Romancing the Past

One significant body of landscape paintings from the early Joseon period comprises works illustrating scenery or places in China of literary fame and with nostalgic associations—for example, the Xiao and Xiang rivers in the modern province of Hunan, a region historically identified with exile and lament. Though known and adapted during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), the theme of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers reached a new height of popularity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with most extant paintings dating to the latter. Meanwhile, in contemporary Ming-dynasty China, the number and reputation of paintings on this subject dwindled, compared to the earlier Song period. The early Joseon scrolls and screens illustrating the Eight Views represent Korean transformations of this classic theme and of landscapes more broadly.

Many landscapes from this period, chief among them the Eight Views, are painted in the An Gyeon style—coined after the most celebrated and influential landscapist of the early Joseon, who was active around the mid-fifteenth century. The formidable legacy of An Gyeon also reveals a deeper layer of homage to the classical past, to the Northern Song landscapist par excellence, Guo Xi (ca.1000–ca.1090). Some notable features of the so-called An Gyeon style, apparent in the paintings on display in this case, include the cloudlike mountain forms and the pine trees; the dramatic interpenetration of solids and voids; the effective contrast between light and dark ink tones; and the powerful command of brushstrokes and modeling ink washes.

See "Mountain and Water: Korean Landscape Painting, 1400–1800" on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History to learn more.

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