Birds and Flowers
Birds and flowers
Paintings of birds and flowers have a long tradition in East Asian art. In Korea folding screens depicting combinations of birds and flowers became prevalent in the late Joseon period and continued to be popular in the twentieth century.
Carefully composed and meticulously detailed, the scenes in this colorful and exquisitely painted screen are characterized by heightened realism. Each panel portrays one or more pairs of birds resting on or flying around a blossoming plant, a tree, or reeds. The rightmost panel also includes a hen with her chicks under a rock. The symbolism of male-female pairings of birds—mandarin ducks, for example, are known to mate for life—made such screens suitable decoration for wedding ceremonies or a bridal chamber. Beyond domestic bliss, paintings of birds and flowers also embodied wishes for wealth, career advancement, longevity, and fecundity.
Unidentified Korean artist
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Arts <br /><br />http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44760
Late 19th - early 20th century
Purchase, The Vincent Astor Foundation Gift and John M. Crawford Jr. Bequest, 1993
Ten-panel folding screen; ink and color on silk
Painting
Accession Number:1993.255
Hwajo-003
Butterflies and Peony
Butterflies and Peony flowers
Painting of Peony flower on lower right side of the painting and butterflies flying upper left side and sitting on a Peony.
Nam Kye-u (Korean, 1811–1888)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45063
Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
Anonymous Gift, 1977
Panel from a six-panel folding screen; ink and color on paper
Painting
Accession Number:1977.448
Chochung-001
Tiger and Magpie
Tiger, magpie, and pine tree
A large tiger with striped fur and a long tail curving around the lower half of the picture is seated with its body facing to the right and its head turned to the left. The tiger appears to be looking at two magpies perched in the branches of a pine tree in the top left-hand side of the picture.
Unidentified Korean artist
Victoria and Albert Museum <br /><br />http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O22242
1850-1910
Purchased with the help of Museum colleagues in memory of Lisa Bailey (1964-1996), Curator of Korean Art 1994-1996
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017. All Rights Reserved
Black ink and colors on paper
Painting
Museum number: FE.68-1997
Hojak-003
Tiger and Magpie
Tiger, magpie and pine tree
A small tiger with striped fur and a long tail curving around the lower portion of the picture is seated with its body facing to the left and its head towards the right. The tiger appears to be looking at two magpies perched in the branches of a pine tree in the top right-hand side of the picture.
Unidentified Korean artist
Victoria and Albert Museum <br /><br />http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O22243/tiger-and-magpie-painting-unknown/
1850-1910
Purchased with the help of Museum colleagues in memory of Lisa Bailey (1964-1996), Curator of Korean Art 1994-1996
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017. All Rights Reserved
Black ink and colors on paper
Painting
Museum number: FE.69-1997
Hojak-002
4 Works: Birds and flowers
Birds and flowers
Paintings of flowers and birds from late 19th-early 20th century by unknown Korean artist.
Unidentified Korean artist
MutualArt Services, Inc. <br /><br />https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/4-Works--Birds-and-flowers--Hwajodo-/9579AD6DCC0DBED6
Late 19th-early 20th century
© 2017 MutualArt Services, Inc.
4 panel paintings; ink and color on paper
painting
9579AD6DCC0DBED6
Hwajo-002
Pictorial Ideographs (Munjado) of the Eight Confucian Virtues
Eight confucian virtues
Mounted on each side of this screen are unrelated paintings: on one side is a set of the eight Confucian virtues, and on the other a Mongolian hunting scene. Pictorial Ideographs (Munjado) of the Eight Confucian Virtues In pictorial ideographs, called Munjado, calligraphic paintings of Chinese characters are integrated with images that relate to the characters’ meaning. Sets featuring the eight Confucian virtues were popular, which demonstrates the importance of Confucian ideas and practices during the late Joseon period. Always appearing in the same order, the eight Confucian virtues are, from right to left, filial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, trust, propriety, righteousness, integrity, and sensibility. Often displayed in a child’s room, the images were didactic and intended to inspire proper values. The pictorial illustrations generally refer to well-known historical stories or legends. Although the characters and their related stories are based on Chinese classics, the aesthetics and design elements are purely Korean. For example, the way in which the a single image is used in the composition as a signifier for a complex story is unique to Korea. In addition, sets featuring all of the eight virtues are distinctly Korean in taste: in China, the individual characters for longevity (shou) and fortune (fu) were consistently the most favored subjects and were usually presented in a hanging scroll format. Although there are many known screens illustrating the eight virtues, LACMA’s example is distinctive because each panel also includes four lines from proverbs related to each virtue. The artist arranged the characters and their visual elements with great harmony, embedding the images with two different techniques: in some characters, the images completely replace a character stroke, while in others, the pictorial elements appear inside an existing stroke.
