국립중앙박물관 NATIONAL MUSEUM OF KOREA

A Long Day in the Quiet Mountains

These paintings visually represent a poem about an elegant life in nature. They were originally part of an eight-panel folding screen, but only the second, fourth, seventh, and eighth panels have survived. Yi Inmun, a court painter at the Royal Bureau of Painting (Dohwaseo), skillfully created the images while the calligrapher Yu Hanji added corresponding verses from the Chinese poem “Dwelling in the Mountains” by the Southern Song literati Luo Dajing (羅大經, 1196–1242) in clerical script on each panel. The painting of the far right (second panel) depicts the theme of reading books at one’s leisure, and the next painting (fourth panel) shows a scene of eating coarse barley rice as if it were candy. These two paintings strike a harmony between poetry, imagery, and calligraphy, but the texts on them were switched due to a mistake on the part of Yu. The third painting (seventh panel) is themed around a mountain landscape at sunset. It illustrates a figure standing, leaning on his staff, and appreciating the setting sun. The fourth painting (eighth panel) displays figures enjoying a moonlit landscape at night. The details in these paintings reflect the painter Yi Inmun’s efforts to faithfully depict the content found in the poem.

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