine
trees, bamboo, a body of water in forest, tigers, etc.), but are potent
catalytic partners
with the officiants in the ritual outcome. The authors postulate there is a
“triangulation among shaman, god and painting.” These painted, seemingly folk art-like
2-dimensional works on paper were created by artists (not usually the shamans
themselves) for the express purpose of the shaman’s engagement with the
painting’s “gaze,” thereby to enable the spirit to be present in the ritual
space/time. In short, they reference taenghwa as “divine prosthesis”. 
Strung
together from their tops into a multi-paneled montage behind an altar, often
overlapping each other until only the faces are visible, in the ritual they
form the wall behind the altar table festooned with offerings. The shamans’
costumes (changed often during the long rituals) and props are echoed in the
uniforms and other paraphernalia used by officiants who seek communion and
their mystical intercession in the course of multiscene productions. At the end
of the ritual, unless affixed to the back wall, the taenghwa will be removed and stored until
the next opportunity.
While
some taenghwa looked brand new (and may have been newly commissioned by the
shaman through a patron’s generous donation for the ritual service) they can
also be “antiques” weathered through use (unfolding, hanging, refolding for
storage etc.). In some rare cases, I have seen full murals affixed to walls
where various highly stylized portraits, including women in traditional “male”
roles, share a common landscape in the background. Interestingly, I have seen
several images created by Jean Michel Basquiat, an extraordinarily talented
American artist who died young, that are remarkably similar in character to the
taenghwa of
the Hwanghae-do tradition! Please refer to another article in this blog: Basquiat's Spiritual Portraits.
GOD’S PICTURE : PICTURE OF GOD
To twist
a Zen metaphor, these are not necessarily the moon’s reflection in a pond on a dark
night, but the very presence of the moon itself. Here is an example:
In 2000 I
had the opportunity to be the guest of Kim Keumhwa, Korea’s naramansin, in her
home and to travel with her group, Seohean Pungeoje, the Society for the
Preservation of West Sea Rituals, from Hwanghae-do. Toward the end of the
second of four weeks, Songsaengnim took me to Gangwha-do, the island near the
DMZ off the West Sea where she now has a culture center. We stayed for two days
at a small retreat center at the base of Manisan mountain that was operated by
some kind of institute dedicated to Dangun, the mythical founder of Korea and a Sanshin /
mountain spirit of
the highest order. I was baffled by her effort to pay homage to a large, framed
(glass, metal) painted image of the mountain spirit (a wizened old man with a
tiger and young attendant) that was up a pathway on the north
side of Manisan Mountain peak, when we could
actually at minimum address the spirits of the peak in front of us. It
was not an original painting, nor did it seem to be an old artifact, yet she
carried offerings (fruit, candles, incense and water) and adorned the ledge in
front of the image. She began to chant and invited me to share her homage
through bowing and offering incense. Later we hiked up to where
the Chamseongdan (altar) is sited, where Dangun is said to have offered
sacrifices to the heavens.
ARTISTS
AS LIVING TREASURES
Shamans
come by their taenghwa in several possible ways. Of course, Hwahghae-do shamans
have to have been endowed through initiation, vision, dream, etc. to make the
connection with particular spirits. Then it is the matter of securing the
artwork. Since the earliest days (before printing presses!) paintings have been
produced by dedicated artists (usually not the shamans themselves) from a
shaman’s description of a vision. Unlike many painters who also may paint
images for Buddhist temples, traditional Hwanghae taenghwa painters maintain a singular
clientele among initiates of that charismatic lineage; they do not sign their
work.
Judging from the styles of Songsaengnim’s taenghwa, several artists were responsible for creating them.The oldest ones seemed to be painted with tempera on cardboard or brown kraft paper (a material that was produced industrially in Korea after the war and was as much rendered into paper bags as it was as a surface for Dansaekhwa artists of the Minimalist movement); the ones permanently mounted on the walls in her shrine rooms in Seoul and Gangwha-do were more likely acrylic and enlivened with the addition of gold leaf in some areas. The now deceased elder An was also responsible for many of the hand-painted tissue paper elements that adorned Kim Keumhwa’s altars for rituals and in her permanent altars in her private shrines. Some seem quite old, but it is hard to know their age, etc.
