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Research Article

A Study on Giya Yi Bang-un's Album of Sino-Korean Landscape Paintings from the Gyeminyeon Year

박효정

명지대학교

Published: June 2017 · No. 294 · pp. 41-70

DOI: https://doi.org/10.31065/ahak.294.294.201706.002

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Abstract

This essay introduces Landscape of Korea and China in the Year of Gyemi (1823), a painting album that the late Joseon painter Yi Bang-un (1761- after 1823; sobriquet: Giya) produced at the age of 63, and translates related texts. Although Yi’s life and career are hardly known and the year of his death remains obscure, the works by and attributed to the artist still survive in large numbers. They amount approximately to 230, far from being confined within the boundaries of a specific genre. The wide range of extant works tallies in general with literary accounts that Yi was well versed not only in painting but also in writing and calligraphy. In this regard, my study aims to re-establish the terminus post quem for Yi’s death through the date of the album and to broaden our understanding of his art by examining the painting and calligraphy in the album that shows Yi’s mastery in his advanced age. The Landscape album consists of thirteen leaves in total: seven depicting renowned sceneries in China, one Mount Geumgang of Korea, and five leaves of a poem for a painting. Presumably the original format may have been a folding screen, each panel carrying a picture vertically between two poems, before being remounted in its present form, a thirteen-leaf album with a loss of three poem leaves. The significance of this album lies in the date of its production that allows to revise the year of Yi Bang-un’s death from a previous speculation “after 1815” into “after 1823” when the 63-year-old painter executed it. Moreover, the later history of the work is ascertained from an attached record establishing the ownership of Yi Byungjik (1896-1973) who is well known for his connoisseurship in antiquities. The 1823 album contains paintings of the subjects the late Joseon literati favored – the Wanchuan villa, the West Lake, and the Nine Turn Stream of the Wuyi mountains – and corresponding poems. Since the seventeenth century, Joseon literati have increasingly taken tours of scenic sites, published tourist literature, and adopted painting manuals from China. Such visual culture serves as a context in which Yi Bangun paints not only Korean views but also Chinese scenic spots in large numbers. Especially, this album shows a fully seasoned performance of brushwork and an original interpretation by the painter, establishing a standard for his later career that took liberty from both preceding painters’ styles and Chinese manuals. Thus the album provides a glimpse into the development and change of Yi’s pictorial style. The distinctive features of Yi’s later style are marked by simplified pictorial motifs, light coloring, and thin-and-short lines forming contours. These attributes help remove Yi’s stigma as an epigone of Jeong Seon (1676-1759), Sim Sajeong (1707-1769), and Gang Sehwang (1713- 1791) and shed new light to his own art world.
Keywords: 계미년(The year of Gyemi)향로봉초당도(Thatched Hut in the Peak of Incense Burner(Xianglu peak)무이구곡도(The Nine Turn Stream of the Wuyi Mountains)망천도(The Wangchuan Villa)서호도(The West Lake)절강도(Paintings of the Zhejiang province)금릉도(The Jinling)동정호도(The Dongting Lake)금강산도(Mount Geumgang)