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Your galleryKsitigarbha Bodhisattva with Assembly
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Find the bodhisattva at the center inside his rainbow-banded halo, then the two attendants standing before his throne and the armored guardians in the lower corners, one holding a lute.
Ksitigarbha, called Jijang Bosal in Korean, presides over the Buddhist underworld and can save beings from hell; here he sits enthroned, surrounded by the Ten Kings of Hell and by guardian gods. The Art Institute of Chicago dates the painting to the late 1500s or early 1600s. It reflects a change the museum traces to later Joseon, when Buddhism became the faith of ordinary people: painters gave up costly gold, lapis lazuli and silk for red and green on paper, cotton or hemp, as here.
Ink and color on hemp cloth · 155.6 × 230.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva with Assembly
- Artist
- Korea
- Date
- late 16th/early 17th century
- Medium
- Ink and color on hemp cloth
- Dimensions
- 155.6 × 230.5 cm (61 5/16 × 90 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Samuel M. Nickerson Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.