[K-wave] National treasure paintings featured at Kansong Art Museum Daegu exhibition

Gyeomjae Jeong Seon is an artist of the 18th century who greatly impacted the history of art in Korea, leading the shift in art style to true landscape views of the Joseon kingdom.

It is one of his paintings that adorns the back of the 1-thousand won bill.

Our Lee Eun-jin gives us a glipse into an exhibition where visitors can now see his representative works.

The Scene of Inwangsan Mountain After Rain.

Considered a true landscape painting that used ink to show the rain-soaked mountainscape in 1751, the painting titled 'Inwangjesaekdo' is a masterpiece by Gyeomjae Jeong Seon, a painter of the late Joseon Dynasty. He drew the piece at the age of 76.

A winter landscape of Mount Kumgang.

This painting titled 'Geumgang jeondo' is another one of Gyeomjae Jeong Seon's masterpieces and it continues to receive the most praise among all his works. Each mountaintop is expressed as well to show an aerial view.

He drew this piece at the age of 59.

"On the top corner of the painting, there is a poem that says looking at this painting is more pleasant than going to the actual Mount Kumgang. With it, the painting as a whole encompasses the desires of the people at the time who could not visit Mount Kumgang."

These two representative works of art by Gyeomjae Jeong Seon are not only considered by far the best among many landscape paintings of Korea, but are also designated as National Treasures -numbers 216 and 217.

Also, it is his 'Geumgang jeondo' painting that adorns the back of South Korea's 1-thousand won bill.

From the then-prevailing imitation paintings of Chinese art, the arrival of Gyeomjae Jeong Seon's new style of painting left a lasting impact on Korean art.

A new era was opened as Gyeomjae Jeong Seon established original "true-view" paintings of Korea's mountains and streams to which he visited himself while traveling.

"Paintings started to portray our land and our lives, expressing the pride of living on Joseon land."

Now the representative works of Gyeomjae Jeong Seon have been gathered in one place on the largest scale ever.

The two giants of ancient art exhibitors in Korea, Hoam and Kansong Art Museums, have collaborated to exhibit artwork from 18 institutions and private collections.

This special exhibition titled 'The Sense of Beauty within Bird-and-Flower Paintings' features "Hwajohwa", meaning flower-and-bird painting, which has become a prominent genre in Korean traditional art, as it transitioned from the 16th to 19th centuries.

But it also reveals things about Gyeomjae that we did not know, welcoming visitors to the Kansong Art Museum Daegu from April 30th through August 3rd.

Lee Eunjin, Arirang News.