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File:King Sejong the Great - Government Standard Portrait.jpg

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King_Sejong_the_Great_-_Government_Standard_Portrait.jpg(270 × 370 pixels, file size: 116 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Non-free media data
Description

Drawing of King Sejong the Great (세종대왕; 世宗大王), created by artist Kim Ki-chang (김기창; 金基昶), commissioned as the Government Standard Portrait (정부표준영정; 政府標準影幀).

Source
  • Original publication: Deceminated broadly by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism (MCST)
  • Date of publication = 1973
  • Immediate source: Korea Craft & Design Foundation (한국공예디자인문화진흥원; 韓國工藝디자인文化振興院), an institution under the the MCST, which provides a full list of all Government Standard Portraits.[1]
Author
Portion used

The portrait is not cropped.

Low resolution?

Only one low-resolution image of King Sejong's standard portrait will be used per article as needed, which is sufficient to convey the necessary historical context and significance.

The image will be used in a low-resolution format that is unsuitable for reproduction in commercial products, ensuring it does not replace the original market role of the copyrighted material.

Other information

Unfortunately, no "free" images of King Sejong are available.

In 1443, King Sejong had portraits of his grandfather, Yi Seong-gye, and his father, Yi Bang-won, copied and redrawn. He also had new portraits of himself and his queen, Soheon, created, and all these portraits were enshrined in the Seonwonjeon Hall of Gyeongbokgung Palace. These portraits of the three founding kings of the Joseon dynasty were gathered in one place. However, these portraits were all lost when Gyeongbokgung Palace was burned down during the Japanese invasion in 1592. While the portrait of Yi Seong-gye, which was stored elsewhere, survived, the true faces of Yi Bang-won and King Sejong were completely lost from that time on.[2][3]

Sadly, this is true for many original royal portraits from Korea. Other portraits were also lost in the Manchu invasions in the 17th century and when the Korean War began in the 1950s. Because of the Korean war, thousands of royal artifacts, including 48 royal portraits from a "New Seonwonjeon Hall," were transferred to a warehouse at the Busan Gugak Center in Donggwang-dong, Busan. Unfortunately, a fire on December 26, 1954, destroyed most of these items. Among the surviving portraits that had been transferred were the portraits of Kings Taejo, Wonjong, Cheoljong, and Sunjong, which are now designated National Treasures and are now part of the National Palace Museum of Korea's collection, though they all were damaged by the fire.[3][4]

Given the historical losses and the rarity of surviving portraits, inconsistencies arose in the depictions of important Korean historical figures. Memorial associations and shrines would each create portraits based on varying interpretations and available descriptions. In response to these discrepancies, the South Korean government intervened in 1973.[5]

The term Government Standard Portrait (정부표준영정; 政府標準影幀) refers to standardized depictions authorized by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) from 1973 onwards. This initiative was an attempt by the administration of President Park Chung Hee to reconcile varying modern portrayals with the consistency of remaining historical evidence.[5]

Ironically, these portraits, which include the 1973 rendition of King Sejong by artist Kim Ki-chang (i.e. this file on Wikipedia), are not in the public domain. This is despite them being the effective “de-facto” image of the person in Korea. Furthermore, before any portrait of any king or sage is made public by a government or organization in Korea, it must be approved by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism per Article 3 of the Statue Review Regulations.

These images remain under the copyright of the original artists or their estates, complicating their free use. As a result, these images cannot technically be freely displayed or used on platforms like Wikipedia, which requires content to be freely licensable.

Finally, while there are statues of King Sejong in Korea, the country's Freedom of Panorama laws have also largely impacted their use on Wikipedia too.

Therefore, there is no alternative but to have non-free images of many of Korea’s kings and queens, including King Sejong.

Non-free media rationale for Sejong the Great
Article

Sejong the Great

Purpose of use

To provide visual identification of King Sejong

Replaceable?

Subject died 1450. There is no known representation under a "free" license, per "Other Information" provided above.

Article

List of kings of Joseon

Purpose of use

To provide visual identification of King Sejong

Replaceable?

Subject died 1450. There is no known representation under a "free" license, per "Other Information" provided above.

Licensing[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "이름별 표준영정: 세종 (世宗)" [Stanard Portrait by Name: Sejong] (in Korean). Korea Craft & Design Foundation (한국공예디자인문화진흥원). n.d. Archived from the original on 2024-07-08.
  2. ^ Kim, Gyu-won (2020-12-12). "[역사속 공간] 조선 왕들의 얼굴, 한 줌 재가 되다" [Space in History: The Faces of Joseon Kings, Reduced to Ashes] (in Korean). The Hankyoreh. Archived from the original on 2024-06-29.
  3. ^ a b Hwang, Jung-yon (December 2022). "The Last Majestic Ornamentation of Royal Portraits of the Joseon Dynasty: The Construction of New Seonwonjeon Hall in Changdeokgung Palace in 1921 and Court Paintings" (PDF). The Review of Korean Studies. 25 (2): 83–142. doi:10.25024/review.2022.25.2.83. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-04-23.Open access icon
  4. ^ Kim, Seok (2020-06-24). "화마에 쓸려간 '왕의 얼굴'…전쟁이 남긴 상처" [‘The King’s Face’ Swept Away by the Fire... The Scars Left by War] (in Korean). KBC. Archived from the original on 2024-07-01.
  5. ^ a b "정부표준영정" [Government Standard Portrait] (in Korean). Namu Wiki. n.d.

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current00:02, 8 July 2024Thumbnail for version as of 00:02, 8 July 2024270 × 370 (116 KB)DatBot (talk | contribs)Reduce size of non-free image (BOT - disable)
16:05, 7 July 2024No thumbnail600 × 822 (423 KB)Nonabelian (talk | contribs)remove dark corner, broader view.
15:47, 7 July 2024No thumbnail440 × 600 (270 KB)Nonabelian (talk | contribs)Uploading a non-free historic portrait using File Upload Wizard
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