Unidentified Korean artist
Los Angels County Museum of Art<br /><br />https://collections.lacma.org/node/170471
19th Century
Gift of Ann and Jack Levine
Ten-panel screen, ink and color on silk
Chinese
Painting
M.87.267
Munja-001
Golden Cock and Hen
Cock and Hen with landscape
Paintings of auspicious symbols were popular in the late Joseon period among all classes of society. This scroll represents a combination of two established themes in Korean painting: birds and flowers and the ten symbols of longevity—sun, mountain, water, rock, cloud, pine tree, tortoise, crane, deer, and mushroom of immortality. This work depicts a golden cock perched on a paulownia tree under the sun and clouds, and a golden hen looking up from her place on a rock with sprouting red mushrooms of immortality. Splashing waves create drama. This pair of fowls seems to allude to the golden pheasant (which despite the name has a reddish body with a yellow crest), which is associated with good fortune.
Auspicious creatures such as tigers, dragons, cranes, and deer appeared on a range of media in the Joseon period, attesting to the importance and prevalence of these symbols in Korean culture.
Unidentified Korean artist
Metropolitan Museum of Arts <br /><br />http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40073
19th century
Rogers Fund, 1919
Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
Painting
Accession Number:19.103.2
Hwajo-001
Flower and Bird Screen (Hwajodo Byeongpung), 화조도 병풍
Flowers and birds
10-fold flower and bird screen, depicting pairs of birds amongst flowers including cranes and plum blossom and ducks and lotus flowers, Korean, late 19th century.
Unidentified Korean artist
Victoria and Albert Museum<br /><br />http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O22452
1880-1910
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London 2017. All Rights Reserved
10 fold screen; paper, silk and wood
Painting
Museum number: FE.21-1991
Hwajo-004
Hwajo Munjado
화조문자도 8폭 병풍(花鳥文字圖八幅屛風)
Birds and flowers with eight letters of Confucian virtues
This eight panel paintings shows combination of Hwajodo and Munjado. Top parts are flowers and birds painting and bottom parts are eight Chinese characters of Confucius virtues.
화조(花鳥)와 문자(文字)를 함께 그려 놓은 그림. 지본채색(紙本彩色). 8폭 병풍(세로 170.7, 가로 356). 아래쪽에는 '孝·悌·忠·信·禮·義·廉·恥'의 윤리문자도를 배치하고, 위쪽에는 화조(花鳥)를 그려 넣은 2단 구조임. 문자도는 글자획을 상징물로 대체한 형식에, 글자 내부를 꽃과 식물문양으로 장식함. 각 폭마다 영지와 봉황, 소나무와 학, 모란, 국화, 복숭화꽃 등이 그려짐.
Unidentified Korean artist
National Folk Museum of Korea <br /><br />http://www.nfm.go.kr/Data/colSd_new.jsp
Ⓒ 국립민속박물관. All Rights Reserved
Eight folding screen
Chinese
Painting
민속 029049
Munja-002
Chochungdo
초충도
Flowers, vegitables and insects
This painting is one of eight folded painting Shin Saimdang painted. Watermelon, rat and butterflies create stable composition in the painting and detaisl of object well-depicted by artist.
이 작품은 여덟 폭 병풍의 초충도 중 하나이다. 수박 및 생쥐와 나비 등의 표현에서 섬세한 필선, 선명한 색채, 안정된 구도 등을 보이는 훌륭한 작품이다. 신사임당(申師任堂, 1504-1551)은 이이(李珥)의 어머니로 조선 초기의 대표적인 여류화가이다. 시∙글씨∙그림에 모두 뛰어났고 자수도 잘 하였다. 그림에 있어서는 산수, 포도, 대나무, 매화, 그리고 화초와 벌레 등 다양한 분야의 소재를 즐겨 그렸다. 산수에 있어서는 안견(安堅)을 따랐다고 전해진다.
이러한 초충도는 신사임당의 작품이라고 전해지는 것이 많으며, 후대에 자수본(刺繡本)으로 많이 이용되었다.
Shin Saimdang
전 신사임당(傳 申師任堂)
National Museum of Korea
http://www.museum.go.kr/site/main/relic/search/view?relicId=2061#
1504-1551
Park Chung-hee
박정희(朴正熙)
Ⓒ NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA
Eight fold screen; Ink and color on paper
Painting
소장품번호신수(新收)-003550-000
Chochung-002