"Korean shamans, called mansin, hang bright portraits of the gods they serve over the altars in their personal shrines. These paintings become sites of daily devotion as gods, operating through the portraits, send the mansin inspiration in order to divine, exorcise, heal, and open their clients’ paths to good fortune....
"The paintings must accurately represent the gods who are claiming a particular initiate. Unless they are appropriately portrayed, they will not 'come in', inhabit the shine, and provide a steady flow of inspiration for the mansin’s work...When ordering a painting, the initiate must properly identify the signifying characteristics of the deity she has seen in a dream or vision and have them replicated in the painted image she commissions for her shrine....
"The eyes meet the viewer’s gaze with a bold and penetrating stare, which some find unnerving. A mansin manifesting an imperious god might similarly lock eyes with a client, claiming an unsettling engagement in a place where socially appropriate eye contact is usually oblique...
"Both paintings and mansin bodies may be considered prostheses of otherwise invisible gods whose favor may vary over time."
Source: Laurel Kendall, Jongsung Yang, and Yul Soo Yoon, "God Pictures in Action: Korean Shaman Paintings and the Work They Do" in Ars Orientalis vol. 50 (2020) pp. 157-176.
Illustration: Tiger gods in Museum of Shamanism, Seoul
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