Gimhongdo Pil Gwarodogido

Basic information

Designation

Treasure No.1972

Category

Painting

Era

18세기 후반

Designated year

2018

Location

성북구, 서울특별시— 서울특별시 성북구 성북로 102-11 (성북동, 간송미술관)

Coordinates

No precise coordinates are available, so this item is not shown as a map marker. To be added later.

Gwaro Dogido(Zhang Guolao Riding on a Donkey) is a painting by Kim Hong-do (1745-after 1806) depicting Zhang Guolao riding a donkey backwards while reading a book. According to an ancient Chinese source, Biographies of the Deities and Immortals, Zhang is one of the Eight Daoist Immortals known to have lived during the Tang period (618-907). It is said that he was white-haired, and rode a white donkey wherever he went, with a bat accompanying him as his attendant. In this painting, Kim Hong-do used a variety of brushstrokes and colors to realistically depict the Daoist immortal. Regarded as one of the greatest masters of genre art in late Joseon, Kim took the popular Chinese subject to create a master work of Buddhist-Daoist painting in Korea. The painting contains a postscript written by Kang Se-hwang (1713-1791), one of the most influential figures of literati art in eighteenth-century Joseon, praising the aesthetic merit of the painting.