Folding Screen of Gyeonggi gamyeongdo (Gyeonggi-do Provincial Office)

This folding screen depicts, across twelve panels, the scenery of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office outside Seodaemun Gate, spread out beneath the ridges of Inwangsan Mountain. The foreground is rendered from a high, panoramic bird's-eye viewpoint, and the buildings are shown in diagonal parallel perspective running from upper right to lower left. In this work the size of mountain peaks and trees diminishes sharply toward the top of the composition, that is, further back in space, indicating a sense of distance. In terms of colour, however, the painting seems little concerned with spatial depth or distance, as the distant peaks and features are not rendered in a hazy or faded manner. The painting is also filled with a considerable number of trees across the entire surface. In the distant mountains, pine trees are arranged in rows along the ridgelines, and between the low hills and houses of the middle and near grounds, various kinds of trees are richly depicted in vivid colours. This tendency to include large numbers of trees can also be observed in some documentary paintings of the nineteenth century. The mountains are depicted using earthen slopes rendered with pima-jun (hemp-fibre texture strokes) and dotted brushwork, alongside rocky peaks drawn with sweeping strokes. The rendering of the pine trees in the distance has been said to recall the technique of Yi Ui-yang (1768–?), and it has already been suggested that this folding screen may have been painted by court painters including Yi Ui-yang. Starting from the right, the first panel shows Seodaemun (Donuimun) Gate and the guardhouse of the gate commander, and the fourth panel shows a raised gate bearing the sign "Giyeong," an abbreviated name for the Gyeonggi Provincial Office. The large building at the centre of the sixth panel is Seonhwadang Hall, where the provincial governor carried out his duties; above the eighth panel are Yeongeunmun Gate and Mohwagwan Hall; a lotus pond in full bloom appears across the eighth and ninth panels; above the tenth panel are the hills of Daehyeon and Sohyeon and an archery ground called Eupseungjeong; and an archery pavilion appears in the twelfth panel. Besides these representative buildings, even the privies and small storehouses of the government offices are depicted, along with the tiled-roof and thatched-roof houses where people lived, and shops such as pharmacies, shoe shops, rice shops, taverns and street stalls. Yet what gives this painting its vitality and interest is not so much the depiction of buildings and scenery as the scenes of everyday life unfolding throughout the composition. The view that this painting borrows the format of the seongsido (a genre of "city view painting" recorded in historical texts) likewise stems from this very combination of landscape painting, cartography and genre painting. The most important of these scenes of daily life is, of course, the long procession of the governor of Gyeonggi Province, unfolding along the bottom of the third to sixth panels from the right. Here, the mounted figure presumed to be the governor is distinguished from the other figures by his clearly drawn eyes, nose and mouth, indicating his importance. The military band and attendants taking part in the procession, as well as the adults and children watching it, are also depicted with a vivid sense of realism. Elsewhere, in the courtyards attached to buildings and along the main roads and alleyways, figures in a variety of poses and actions are depicted throughout, providing fine examples of genre painting. These include scholars wearing horsehair hats resting idly beneath pine trees, constables chatting in relaxed poses, horses and grooms waiting in front of the government office, women carrying water jars on their heads, a scholar on horseback accompanied by a young attendant, a taffy seller carrying a pair of scissors, and figures carrying A-frame carriers on their backs. In addition, farmers working in the paddies and fields, women carrying refreshments on their heads, and a dog running along a paddy ridge all bring the scene vividly to life, as though the actual landscape of the time were unfolding before the viewer's eyes.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Yongsan-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물