Autumn Colors of Samseonam Rocks in Outer Geumgang

The modern artist most closely associated with the Diamond Mountains, Byeon Gwansik visited the celebrated site multiple times during his travels through the country between 1937 and 1945. The locale figures prominently in many of Byeon’s paintings from the late 1950s to the 1970s. Presumably based on his earlier sketches from observation and his subsequent recollections, they attest to the site’s significance to the artist.

Samseonam Rocks, the trio of imposing pillars seen here, were rarely captured by Joseon-period artists. Byeon returned to this scenery repeatedly. His bold, cropped composition focuses on the spiky rock cutting diagonally through the center and rising to the height of the painting. The artist’s rough and insistent brushwork—his trademark—not only shapes and gives texture to the various elements of the landscape but also emerges as its own powerful visual language.