| Bronze Age depictions of humans and animals, in the form
of petroglyphs, offer the earliest evidence of painting in the Korean peninsula. But it is
in the wall paintings of tombs of the kingdom of Koguryo (37 BC–AD 668) that are
found the true beginnings of painting. Although few paintings survive from the Three
Kingdoms period or the subsequent Unified Silla (668–935), Buddhist devotional works
produced during the Koryo dynasty (918–1392), a number of which are preserved in
collections in Japan, include lavishly detailed paintings of Buddhist deities and
illuminated transcriptions of canonical texts. Evidence of painting in Korea is more
complete for the Choson dynasty (1392–1910). Early Choson painting is represented by
the landscapes of the preeminent painter An Kyon (act. ca. 1440–70), who drew upon
Chinese themes, techniques, and critical traditions. From his innovative interpretations
of these sources, An Kyon developed a distinctively Korean landscape idiom that was
continued by his many followers. Works that can be confidently assigned to individual
artists become more numerous in the mid- and late-Choson period. Among the most important
of these painters is Chong Son (1676–1759), traditionally acknowledged as the leading
exponent of true-view landscapes, a new trend in painting in Korea in the eighteenth
century that advocated the depiction of actual Korean scenery as an alternative to the
classical themes of Chinese painting. Other subjects favored by Choson painters include
scholarly themes, such as plum and bamboo, and portraits. Genre painting, whose
acknowledged master practitioners were Kim Hong-do (1745–1806) and Sin Yun-bok (ca.
1758–after 1813), portrayed the daily life of the Korean people in all its variety
and liveliness. |
