觀音, 觀音, 觀音!

(In Roman alphabet: Kwan Yin, Kwan Yin, Kwan Yin!)

I saw and photographed too many pieces of artwork to count, during my visit to the Museum of Korea today; even though it was a return visit, I found enough new things to keep me very occupied!

Here's the first installment - showing only depictions of our favorite transgender heroine. (There are even more Kwan Yins here - including a painting which was installed in too dim a location to be photographed at all.) The vast majority are Korean.

FYI, Korean artwork will be referred to by their general dynasty era, as follows:

• Three Kingdoms period, 57 BCE - 600 or so
• Unified Silla, 600 or so - 918
• Goryeo (Koryo), 918 - 1392
• Joseon (Choson), 1392 - 1910 (1897 - 1910 is called "Korean Empire")
• Japanese occupation, 1910 - 1945
• Republic of Korea, 1948 - today
  

A Kwan Yin mirror from the Unified Silla era.
Unified Silla also had transgender warriors called Hwarang (though modern-day Korean Confucio-Christian historians strongly deny the transgender aspects).
Who knows - in a previous life, I might've been a Hwarang using this very mirror.

A Unified Silla era Kwan Yin, dug up in Seoul in the 1960s.

A standing Kwan Yin, from the Goryeo era.

Another Goryeo-era standing Kwan Yin.

A sitting Kwan Yin, from the same era as the previous photo.

The only non-Korean statue in this post. This one is a male Avalokitesvara from 9th Century India.

During the Unified Silla era, the people of Silla's defeated rivals formed a kingdom to the north, called Balhae. It was the only Korean state ever to have a multiethnic population, and its territory included all of Korea from Pyongyang up, most of Manchuria, and parts of Russia around Vladivostok. Balhae also had a tradition of Kwan Yin worship, as seen in this statue.

Noteworthy is that Koreans tended to house their Kwan Yins in a separate hall on a Buddhist temple complex, as opposed to erecting huge outdoor statues, as is the case in China, Japan, and Taiwan.

By the way, the Goryeo-era Kwan Yin that I had previewed in the last post was taken off display, unfortunately. It is currently visiting Brussels, Belgium as part of a special exhibition on Korean Buddhism.