From time immemorial people have had a relation with stone. In the primitive ages stone was the necessary tool for human being to survive. Stones were the substance which people needed to be accustomed to in various uses, including objects for worship...
From time immemorial people have had a relation with stone. In the primitive ages stone was the necessary tool for human being to survive. Stones were the substance which people needed to be accustomed to in various uses, including objects for worship, and which led human beings to long for the beauty of nature and to admire harmonic beauty. The human instinct to assimilate with nature, which relates to Oriental philosophy in which nature is the basis principle of the universe, has developed into a desire to be near to nature, that is, to move nature into people's gardens and where they can appreciate it. This long relation with stone from primitive ages explains why people have an affection for and intimacy with stone. Through the period of close relations between human life and stone in various respects, people have attained eyes for its deep beauty and paid compliments to extraordinary rocks.
Among Korean old paintings, an oddly shaped stone painting reveals a love for stone and asexemplified in the ancient painting in which a pot together with an extraordinary stone is placed in a room. We can easily find this love for stone in the folk painting which was wide spread among the people.
Among the paintings of the Chosun Dynasty, many paintings placed great importance on the expression of stone; seokae-do, nanseok-do, seokjuk-do, jukseok-do, gornok-jukseok-do, songseok-do, geoseok-chochung-do, geoseok-hwahwe-do, and so on. At the end of a that period new painting appeared known as an oddly shaped stone painting was the theme. But in the early modern era, when the Southern pictorial style was at an ebb and the national fortunes fell, an oddly shaped stone painting barely maintained its existence without its creativity.