Korean Dreams, paintings and screens of the Joseon Dynasty

The U Fan Lee Collection in the Guimet Museum, Paris
5 March - 8 June 2009

This exhibition, the first showing of traditional Korean painting in the Gallery, will comprise Korean screens, hanging scrolls and album leaves dating from the 17th to 19th centuries. It will bring before our public an unfamiliar, yet quite unique tradition that has been shaped by a love of landscape, an empathy with shamanist beliefs, a lively heritage of folk traditions, and a Confucian-inspired love for books, learning and literature (Chinese as well as Korean). Assembled over many years by the leading contemporary artist Lee U-fan (who now lives in Japan), the collection, regarded by specialists as one of the most important ever assembled by a single connoisseur, illustrates the principal themes that concerned Korean painters in the later part of the Joseon period (1392-1910) when Korea was an independent kingdom but also a Chinese protectorate. In the period covered by these paintings Korean artists were aware of contemporary Chinese and Japanese styles, including those that had absorbed Western devices and techniques.
The paintings in this collection represent popular decorative traditions used in Korean homes, rather than the Chinese literati style favoured by officials in the Confucianism-dominated society. Themes covered will include calligraphy, landscape, bird-and-flower, mythical animals, and portraits. A popular subject represented with some fine examples is the so-called book screen (Chaek’kori), a genre adopted with relish by Koreans, artist and patron alike.