Department of Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
September 2010
The establishment of the Joseon (“Fresh Dawn”) dynasty in 1392, following a revolutionary yet bloodless coup, purged the corrupt practices of the Goryeo regime, ended Mongol domination, and fueled an extraordinary cultural renaissance. The new political vision of the state promoted Neo-Confucianism in both theoretical explorations and practical implementation in nearly every aspect of society. Buddhism, the state-sanctioned religion for more than a thousand years, was officially rejected, though private worship and artistic production continued. The Neo-Confucian royal court and elite literati (yangban), the primary patrons of the arts, embraced and encouraged the advancement of secular art and culture. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries witnessed the revival and reinterpretation of classical traditions alongside significant achievements in innovative art forms. Under King Sejong (r. 1418–50), who was the embodiment of a renaissance monarch, a unique, phonetic alphabet (hangeul) was created, permitting an accurate transcription of the native language and the wide dissemination of Confucian texts and mores.
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism, the dominant political ideology of early Joseon society, dictated many aspects of life, including education, familial and social relations, and production of the visual arts. Artists in the court’s Bureau of Painting created works advancing Neo-Confucian ideals: for example, portraits of “meritorious subjects”—political figures who served the goals of the state and the monarch—or painted records of men in government, particularly the Confucian literati. White porcelain was the dominant form of ceramics in this period. Its appeal for the Joseon elite lay in its aesthetic of purity and restrained elegance, which resonated with the ideals of Neo-Confucian teachings.
Painting
One significant body of landscape painting from the early Joseon period comprises works illustrating scenery or places in China of literary fame and with nostalgic associations—for example, the Xiao and Xiang rivers in the modern province of Hunan, a region historically identified with exile and lament. Though known and adapted during the Goryeo dynasty (918–1392), the theme reached a new height of popularity in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with most extant paintings dating to the latter. Meanwhile, in contemporary Ming-dynasty China, the number and reputation of paintings on this subject dwindled, compared to the earlier Song period. The early Joseon scrolls and screens illustrating the Eight Views represent Korean transformations of this classic theme and of landscapes more broadly.
Many landscapes from this period, chief among them the Eight Views, are painted in the An Gyeon style—coined after the most celebrated and influential landscapist of the early Joseon, who was active around the mid-fifteenth century. The formidable legacy of An Gyeon also reveals a deeper layer of homage to the classical past, to the Northern Song landscapist par excellence, Guo Xi (ca. 1000–ca. 1090). Some notable features of the An Gyeon style include the cloudlike mountain forms and the pine trees; the dramatic interpenetration of solids and voids; the effective contrast between light and dark ink tones; and the powerful command of brushstrokes and modeling ink washes.