Other
shamans, especially younger ones with less notoriety, may resort to patronizing
shops specializing in ritual paraphernalia where they may acquire mass produced
taenghwa with
images “typical” of the geographically-specific ritual styles. I once visited
such a shop in the neighborhood of KimKeumhwa’s home. I was very careful not
to be too interested in the goods in as much as my obvious presence in the otherwise no-tourist environs might be
cause for embarrassing gossip that I might be shopping for shaman “power”
tools; this would cast negatively on my host.
DECOMMISSIONING PAINTING
Perhaps
some of the most interesting narrative in the book relates to what happens when
a shaman ceases to use/need/want a taenghwa or when the taenghwa no longer
wants to be part of that shaman’s pantheistic community:
“The god
takes up a seat in the painting, but not always; the god inhabits the painting
in the shrine but sometimes departs; the god agrees to cohabit with other gods
in a shrine but sometimes refuses.”
The
shaman is left with no other choice than to remove the taenghwa. Given their materiality, what is
the appropriate way for a shaman to decommission / dispose of them. If the
images have / are spirit, what becomes of it? “For most
of the 20th Century, shamans generally followed the traditional
practice of burning old and tattered paintings after ritually reanimating
them,” the authors note. When the paintings of the first Korean shaman I met –
Los Angeles 1990 about who I wrote an article for Kyoto
Journal – had
been destroyed in a flood (they were packed up, not used), the remnants were
burned. The ashes were carried by us into the local mountains where we
discarded them in a wooded auspicious spot, “Think of your mother,” she
admonished me, with no explanation given. Unlike calligraphy scrolls used in
Japanese tea ceremony which may be centuries old and are valued accordingly to
their longevity, Korean shaman artworks are extremely fragile and were not
meant to necessarily be employed forever, much less collected.
Again,
the authors recount fascinating stories about certain mischief (or worse)
caused by improperly discarded or abandoned taenghwa. “The god operates miraculously or
problematically, through a de-animated and hidden painting.” Do they have a
“half-life” of empowerment?
NEW LAMPS
FOR OLD?
The
authors address the more recent attempt to commodify taenghwa works and explain the complexities
of another triangulation of dealers, collectors, shamans, less often the
artists who
created the works.
There is
well-considered discussion about the ways that a “collector’s lens” might
distinguish what is desirable as an image, what Korean cultural qualities can
be conveyed through this art form, etc.
Of course, there is great interest on the part of scholars to study ethnography and to have material works with documented provenance can be of great value, as the authors’ own professional affiliations attest. One doesn’t see many shaman paintings displayed in Korean museums, and certainly not in the National Museum of Korea!
Very few museums
outside Korea collect or display works of “art” created for and used by
shamans. In addition to AMNH, USC’s Pacific Asia museum is a notable exception
as a result of the efforts of Yeonsoo Choi, then assistant curator, and has welcomed
Kim Keumhwa to demonstrate a sample of her rituals in conjunction with the
donation of some objects to the museum’s permanent collection. No doubt the
provenance of Kim Songsaengnim’s objects will vault them into a higher “value,”
nonetheless, will they command the same level as Basquiat’s works?
There is
well-considered discussion about the ways that a “collector’s lens” might
distinguish what is desirable as an image, what Korean cultural qualities can
be conveyed through this art form, etc. Of course, there is great interest on the part of scholars to study ethnography and to have material works with documented provenance can be of great value, as the authors’ own professional affiliations attest. One doesn’t see many shaman paintings displayed in Korean museums, and certainly not in the National Museum of Korea!
