Landscape

Kim Yun-gyeom, Joseon Period 18th Century (1711~1775)

Kim Yun-gyŏm (金允謙, 1711–1775) was a literati painter of the late Chosŏn period, of the Andong Kim lineage, whose courtesy name was Kŭgyang (克讓) and sobriquet Chinjae (真宰). Born into the Andong Kim clan — one of the most prominent Noron families of the late Chosŏn era — he was nonetheless of secondary birth and therefore entered government service through the protected appointment system, serving in the post of Ch'albang. In lieu of an official career, he devoted his life to the cultivation of painting and calligraphy, ultimately achieving a style wholly his own.

He worked primarily in landscape, producing not only ideational Southern School literati landscapes in the mode prevalent during the late Chosŏn period, but also paintings of actual scenery drawn from the environs of the capital, the Diamond Mountains, and the Yŏngnam region. Favouring intimate album leaves and fan paintings over large-format works, his pictorial manner proceeded from the delineation of forms in fine, supple contour lines, followed by applications of limpid, lightly graded washes to evoke surface texture — a method that consistently subordinated physical weight and mass to the cultivation of lyrical atmosphere (ŭnch'i) and poetic clarity (sich'ŏng). This approach reflects the influence of the Anhui School aesthetic newly assimilated from China during the period, and stands as a fresh current in landscape painting that gave expression to a deepening preference for the expressive, idea-centered mode of literati painting.

The present work depicts a tranquil village nestled against a backdrop of soaring mountains, with scholars enjoying a boating excursion on the river flowing before it — a composition that eloquently demonstrates Kim Yun-gyŏm's distinctive approach to landscape. The tall, precipitous vertical peaks and riverside cliffs that fill the picture plane are rendered in forms and brushwork of such softness and ease that they exert no sense of oppressive weight; the texture of the mountains is evoked through graduated color washes that simultaneously suggest volume and generate a quietly suffused, contemplative mood. The vegetation spreading broadly along the water's edge is treated in a tree-and-foliage method derived from painting manuals such as the Jieziyuan Huazhuan (芥子園畵傳), rendered in modest forms with a light and unforced touch. The ferry boat and figures, resolved in a few concise strokes, complete the mood of the composition in harmonious accord with the scene's pervading peacefulness. The work is signed with the sobriquet Chinjae (真宰), and to the right of the picture bears the collector's seal of Yi Pyŏng-jik (李秉直), a former owner of the work.