View of Geumgang from Jeongyang Temple

This magnificent painting beautifully captures the grand panorama unfolding beyond the Jeongyang Temple complex. As with a number of modern artists, Lee worked on a far larger scale than most traditional Joseon painters, and the size of this piece is integral to the composition and visual effect. His rich brushwork and effective use of dark ink washes heighten the majesty of the mountains. No doubt Lee was aware of the pictorial traditions before him, including Jeong Seon’s renditions of this site from two centuries earlier. While subtly connected to the past, this work is emphatically modern. Lee left South Korea in 1958 and settled in Paris. Although the exact date of the painting is unclear, we know from other renditions of Geumgang that a sense of nostalgia informed his works. He visited the mountains in the 1940s and later re-created his impressions of the region no longer accessible to him as a result either of the Korean War or his move away from his homeland.