Buddhist Painting of the Vulture Peak Assembly

This painting depicts an assembly scene of the Buddha and a multitude of deities in white linear drawing on a red background. The Buddha at the center of the picture sits on a high pedestal in the half-lotus position with his left foot hidden beneath his robe. The large size of the painting enables us to conclude that it was hung as an altar piece in the Hall of Hero or Hall of the Vulture Peak and that it played a pivotal role in everyday Buddhist services and ritual ceremonies. The painting is so well preserved that the original image is relatively intact, except for the repairs to some parts of the uppermost register and for the fills-in and repaintings on some moth-eaten holes and faded-out brush lines. The pieces shows the complex periodic characteristics of sixteenth-century Joseon Buddhism and Buddhist painting with the subject related to the growing popularity of the Sakyamuni cult, the change of the status of patron and ensuing changes of the status of artist and the medium, and the transitional iconographic composition and forms.