Efficacious Underworld: The Evolution of Ten Kings Paintings in Medieval China and Korea by Cheeyun Lilian Kwon (review)

Abstract

Thanks to the efforts of many art historians and conservators, over 160 paint­ ings have now been ascribed to artists from the Koryŏ period (918–1392). Since the 1990s, numerous exhibitions and catalogues—mainly in Korean and Japanese—have helped to introduce them to a wider audience. In English, the pickings are still slim, but at least a number of exhibition catalogues and introductions to Korean art have helped to spread awareness of the artistic brilliance and technical refinement of Koryŏ paintings. In particular, paintings of the Water­moon Avalokiteśvara or Amitabha’s welcoming descent are now fairly well known. Yet so far, almost no one has paid close attention to the set of paintings of the Ten Kings of Hell from the Seikadō Bunko Art Museum in Japan. The set is unique for various reasons. Although individual paintings of Ks.itigarbha flanked by the Ten Kings of Hell exist, this is the only set of individual paintings of each of the ten kings, together with two messengers, from Koryŏ. In fact, this book is the first to firmly establish their Korean provenance. Second, if the author’s assessment of the date is correct, they would be the oldest known paintings produced in Korea. And third, the paintings are not only the culmin­ ation of a long tradition of the Ten Kings of Hell representations in East Asia, but also a veritable repository of various painting styles of the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127). As the first monograph in English devoted exclusively to the study of Koryŏ Book Notes