March 17 - June 21, 2009
Royal Pedigree
The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries witnessed the emergence of many artists directly descended from the royal family—a phenomenon peculiar to the early Joseon period. Works by four distinguished artists of royal pedigree are presented: Yi Am (1507–1566) and Yi Jeong (1541–1622), both great-great-grandsons of King Sejong; Yi Gyeong-yun (1545–1611), a great-grandnephew of Yi Seong-gun, the ninth son of King Seongjong; and Yi Jing (1581–after 1645), an illegitimate son of Yi Gyeong-yun.
These men did not form an organized group, nor did they share a particular genre or style of painting. Indeed, each made a unique contribution to the arts of the period. The scrolls by Yi Jeong and Yi Jing offer a coda to the development of painting in the early Joseon.
In the realm of ceramics, porcelain and buncheong ware emerged as two main genres. Buncheong ware, a distinctive kind of stoneware produced only in the first two hundred years of the Joseon dynasty, eventually became the ceramics for the masses, but was initially used by royalty and the upper and middle classes. Porcelain began as a highly restricted luxury item that was made at a manufacturing center (known as Bunwon kilns) managed by the royal court to produce vessels for the court's use.
Yi Jing (1581–after 1645)
Gold-Painted Landscape, first half of the 17th century
Hanging scroll; gold on silk; 34 9/16 x 24 1/8 in. (87.8 x 61.2 cm)
National Museum of Korea, Seoul
Yi Jing's homage to An Gyeon, this magnificent painting revitalized the waning tradition of the fifteenth-century master with creative reinterpretations of the earlier style. It is a visionary landscape showing a large rock promontory with a massive pine tree and pavilions overlooking the water; a wide range of rolling mountains like billowing clouds rises in the distance. The gold ink on black silk further enhances the fantastic, even surreal effect of the composition and animates the surface of the painting with its glitter. In its stylistic language, specifically its direct evocation of An Gyeon, this work shares a common thread with two landscapes in the exhibition depicting the Xiao and Xiang Rivers (see Romancing the Past), as well as with the Metropolitan's Gathering of Government Officials.
Yi Jing, a versatile court painter favored by King Injo (r. 1623–49), was an illegitimate son of Yi Gyeong-yun, a descendent of King Sejong. (Compare this work with Landscape with Figures, a work attributed to Yi Gyeong-yun.)