This page contains a few notes designed to give a picture of the history and organization of dancheong painting.

Evolution of Dancheong Patterns

Three Kingdoms Period

Dancheong, or the decorative elements that were to evolve into dancheong, generally appear to have reached Korea from the north. In other words, dancheong is not a Silla or peninsular invention so much as the continuation of a northeast or central Asian tradition.

It is in Goguryeo tomb paintings, therefore, that the earliest record of the patterns that evolved into dancheong can be found.

In the Silla kingdom, five-color dancheong seemingly existed, but none has survived.

Goryeo Period

During the goryeo period, the 'sangnok hadan(상록하단(上錄下丹))' principle was developed -- in other words, the principle of using warm and cool colors to emphasise sunlit and shady parts of the building. This probably marks the evolution of dancheong from a kind of decorative motif to a way of looking at a whole building.

Joseon Period

In the long Joseon period, the diversity and complexity of dancheong increased to the point that we see today, and the implementation of dancheong was made very systematic.

Dancheong Paints

The original materials favored for dancheong included:

• Ocher. This was used for the red-brown lower part of buildings from the goryeo period onward. It was by far the cheapest dancheong pigment and was thus a good choice for the largest area of the building. During the joseon period, different colored ochers began to be produced.
• Copper compounds. Malachite was used for green-blue and other copper ores for dark blue. These minerals had to be imported from great distances and were very expensive.
• Vermilion. Mined in western China and imported to Korea for making red colors, it would have been hugely expensive.
• 'Indian ink', i.e. Chinese carbon ink, used for black and to darken other colors.

Many of these had to be artfully mixed with binders (i.e. animal, fish and seaweed glues) to create a durable paint. Since these glues are water based, this in turn had to be covered in a layer of oil for waterproofing.

These mineral pigments were used in place of cheaper ones in order to last for as long as possible. Even so, they tended to lose color over time and also to react with the glues. Modern dancheong restoration work tended to use lower quality pigments which soon discolor in the polluted air.

Since the 70s, there has been a move toward standardization of dancheong colors and, if possible, toward organic pigments which can be synthesized easily and are not as poisonous. Binders are now synthetic, although this presents some problems as acrylics etc. don't tend to move as the wood moves.

Organization

Historically, in the Joseon period at least, the creation of dancheongs was both highly regulated and highly automated, in sharp contrast to the decorative tradition of (for example) Japan.

Organization

Secular (palace) and Buddhist dancheong making were independantly regulated. Those who supervised dancheong-making, known as dancheongjang, could work either for the court or for a temple. Joseon had a country-wide bureau in charge of palace dancheongs, the Seonggonggam. Temples, on the other hand, employed their own dancheongjang whose ranks and responsibilities were different and who were usually also part of the monastic hierarchy.

In either case, artistic direction and project management were both concentrated in the same multi-skilled individual, the pyeonsu.

Automation

Although dancheong designs had orignally been painted freehand, by the Joseon period the pyeonsu's subordinates had a process not unlike an assembly-line. The selected patterns for different sizes and types of beam would be painted once, and the design then applied to the beams by using a paper transfer and pricked into the wood with a spike, in a process analogous to that used on illuminated manuscripts in Europe.

Now that the outline of the pattern was visible on the beam, workers filled in the meoricho and other geometric areas of the pattern using one color at a time. This made it easy to co-ordinate large numbers of relatively unskilled workers. Finally, the byeoljihwa and other elements that could not be applied systematically were painted on.