Yun Du-seo(1668-1715) was a prominent scholar-painter active during the late Joseon Dynasty. He was born into a scholar family with fortune. His grandfather Yun Seon -do was a great poet and a scholar. Among the political turmoils in his time, he kept...
Yun Du-seo(1668-1715) was a prominent scholar-painter active during the late Joseon Dynasty. He was born into a scholar family with fortune. His grandfather Yun Seon -do was a great poet and a scholar. Among the political turmoils in his time, he kept himself aloof from worldly affairs, spending his time studying broadly including Western books, writing calligraphy, and painting. He revived old styles to reform the artistic convention and opened new forms and types in calligraphy and painting. He occupied an important place in the development of literati painting in the late Jseon period. He set the main direction that later literary painters followed. But none attempted to draw such a diversity of subject matters, styles, and sources.
In the young years, he made a detailed study of Chinese painting manuals and Chinese texts on painting. The Calligraphy and Writing on Painting in the collection of the National Museum in Seoul reveals the fruits of his study. This book is composed of two parts. The former one is Yun's calligraphy of Thousand Character text written in seal script. The archaic calligraphic style practiced by him set the main direction that had is a rare example of this kind made during the 18th century. The latter one is Yun's transcription of Chinese texts dealing with literary culture including painters and painting theory. Most of this part i s transcribed from a Chinese text written about the geography of the West Lake in Zhejiang Province. Yun was quite selective in transcription focused on the items on painters and painting theories by Hwang Gongwangand Wang Ⅰ in the Yuan dynasty.
Yun Du-seo as a high -minded and fastidious predecessor seemed to be out of touch with contemporary development in Chinese painting. Instead he made a critical observation on some of the past traditions in Chinese painting and painting theory. His final goal was to restore the literary style of painting and take up a new artistic
tradition in Korea. His efforts to master the earlier Chinese paintings led to the pursuit of Chinese texts at the expense of broad approaches to Chinese books with relevant informations.
At the end of the transcription, he as a connoisseur and a collector, seemed to have echoed in some manner what the previous Chinese writers had said about the experience of collection and how to keep Paintings. In this way Yun might have enhanced new esthetic and practical approach to the works of arts and passed on most of value to literary Painter of later times.