'ART & SOUL
From the land of morning calm

Animal imagery is the key component of Korean paintings. Each animal is used
as a symbol in an exquisite play of colour, writes B. N. Goswamy

FEW would think of it in these terms today, considering the troubled recent history of the land, but Korea was once popularly known as "The Land of the Morning Calm". Consider this sijo — the name given in Korea to profound three-line verses — by the poet Yun Seondo:

There is certainly calm in this, and the gentle feel of the land. Consider also the eight Confucian virtues that are so much ingrained in the Korean mind as ideals: Hyo (filial piety), Je (obedience to certain elders, for example older brothers); Chung (loyalty); Sin (reliability); Ye (politeness); Ui (duty); Yeom (incorruptibility); and Chi (a sense of shame). You get no sense of any of this in today’s aggressive military posturing of the North, or the fierce industrial competitiveness of the South. It is precisely for this reason perhaps that determined attempts are being made now to project that ancient land differently: through its art and aesthetic lineage, its rich cultural traditions.

The famed Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York opened recently with an exhibition titled: "Arts of the Korean Renaissance 1400-1600"; Korean art is the subject of much discussion — and sales — in Hong Kong and Singapore auctions; the elegant New South Wales Gallery in Sydney is currently showing the art of the land in "Korean Dreams" — on loan from the Musee Guimet in Paris — featuring paintings and screens from the celebrated Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) which ushered in the Golden Age of Korea as far as the arts are concerned. Korea seems to be everywhere, at least in the western world.

But, the politics of exhibitions apart, there are truly splendid things to be seen in them: great paintings and refined calligraphy, embellished folding screens and dazzling pottery. Not all the virtues of Korean art, or the rich world of its symbols, reveal themselves at once, and one has to work a little towards understanding what lies hidden underneath. Once one finds a point of entry, however, there are great rewards to be had.

At one, and relatively simple level, it is not difficult to see, in painted screens, for example, birds as signifiers of joy, fish as symbols of plenty, crabs as representing discretion considering how intelligently they retreat. But when one goes beyond this, there are allusions to be found, and stories to be read, almost always going back to the Confucian virtues listed above.

For a Korean, thus, in the fish and bamboo decorating a panel on one of the screens on view at Sydney, there is a reference to two ancient stories of filial piety. One of them speaks of a youth who smashed the freezing ice of a lake to capture a fish for his ailing step-mother; the other refers to an oft-told tale of a young man who, distraught at not being able to find food for his mother in winter, sat down and cried in despair in a bamboo forest. As the story goes, his warm tears melted the snow to reveal bamboo shoots, which he was able to take to his starving mother.

On the painted screens, of which there are two kinds: the chaekkori which are used for a man’s study, and the munjado for a children’s room —– there would be other representations, or symbols too.

The chaekkori, thus, often depicted the "Four Treasures" of the traditional Confucian scholar: paper, ink, brush and inkstone, as well as the beloved paraphernalia of vases of allusion-laden flowers, ancient bronzes, incense-burners, and the like. So it proceeds in traditional Korean art. Some of this can be traced naturally to Chinese art, but in the Joseon age, Korea appears to have emerged from the shadow of China and established an identity of its own.

In the area of celadon pottery — porcelains with that exquisite, translucent, pale-green glaze — Korean artists appear to have gone far ahead of China where it originated. Their unique style came to be so valued that the Chinese themselves considered it "first under heaven" and one of the "12 best things in the world." Delicacy seems to have come naturally to the Koreans.

The refined world of Korean painting was peopled by a whole range of animals, each rendered with exquisite understanding, each one a symbol. There is thus the dragon, so well-known from the Chinese art: an imaginary animal that supposedly lived in the water before ascending to heaven, and was worshipped as an enigmatic and dignified creature comparable to emperors and kings.

The phoenix appears again and again: another legendary creature that was believed to live only atop paulownia trees, eating bamboo seeds and capable of flying 90,000 miles. When the rooster appears, heralding dawn and scattering darkness, it stands at once for high position and military prowess, combining valour with compassion. But among the most brilliantly rendered of animals is the tiger, called the horang-i, a compassionate guardian that protected humans and even repaid their kindness. While it was usually depicted as a gentle and docile creature, the underlying belief was that it was — as seen in the splendid painting reproduced here — a fearless and valiant animal that would prevent misfortunes such as fire, flood or storm, and chase away evil spells. Especially when painted on the gate of a house on a New Year’s Day, for then it was certain to usher in a blissful year.

Interestingly, the best of Korean art dates from a period of cultural efflorescence and innovation when ‘experimental art was on the boil and utopian ideas were in the air’.

"Unpretentiousness, directness, spontaneity, and joy", someone said introducing an exhibition of Korean art of this period, are the qualities that give this art its compelling appeal. There is something in this formulation, but one discovers it slowly, and only, as I said before, when one lingers unhurriedly over the works.

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