Heungseon Daewongun Yi Ha-eung Pil Mungnando Painting

This is a twelve-panel painting of rocks and orchids, painted at the request of a man named Yu by Seokpa Yi Ha-eung (1820–1898), better known as Heungseon Daewongun, in his seventy-first year (1891). The panels are arranged in symmetrical pairs, two by two, and in each panel various oddly shaped rocks are combined with orchids. The orchid leaves grow thickly from the root and spread softly upward with full vigour, a form that shows well the typical style of his later orchid paintings. For the rocks, he drew on the influence of the eccentric rock paintings of his contemporary, the painter and calligrapher Jeong Hak-gyo (1832–1914), setting angularly piled rocks in some panels against softer rock forms in others. Heungseon Daewongun's calligraphy developed under the influence of Kim Jeong-hui, but in his later years he arrived at a distinctive style of his own, and the titles on this screen, written in running script, show this late style clearly. The titles are written in prose form on the left and right sides of the screen, recording the circumstances under which he came to paint the screen for the man named Yu, the changing forms of screen painting, and his wish that the painting be genuinely appreciated. On the last panel he recorded the date the painting was made, together with the fact that it coincided with his own sixtieth wedding anniversary. This screen, an unusual survival as a set of twelve panels, has slightly damaged lower edges in each panel, but the painted areas themselves remain in very good condition. It is valued as a work that shows, through its outstanding overall composition, its free and vigorous brushwork and its fluent handling of ink, the mature style of ink-orchid painting that Heungseon Daewongun achieved in his later years.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Jongno-gu, Seoul

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산