鄭敾의 寫意 산수화의 전통계승과 혁신

Abstract

Jeong Seon(1676~1759) is often recognized to have pioneered a new ground of true-view landscape painting in the eighteenth century, which was able to claim a distinctive domain for Korean landscape paintings. However, it is important to note that Jeong’s innovative style in both his true-view and idealized landscape paintings is largely owed to his arduous study of popular Chinese landscape paintings in Jeong’s time. As a result, Jeong eventually created his own distinctive composition and brushworks, which can be found in neither earlier Chinese and Korean landscape paintings. During the formative period of his painting style, Jeong closely studied the compositions, brushworks and other various painting elements, which had been introduced through Chinese painting manuals mostly published in the late Ming and early Qing periods. These manuals include prominent Chinese landscape masters such as Mi Fu(1051~1107), Ni Zan(1301~1374), Huang Gongwang(1269~1354), Dong Qichang (1555~1636) and others. The works by those Chinese landscape masters in those painting manuals,however, were mostly the close copies by late Ming and early Qing painters. Since it was not easy to find masters’ authentic works created prior to the Yuan dynasty in China by that time. Therefore, the publishers of Chinese painting manuals did not have a choice but to include the close copies of masters by late Ming and early Qing painters. For this reason, it was natural for Jeong Seon to learn the late Ming and early Qing painting style, which had been used for copying earlier masters’ works. Jeong Seon’s idealized landscape paintings include themes like the Landscape of the Four Seasons and the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang River, and the Summer Landscape. It is recorded that Jeong painted several works under the same theme of the Landscape of the Four Seasons, but only one work remains in the collection of the Horim Museum of Art. This album includes two leafs of bird and flower panting and the four leafs that depict the four seasons. Compared to Jeong’s mature style, which is characterized with its bold and expressive brushwork, the landscape paintings in this album, in contrast, are done in very careful and delicate brushwork. In fact, one can find that Jeong’s composition and brushwork for this album are similar to the landscape models contained in an early Qing painting manual entitled Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. Since most of the landscape paintings included in the Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting were based on those by the late Ming painter named Li Liufang(1575~1629), one can see many similarities in composition and brushwork between Li’s extent landscape works and Jeong’s Landscape of the Four Seasons. The following works I will examine deal with the theme of the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang River. By the eighteenth century, this theme became considered to be outdated, however, Jeong Seon seems to have enjoyed painting it. Besides the four extant albums, are also a few separated album leafs that depict one of the eight view of the Xiao and Xiang River, implying that Jeong might have painted more than the four albums that we know of. Three albums are in the private collections, and one is in the collection of Gangsong Art Museum. Based on their stylistic features, the one album, which had been displayed in the exhibition catalogue entitled, “Gyeomjae Jeong Seon,” published by the Gyeomjae Jeong Seon Foundation, seems to be dated as the earliest one among the four albums. The one album once appeared on sale in an auction house must be the second earliest one, and then the one in the collection of the Gangsong Art Museum. And finally the one in a private collection, which had been published in a catalogue entitled Gyeomjae Jeong Seon, as part of the series of the Beauty of Korea might be dated to the latest. By comparing a seventeenth-century painter named Jeon Chung-hyo’s Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang River, we can realize how innovatively Jeong Seong depicted this conventional pictorial theme. Jeong Seon did not follow specific canonical pictorial formulas in depicting this topic, but rather he employed his own style. For example, Jeong articulated both the shape and texture of Mi dots to capture a refreshing atmosphere of mountains after rain, and often employed dense ink and sweeping brushstrokes in order to give the picture plan dramatic quality. The mountains on the background, although they not too high, were drawn in strong and thick ink splash in a similar manner as the late Ming landscape paintings. The last painting in this discussion is Jeong’s Summer Landscape in the collection of the National Museum of Korea. This work summarizes Jeong’s mature style that draws an imaginary landscape, yet remains faithful to his emotions. An immense picture plain drawn by his bold brushwork overwhelms the viewers.