Religious Influence on Korean Art

Lee, S. Religious Indluence on Korean Art. Asia Society. Retreived from http://asiasociety.org/education/religious-influence-korean-art

This post explores the growth of Korean’s landscape artwork. According to the website, landscape art in Korea is tied together with religious practices. Religion in Korea sees nature as a sacred entity. It was also seen as being a challenge to take a three dimensional image from nature and put it in a two dimensional painting. Landscape paintings also grew and developed as Confucianism took off and grew in Korea. Korean landscape paintings grew as an art form alongside of Chinese paintings as well. As the Chinese landscapes grew and became more popular, so did Korean paintings. Even more notable, Korean paintings were the dominant art form in Korea instead of portraits or other forms of art.

One thing that I learned from this is that Korean landscape paintings remained the same for a long period of time. The abstraction of the landscape depicted paintings, but did not show a “real” landscape. It wasn’t until the eighteenth century that Korean paintings entered the “True-View” style that they depicted landscapes. These landscapes were still highly dramatized and used more to promote emotional ties to nature. This website also talks about Korea’s adoption of Buddhism. Specifically, the form of Buddhism that Korea adopted originally came from China and it took years for Korea to develop its own unique form of Buddhism.

This website provides a strong explanation that answers the question of how religion impacted ancient art. The website showcases how deeply connected art and religion art. The style of landscape paintings have been heavily influenced by religious practices, especially Confucianism. Added to that, the website also contains an explanation about Korean Buddhism and its impact on art that was not tied to landscape paintings. Both of these aspects makes this website a strong source for understanding the basics of Korean religion. This website also explains common elements of Buddhism and Confucianism which appear in other artworks influenced by those religions.