Lot Essay
Among the various traditional subjects of Korean screen paintings, Shipjangsaeng, "The Ten Signs of Long Life", is the quintessential theme, embodying as it does all of the most popular and potent Taoist-Shamanist symbols for long life and happiness, life qualities to which all Yi-Dynasty Koreans, and indeed people everywhere, aspired.
The ten symbols usually depicted in a Shipjangsaeng screen are the sun, clouds, water, rocks, deer, cranes, tortoises, pine trees, bamboo, and pulloch'o, the mythical sacred fungus.
The sun, clouds, water and rocks were conventionally perceived as eternal.
According to the mythology of Chinese Taoism, exported to Korea in early times, deer were the messengers and companions of the Immortals.
Similarly, cranes were the mounts on which the Immortals traveled to and from their mythical islands in the Eastern Sea.
Giant sea turtles sometimes live several centuries. Mythical Taoist tortoises were said to live ten-thousand years and serve as the messengers of the Dragon King.
Pine trees stay green through the winter. Resisting harsh wind, ice and snow, they sometimes live for hindreds of years. Bamboo also remains green in winter. Like a Confucian gentleman faced with adversity, bamboo bows before the wind but never breaks.
The red fiddleheads rising on short stalks just above the ground in each panel of the present screen represent pulloch'o, the mythical sacred fungus of Taoism. Pulloch'o is a sort of magic mushroom said to bestow immortality on those who eat it.
For good measure, the present screen includes two additional longevity symbols not traditionally counted among the 'Ten Signs of Long Life'. Peach trees bearing fruit appear in the first panel (counting from the right), second, sixth, and seventh panels. The peaches refer to the mythical Taoist peach of immortality. Said to grow only in the orchard of the Queen Mother of the West somewhere in the K'unlun Mountains of Central Asia, this fairy peach causes one who eats it to live three thousand years.
In the third panel (from the right) we find a grotto in the base of the mountain. This grotto is meant to suggest the magic paradise within a mountain in which Taoist Immortals are said to dwell.
Also to be found in panel three are a stag and four fawns, three of whom are sprouting antlers to show they are male. Fathering an abundance of children, especially males, was considered a means of achieving immortality.
The stag and doe exchanging loving glances in panel four symbolize happy marriage.
The ten symbols usually depicted in a Shipjangsaeng screen are the sun, clouds, water, rocks, deer, cranes, tortoises, pine trees, bamboo, and pulloch'o, the mythical sacred fungus.
The sun, clouds, water and rocks were conventionally perceived as eternal.
According to the mythology of Chinese Taoism, exported to Korea in early times, deer were the messengers and companions of the Immortals.
Similarly, cranes were the mounts on which the Immortals traveled to and from their mythical islands in the Eastern Sea.
Giant sea turtles sometimes live several centuries. Mythical Taoist tortoises were said to live ten-thousand years and serve as the messengers of the Dragon King.
Pine trees stay green through the winter. Resisting harsh wind, ice and snow, they sometimes live for hindreds of years. Bamboo also remains green in winter. Like a Confucian gentleman faced with adversity, bamboo bows before the wind but never breaks.
The red fiddleheads rising on short stalks just above the ground in each panel of the present screen represent pulloch'o, the mythical sacred fungus of Taoism. Pulloch'o is a sort of magic mushroom said to bestow immortality on those who eat it.
For good measure, the present screen includes two additional longevity symbols not traditionally counted among the 'Ten Signs of Long Life'. Peach trees bearing fruit appear in the first panel (counting from the right), second, sixth, and seventh panels. The peaches refer to the mythical Taoist peach of immortality. Said to grow only in the orchard of the Queen Mother of the West somewhere in the K'unlun Mountains of Central Asia, this fairy peach causes one who eats it to live three thousand years.
In the third panel (from the right) we find a grotto in the base of the mountain. This grotto is meant to suggest the magic paradise within a mountain in which Taoist Immortals are said to dwell.
Also to be found in panel three are a stag and four fawns, three of whom are sprouting antlers to show they are male. Fathering an abundance of children, especially males, was considered a means of achieving immortality.
The stag and doe exchanging loving glances in panel four symbolize happy marriage.