Korean True-View Landscape: Paintings by Chong Son (1676-1759)

From the publisher’s website:

Korean True-View Landscape: Paintings by Chong Son (1676-1759), a ground-breaking, revised and updated English-language edition of Kyomjae Chong Son chingyong sansu (The Art of Kyomjae Chong Son) by Ch’oe Wan-su, provides an unprecedented insight into the distinctive art and literati culture of Korea in the early eighteenth century. Published in two editions hardcover [9781872843711 and softcover 9781872843728], this is the hardcover edition. Go to the softcover edition.

Chong Son’s albums of landscape paintings celebrate the scenic beauty of Korean rivers and mountains, focusing on the capital Hanyang, now Seoul, the Han River, the East Sea and the world-famous Diamond Mountain. The author, Ch’oe Wan-su, Chief Curator of the Kansong Museum in Seoul, presents travelogues and poems by Chong Son’s contemporaries, scholars and officials who were inspired to compose those remarkable texts when they too visited the same landmarks. Korean scholars habitually wrote in Chinese, and frequently referred to Chinese paragons of landscape beauty, even while extolling the superior virtues of their native land. Some of them travelled as diplomats to the Chinese capital and even sold Chong Son’s paintings there at a handsome profit, though the artist himself had no opportunity to visit China or see Chinese paintings at first hand. Accordingly, this book illuminates contemporary relations between the two countries, as well as introducing each site in detail and explaining typical features of Korean architecture and customs.

This edited translation has been thoroughly prepared for western readers, both students and the general public, and provides additional explanatory notes and maps, not included in the original Korean edition.