How To Read Eastern Art

Preface....v
Introduction....viii

Chapter 1: Questions That Cross Our Minds as We View Eastern Paintings
Irrational details....3
Paintings with the same format....7
Events that did not take place in the real world....13
Art is a cultural compact....17
Appreciation of Eastern art should begin with an Eastern approach...18
Eastern paintings are for reading....19
A lone heron on a pond with a withered lotus is a typical example of art-reading....25
The forgotten principles of art-reading....29

Chapter 2: Homophony-based Reading
Distortion of the magpie and the tiger....37
It should be a pine tree, a magpie, and a leopard in the painting....37
Countless examples equating homophony with synonymy....38
Mere homophony is sufficient....39
A trend especially pronounced in ideogram systems like the Eastern culture....42
Why pair the crab with reeds?....42
Two crabs holding reed flowers in their mouths....45
White deer paired with Chinese juniper....49
Spelling longevity (壽) with a Chinese juniper....51
Writing longevity (壽) in 16 different ways....51
The reason for pairing the bamboo with rocks....53
So long as we are drawing a bamboo, let us draw a Phyllostachys edulis....55
What is an autumn cricket doing on a summer orchid?....57
The creepy bat signifies fortune....59
Reeds and wild geese symbolize a comfortable old age....61
Cat paintings congratulate someone who just turned 70....63
Cat-and-butterfly pairings....65
A cat next to chrysanthemums....67
Owl paintings with the same congratulatory meaning....69
The ingrained belief in the power of language or letters....71
The act of sedition by National Academy (成均館) students under King Sejo....73
Bookcase paintings in the study....75

Chapter 3: Allegorical Reading
The winter bird mandarin duck on a pond in July....85
The contents of the Five Blessings, revised in Tang China....87
Guo Ziyi and his many descendants....87
Pomegranate paintings denote a wish for many sons....89
Peony paintings stand for wealth and nobility....91
The Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms is responsible for the mistaken belief that peonies are odorless....93
Peonies were painted without butterflies as early as the Tang Dynasty....95
Queen Seondeok was unaware of the principles of art-reading....97
The iconography of Hanafuda....101
Pairings of peonies and a rooster....109
Peonies with a vase....109
A pine tree, bamboo, and a pair of white-headed birds....111
Peonies and plum blossoms do not bloom at the same time....113
Crane paintings....117
A crane with a pine tree....119
A crane by the rolling sea....121
The pine and the lingzhi mushroom....123
The lingzhi mushroom means, ‘to have one’s wish realized’....123
Most paintings of vessels with cut branches (器皿折枝圖) express a wish for happiness in this life....125
The rose is a symbol of youth....127
The peach should be painted green....129
Donfang Shuo (東方朔) of the three thousand jia and the peach....131
It is incorrect to draw Dongfang Shuo as a grizzled old man holding a peach....133
The ugly black crested myna denotes filial piety....137
Goldfish paintings convey the message, ‘May gold and jade fill your home!’....139
Lotus paintings encourage a thrifty lifestyle....141
Chrysanthemum paintings symbolize longevity....143
It is wrong to pair the chrysanthemum with multiflora rose hips....145
Seeking meaning in objects is a cognitive attribute specific to humans....145
Finding meaning in the shape or biology....147
Art-reading principles may sometimes restrict artistic expression....149
Minnows and duckweed....151
Why draw the carp in twos?....155
Minnows, duckweed, carp, water pepper, lotuses, mandarin ducks, wild geese, and reeds....157

Chapter 4: Reading Art by Invoking Classical Quotes or Anecdotes
Pictures were also used in the pursuit of spiritual values....163
The moral of The Three Hibernal Friends concerns the society of good friends....165
Flowers from all four seasons in the same painting....167
Even paintings of foot-bathing mean something....169
If the water of the Canglang is clean....169
The reason scholars adopted the character 滄 in their pen names....171
The Four Books and the Three Classics at work even in palatial architecture....173
The patterns shaped like the calyx of a persimmon were inspired by the Classic of Poetry (詩經)....177
Paintings of three fish belong in the study....177
Qi Baishi’s message in his painting of three fish....179
Paintings of nine fish....181
“Long live the homeland” (江山萬代)....183
Nine quails....187
Quails stand for comfort and peace....187
Fish idling about....189
Nine herons....191
The foremost consideration(s)....192
Art criticism in the East....193
The Four Grades....195
A boy pointing at a mountain shrouded in clouds....199
Scene of an old man fishing....201
Painting of a middle-aged man fishing....203
The Eight Anecdotes....205
Ear Bath in the Yingchuan....205
Painting of four old men playing Go....207
Sailboat against an autumnal backdrop....209
Staring at Nanshan leaning against a pine tree....211
Pointing at wild geese in flight....211
Admiring a waterfall....213
Standing on a bridge on a donkey’s back as a blizzard howls....215
With the plum blossom as wife, and the crane as son....217
Painting as another medium depicting the ideals of Eastern scholars....219

Chapter 5: How To Appreciate Contemporary Korean Art
How to appreciate contemporary Korean art....223
Eastern art and Western art are fundamentally different....224
Western artists paint as they see, whereas Eastern artists recorded what was....225
Art criticism in the East versus the West....227
Paintings that are read do not exist in Europe....227
What every Korean artist longs for....228
The factors that have landed Korean painting in its current quandary....238
The fundamental problem of Eastern art in Korea?a dead end....245
Twenty years later: The artistic community in Korea today....246
Five requisites for the establishment of Korean art....247

Bibliography....250
Index....252