mb-25

筠管參差排鳳翅月堂凄切勝龍吟 -檀園

\From Kimhae, Kim Hong-do used the courtesy name of Sa'nung, and his many sobriquets included Soho, Tanwon, Tan'gu, Ch'wihwasa, and Komyonkosa. Based on recent research, his death date has been amended to around 1806 from the previously accepted date of after 1818. It would not be an exaggeration to call Kim Hong-do the representative artist of the Choson dynasty, given his mastery of“true-view” landscapes, genre paintings, Taoist and Buddhist figure paintings, portraits, bird-and-flower paintings, and other genres of which he left behind many distinguished and excellent examples. In addition to receiving the support of Kand Se-hwang, who was highly influential in the art world of the late 18th-century, he was highly favored as a court painter by King Chongjo(1776-1800). Kim was selected three times to be the painter of royal portraits. Unhampered by his chung'in social background, was promoted at the age of forty-six to post of Magistrate of Yonp'ung-hyon County.
\This painting depicts an immortal seated on a tilted ground plane underneath an old pine tree, whose trunk calls to mind a surging dragon. He is playing the saenghwang(a wind instrument of bamboo). Kim Hong-do often painted immortals in his thirties and forties, and although this painting is not dated, we can place it stylistically to this period in his life because of the forceful brushstrokes. The sinuous and organic description of the bark of the pine tree truly remind the viewer of dragon scales, and the tree trunk, cut off at the top of the painting, seems to carry its momentum beyond the picture.
\The inscription, which seems suspended from the tree, is taken from a poem by Lo Yeh(active second half of the 9th-century) collected in the Ch' an-t'ang shih(Complete Poems of the T\ang Dynasty). It reads as follows:

Short and long bamboo pipes as if a phoenix
has spread its wings,
The notes of the saenghwang, returning to
the moonlit pavilion,
Are more melancholy
than the cries of a dragon.

\From this we know that the painting depicts a moonlit night, and from the deeply engrossed expression of the immortal, we see that his performance is truly as moving and emotional as described in the poetic inscription. The shadows cast by the pine needles also evoke a moonlit night, and the empty spaces in the middle of the painting seem to provide a serene and boundless arena for the melodies of the saenghwang.
\The inscription is signed Tanwon, and there is an intaglio seal reading Sanung. -YSM