Very few museums
outside Korea collect or display works of “art” created for and used by
shamans. In addition to AMNH, USC’s Pacific Asia museum is a notable exception
as a result of the efforts of Yeonsoo Choi, then assistant curator, and has welcomed
Kim Keumhwa to demonstrate a sample of her rituals in conjunction with the
donation of some objects to the museum’s permanent collection. No doubt the
provenance of Kim Songsaengnim’s objects will vault them into a higher “value,”
nonetheless, will they command the same level as Basquiat’s works? This brings us to the notion of the independent, private collector of material cultural artifacts who may have to resort to working with dealers with connections to shamans and never actually meeting the artist, who may be alive. The primary collectors of Korean shaman painting are themselves Korean with a “bent toward nostalgia for a not-to-distant rural past.” Much like the romancing of provenance that a collector of Japanese ceremony utensils might show in the course of the ritual or in a display case, the shaman paintings have an “object biography”. Yet again, the history of Korea would not be very kind to the paintings, much less the shamans themselves who were persecuted. Ritual spaces were usually erected in situ and quickly dismantled, with the various paraphernalia, including elaborate wall-sized arrangements of icons, packed up and sometimes even abandoned.
Imagine
my surprise a decade ago when I entered a Korean “antique” shop in Los Angeles’
Koreatown[4] when I spotted a colorful tempera
painting on cardboard of an old man with a tiger and young boy; it was hanging
by fabric strings from the back of an abandoned dining room chair amidst other
disparate furniture. “Buddha!” said the proprietor, an oldish man in a worn
golf jacket and a baseball cap, noticing my interest and figuring that I was an
uninformed Caucasian woman. “Ah, Buddha! Nice Buddha. Umm,” I replied, knowing
full well, however, that it was not Buddha, but a taenghwa of Sanshin, a Korean mountain spirit,
rendered for a shaman’s shrine. I retreated back into the shop as nonchalantly
as I could, knowing that any interest that would inflate prices. I eventually
found 10 other abandoned portraits of other traditional Korean shaman spirits
rolled into a bundle with their strings hanging out jammed on a shelf next to
empty picture frames. I made a mental commitment to this Sanshin that I would
liberate him (and a trio of fortune-telling mudangs) from this soul-less place,
if only to make it possible for their true identities to be reinstated.
POST
SCRIPT
As noted
above, in some cases the taenghwa are formally affixed to the walls. David
Mason’s extensive research into the mountain spirit images enshrined in Korea’s
temples, shrines, rock faces and even real and artificial caves, grottoes is
unsurpassed. Both his book Spirit of the Mountains: Korea’s SAN-SHIN and
Traditions of Mountain-Worship (1999, Elizabeth New Jersey and Seoul Korea, Hollym.
Editions in English and Korean languages) and ever-evolving website www.san-shin.org provide great insight into
the artistic techniques and imagery as well as significance of this particular
spirit’s presence throughout Korea. The artists, for the most part, remain
anonymous, but the images are beloved by Buddhists, Taoists, NeoConfucianists
and Shamanists alike. He notes, in addition to the mountain spirit, major
Buddhist temples’ have a shrine buildings that often includes Samshin, three
spirit shrine, that includes images of Chilseong and Doksong, the Seven Stars / Big Dipper and Lonely Saint,
respectively. His book explains the symbolism and relationships within
spiritual hierarchy.
Other
sources of information on the topic:
Yoon Yeosul's book Searching for Origin of Folk
Religion -- Painting of Shamanism. [원형을
찾아서 토속신앙의 巫俗畵|, 2004, Seoul: ICOM] has
excellent images and is mostly in Korean language. His Gahoe
Museum is well worth a visit, as is Jong-sung Yang’s Museum
of Shamanism which functions more as a living laboratory of Korean native
spirituality. An extensive article may be found at the first issue of the Korean Art Society Newsletter, as well as an earlier article that I wrote on this subject.
My article about the late Dr. Zo Zayong for Kyoto
Journal #36, 1997, (reprinted ) explores the work of this artist / collector / scholar / author and
architect whose life was filled with the profound beauty of Korean spirit
imagery. His Emile Museum in Seoul and later moved to become the basis of
Samshin Hoegwan Songnisan near Po’un was a huge collection of works on paper,
in stone, wood and other materials. Most of the collection was sold to the
Samsung Leeum, I’ve been told. Dr. Zo was also a patron of the local villages
who still worshiped their resident spirits and often helped them create new
iconic works to this end.
[2]
www.gahoemuseum.org
[4] -- Korean
Art Society Journal. “Don’t
Buy the Buddha!”. Vol. 1 (2009)
