The
tomb murals of Koguryo Kingdom are part of precious cultural heritage
of the Korean nation.
The
murals have the longest history among Korea’s painting relics and
form the quintessence of Oriental painting in vividness.
Koguryo
was the first feudal state which existed from B.C. 277 to A.D. 668.
Tombs
from the Koguryo period are widely spread in many areas such as the
Taedong River basin surrounding Pyongyang which was the capital of
Koguryo, the area of South Hwanghae Province and the basin of the
Amnok River.
So
far, more than 80 tombs with murals have been discovered including
the three tombs of Kangso, tomb in Susan-ri and Ko Kuk Won’s
mausoleum.
The
tomb murals originated from Koguryo’s funeral custom of building
and decorating tombs.
The
main feature is that their colour has been preserved intact for one
thousand and hundreds of years.
Natural
water pigment was used in painting the murals.
With
an extraordinary flair for the application of the colouring materials
the Koguryo artists made the features of their colours stand out and
gave a vivid and lifelike portrayal of matters and phenomena.
The
tomb murals of Koguryo, which are painted the varied and rich content
with great power of colour, served as the basis of medieval Korean
painting and have been being the precious treasures common to
humanity decorating the treasurehouse of world culture beautifully.
UNESCO
experts analysed the tomb murals of Koguryo, confirmed that they were
done in fresco which was very developed level in those days and
inscribed 63 Koguryo tombs with murals including King Tongmyong’s
mausoleum, Ko Kuk Won’s mausoleum and tombs in Tokhung-ri and
Yaksu-ri on the list of world cultural heritage in July Iuche
93(2004).
No comments:
Post a Comment