Sipjangsaengdo Painting

This is a folk painting (minhwa) on the theme of the sipjangsaeng, the ten symbols of longevity, and is also known as Jangsaengdo. Paintings of this kind were often given by the king to senior officials as a New Year gift. Among the upper classes they were mainly used as sehwa — pictures pasted on doors at New Year — and as paintings offered in prayer for a long life. The sipjangsaengdo gives form to an imagined realm of immortals, and is characterised by its full use of colour, employing the blue-green landscape technique favoured by court painters in depicting mountains and rocks. This painting takes a diagonal composition, with the longevity creatures of the land on the right and those of the water on the left. The mountains are rendered mainly in green with cobalt-blue highlights, and against a background of reddish-brown earth, pine trees with red trunks divide the picture plane, with the various longevity motifs arranged between them. This sipjangsaengdo screen is a ten-panel screen produced at the royal court in the late nineteenth century, in the closing years of Joseon. Its provenance is clearly established, and its composition, technique, colouring and state of preservation are all excellent, making it a valuable piece.

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Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산