‘Diamond Mountain’ a painting of the most famous mountain in Korea

The Diamond Mountain range is said to be the most famous mountain in Korea. From paintings to poetry it has inspired many writers and artists over the years including Jeong Seon (1676–1759), a famous landscape artist who lived during the reign of King Yeongjo. 

He painted a whole collection featuring the Diamond Mountains and some of the original paintings are now on show along with works by famous genre painter Sin Yun Bok (1758–1813) for the ‘Drawn by the Wind‘ exhibition at Dongdaemun Design Plaza. The exhibition presents some original works by the two artists as well as digital art by media artist Leenam Lee whose work here is also based on the Joseon paintings.

In one interesting exhibit, the original work has been transformed into larger and brighter pieces and presented next to images of the actual locations where they were painted more than 250 years ago.

WHERE IS THE MOUNTAIN?

The paintings of the mountains are more poignant today as they are a symbol of the divide between North and South Korea since the mountains sit just over the border on the North side. The mountain is 1,638-metres and part of the taebaek mountain range in Gangwondo and used to be a tourist hotspot from both sides of the border until a South Korean tourist was shot in 2008 and killed by North Korean soldiers.

After that tourism from the South stopped and relations soured again, tourists could only turn to the Unification Observatory at Goseong-Gun on the northern most part of the east coast for a glimpse of the mountains. We visited in August 2017 just after Kim Jung Un had fired missiles over Japan and threatened to blow up Guam. A mere 9 months later he is literally holding hands with Moon Jae In at the historic April 2018 meeting between the two leaders. What can we expect to see next, I wonder?

Still, the meeting has inspired fresh hope that the North and South will be reunited some day and citizens will be able to move freely around the whole country once more.

THE PAINTINGS OF JEONG SEON

Jeong Seon’s pen name was Gyeomjae which means ‘humble study’. (I like that.) He’s one of the most famous artists in Korean history and developed his own more realistic landscape painting style even though Chinese style painting was popular at the time.

His paintings of landscapes are small and delicate ink and water colour but in a large exhibition room the colours seem a bit dull  and the details of the brush strokes are hard to see particularly since the paintings are protected in glass cabinets. I could barely make out the tiny figures on the beach below or the three sailing boats in the sea to the right – that’s were the media art comes in to highlight the details and brighten the colours and size.

But I was interested in seeing the calligraphy work of Jeong Seon which was alongside the paintings. Of course all the noblemen at that time had to be good at calligraphy.

THE PAINTINGS OF SIN YUN BOK

The other Joseon painter on show at the exhibition was Sin Yun Bok (1758–1813). I’ve written about the wonderful genre paintings of Sin Yun Bok before. And as a fan of his work it was great to see the original paintings. His style is totally different to Jeong Seon. He painted people (often women) in everyday scenes of Joseon life. Up close you can see the delicate strokes and colours of the brush and the actual size of the paintings. But of course everything is behind glass cabinets for protection so I had to stand with my nose pressed against the glass.

One of Sin Yun Bok’s most famous paintings is this painting of Dano Day, a festival where people worshipped the sun and the moon. It shows a couple of young monks gawping at a group of gisaeng entertainers taking a wash before the event. I wrote more about the painting here. The original paintings were spruced up through media art enlarging them and brightening the colours…

MEDIA ARTIST LEENAM LEE

Media artist Leenam Lee often uses famous paintings by Korean and international artists as a starting point and transforms them into media art playing with light and animation techniques. At this exhibition six screens each depicting a different painting are combined into a new piece of art. First the images seem static simply depicting the original paintings. But then suddenly the nobleman in the first painting comes to life and travels across the 6 screens through all the paintings now unrestricted in his new digital media form! Very cool.

To get an idea of how this works, take a look at this video to see previous shows by Leenam Lee transforming works by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh.

The ‘Drawn by the Wind’ exhibition at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza finishes on May 24 2018.