Japsang is a kind of ornamental roof tile that is placed on top of the main ridge to decorate and protect. Japsang was perhaps placed in order to prevent fire, since Chosun’s palace were made out of wood and frequently had fire.
Japsang is influenced by the quadruped beast from the Bronze age China; it was brought during the Three Kingdom era, and was settled during the Goryeo Era in Korea.
Japsang during the Chosun Era is only seen in the important buildings that were related to the royal family. Japsangs were made as a part of the national enterprise that sought to establish decorum and proper form; therefore, the Japsangs of the palaces lack abrupt changes, and are schematized.
This essay looks at the origins and the influence of Japsang. As for the origin, it starts with the records on roof tiles of China, looks at the features of the quadruped beast on the Forbidden City (Zǐjìnchéng), and points out the influences of the Ming Shi San Ling Tu’s stone image of an animal.
There is no written literature that shows when the Japsang…show more content… This essay examines the impact of Buddhism and the dissemination of the Journey to the West to explain why Chosun, a powerful Corfucianist country, had Japsang, which has its background in Buddhism, on top of their palaces. Furthermore, it scrutinizes the popularity of the Chinese literatures and the artistic impact of the literatures, via studying the reactions that the Journey to the West received from the men of letters (문인이 이거 맞나요….), which are evidenced in Korean Annotation of the PakTongsa, Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda, and Tondos temple’s Younghwajon Mural. The result of the study proves that the wide dispersal of the Journey to the West, even to the general population, had an impact in changing the name of Japsang, but concludes that there is a little evidence to believe that the literature had a meaningful impact on changing the form of