KOREAN ‘REAL SCENERY’ LANDSCAPE PAINTING

I recently visited a fascinating exhibition at the National Museum in Seoul about  a specifically Korean genre of the Chinese cultural tradition of ‘Mountain-Water’ painting, or landscape.  While the Chinese painted imaginary scenes hybridized from real places, in the later seventeenth century some Korean artists evolved towards a style that was topographically more accurate, in the sense of depicting recognizable views of actual places on the Korean peninsula, above all the picturesque Geumgang Mountains, which at present are out-of-bounds for South Koreans, as they lie in North Korea.  The work illustrated above is by one of the most famous Korean painter, Jeong Seon (1676–1759), and shows the characteristic needle peaks of the mountain range.

There is some speculation that the transition to the painting of  actual places was inspired by Western art, most particularly that introduced to China by the Jesuits.  Joseon Korea forbade any foreigners from setting foot in their territory, but from the early seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, Jesuits were welcome in China, and Koreans made frequent visits there.

Near to my house  beside the DMZ I came across a surprising example of contemporary  ‘real scenery’ landscape, painted in a gun emplacement.  I presume it was intended to aid  the gunners in night-time firing. The view is of what you see through the opening - the Imjin River - which I was happy to see was also the subject of one of the works in the exhibition.