earticle

영어

Among the roughly 1,500 stone pagodas in Korea, those from the late Joseon period number only about 10, making it no exaggeration to say that studies on them are virtually nonexistent. Even though more stone pagodas were constructed during the modern period, from the time of the opening of the ports to around the time of liberation, than during the Joseon Dynasty, these pagodas have long been dismissed as modern monuments rather than subjects of scholarly research, due to the prejudice that they reflect Japanese influence and the belief that their artistic and sculptural quality had declined. As a result, the lineage of Korean stone pagoda history, which began around the 7th century and continues to the present, is often regarded as having been effectively cut off in the early Joseon period, leading to the undervaluation of stone pagodas from the late Joseon and modern periods. This study focuses on the fact that stone pagodas from the late Joseon period represent a transitional group situated between traditional stone pagodas and those of the modern era, with the aim of clarifying the continuity in the lineage of Korean stone pagoda history. First, it examines in detail the transitional characteristics of late Joseon stone pagodas by comparing them separately with those from the early Joseon period and the modern period. Second, it offers a new interpretation of the value of late Joseon stone pagodas through a comparison with stone structures for royal tombs, which were actively produced even during the decline of Buddhist stonework under the state’s anti-Buddhist policy. As a result, it is confirmed that, within the history of Korean stone pagodas, those from the late Joseon period form a meaningful group that vividly reflects the transition from tradition to modernity.