Lot Essay
This screen belongs to a class of Korean paintings called solhwado: illustrations of events from famous tales or novels. Among the novels, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Nine Cloud Dream appear most frequently on Korean screens.
The three kingdoms of the novel are those into which China was divided for roughly sixty years following the collapse of the Han dynasty in A.D. 220: Wei to the north, Wu in the South, and Shu Han in the southwest. They are not to be confused with those of Korea's Three Kingdoms period (first century B.C.- A.D. 668), which was named after its Chinese predecessor: Koguryo in North Korea, Silla in Southeast Korea, and Paekche in Southwest Korea.
China's Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220-280) was a time of incessant warfare. After supressing a series of peasant revolts, three leading Han Dynasty generals founded dynasties in their respective commanderies, Ts'ao Ts'ao in Wei, Sun Ch'uan in Wu, and Liu Pei in Shu Han. The Three Kingdoms period came to be regarded by later Chinese as an exciting and romantic era. A vast cycle of semi-historical legends developed concerning it. One of the losing generals, Kuan Yu, was subsequently deified as Kuan Ti, the God of War. Another general, Chu-ko Liang, eventually became the most popular Chinese hero of all time.
The legends were passed along by professional storytellers until the 14th century, when they were gathered together in written form to become China's earliest novel, San-kuo-chih yen-i (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Not long afterward, the novel became very popular in Korea as well as in China. Choson dynasty (1392-1910) culture was patterned closely on that of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and Korea's educated elite read Chinese.
Each of the eight panels of the present screen, the sequence of which is read from right to left in the usual Far Eastern manner, bears an inscription consisting of a four-character scene title plus a signature and two seals purporting to be those of Kan Hui-an (art name: Injae, 1419-1464), one of Korea's most famous early artists. The left panel also bears a cyclical date, which is meaningless because of the apocryphal nature of the signatures. The screen was painted by a court artist in the late 18th or early 19th century. An edict prohibited court artists from signing their screens; the "Injae" signature and seals were added later.
The various colorful scenes are all painted with admirable elegance and energy. The titles of the eight panels, rendered very broadly, are as follows: 1. A Single Horseman Requests the Leader. 2. The Fleeting Virtue of Retreating Troops. 3. Getting the People Across the River. 4. A Fierce Onslaught of Arrows. 5. Many Banners Flying in the Breeze. 6. The Great Battle ar the Red Cliff. 7. The Han Commander in Trouble. 8. Playing a Zither in the Western Castle.
The three kingdoms of the novel are those into which China was divided for roughly sixty years following the collapse of the Han dynasty in A.D. 220: Wei to the north, Wu in the South, and Shu Han in the southwest. They are not to be confused with those of Korea's Three Kingdoms period (first century B.C.- A.D. 668), which was named after its Chinese predecessor: Koguryo in North Korea, Silla in Southeast Korea, and Paekche in Southwest Korea.
China's Three Kingdoms period (A.D. 220-280) was a time of incessant warfare. After supressing a series of peasant revolts, three leading Han Dynasty generals founded dynasties in their respective commanderies, Ts'ao Ts'ao in Wei, Sun Ch'uan in Wu, and Liu Pei in Shu Han. The Three Kingdoms period came to be regarded by later Chinese as an exciting and romantic era. A vast cycle of semi-historical legends developed concerning it. One of the losing generals, Kuan Yu, was subsequently deified as Kuan Ti, the God of War. Another general, Chu-ko Liang, eventually became the most popular Chinese hero of all time.
The legends were passed along by professional storytellers until the 14th century, when they were gathered together in written form to become China's earliest novel, San-kuo-chih yen-i (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms). Not long afterward, the novel became very popular in Korea as well as in China. Choson dynasty (1392-1910) culture was patterned closely on that of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), and Korea's educated elite read Chinese.
Each of the eight panels of the present screen, the sequence of which is read from right to left in the usual Far Eastern manner, bears an inscription consisting of a four-character scene title plus a signature and two seals purporting to be those of Kan Hui-an (art name: Injae, 1419-1464), one of Korea's most famous early artists. The left panel also bears a cyclical date, which is meaningless because of the apocryphal nature of the signatures. The screen was painted by a court artist in the late 18th or early 19th century. An edict prohibited court artists from signing their screens; the "Injae" signature and seals were added later.
The various colorful scenes are all painted with admirable elegance and energy. The titles of the eight panels, rendered very broadly, are as follows: 1. A Single Horseman Requests the Leader. 2. The Fleeting Virtue of Retreating Troops. 3. Getting the People Across the River. 4. A Fierce Onslaught of Arrows. 5. Many Banners Flying in the Breeze. 6. The Great Battle ar the Red Cliff. 7. The Han Commander in Trouble. 8. Playing a Zither in the Western Castle.