Kiln Site Yeondo Painting

The Kiln Site Yeondo Painting depicts a banquet scene held at Yaochi, the Jade Pond on Mount Kunlun that was the abode of the Queen Mother of the West, and is mounted as an eight-panel folding screen. It draws on legends recorded in the old Chinese texts Bamboo Annals and Tales of King Mu, Son of Heaven, which combine the story of a banquet held by the Queen Mother of the West for King Mu of Zhou with the tale of a host of immortals travelling there at her invitation. Panels four and five, at the centre of the composition, show the banquet held for King Mu of Zhou during his visit to the Queen Mother of the West, while panels seven and eight vividly depict numerous immortals crossing the sea towards that place. Across the whole composition, figures charged with symbolic meaning, together with peaches of immortality and a variety of birds, animals and plants, are evenly distributed; the clouds that create a sense of mystery, the strange rock formations, and the rendering of sea waves all lend a natural sense of space to the motifs. With its panoramic composition and its use of vivid blue-green colouring, the work is strongly decorative in the manner of court painters, and is presumed to have been produced in the late Joseon period (1700–1850). As one of the folding-screen paintings favoured at court, its composition, arrangement of motifs and iconography invite comparison with court paintings such as the Ten Longevity Symbols painting, and with the Gamnotaenghwa (a Buddhist ritual painting depicting offerings to hungry ghosts) among Buddhist paintings.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Yongin, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Tangible Heritage · 시도유형문화유산