Fishing on a River Bank with Willows

Yu Un-hong, Joseon Period 18th Century (1797~1859)

Yu Un-hong's courtesy name was Ch'ihong (致弘), his sobriquet Sisan (詩山), and he was of the Hanyang lineage. Few works survive and almost nothing is known of his life, yet it is clear that he served as a chabidaeryŏng painter — a painter on standby for royal commands — and that he discharged his duties faithfully in the service of state painting commissions, as his name appears frequently in the records of the various directorate offices (togam ŭigwe). From his first participation in the Directorate for the Royal Wedding Ceremony of Queen Sinjeong, Consort of King Munjo, in 1819, through his involvement in the construction of King Munjo's royal tomb in 1846, he was called upon for directorate service on at least nine separate occasions, rising during that period to the senior third rank of t'ongjeong and receiving the appointment of Ch'ŏmsa. Like many professional painters of the nineteenth century, Yu Un-hong worked within the sphere of influence of Kim Hong-do in landscape and figure painting, while also leaving works that carry forward the genre-painting tradition of Sin Yun-bok (申潤福), with its characteristic emphasis on the appeal of feminine beauty.

As the artist's own inscription, Yujejoŏ (柳堤釣魚 — "Fishing on the Willow Embankment"), makes plain, the subject of this work is two boys seated on an embankment beneath a spreading willow tree, absorbed in the pleasures of fishing. At the same time, the painting accords rather more weight to the yellowing willow than to the young fishermen themselves, suggesting that the evocation of an autumnal mood may have been the artist's primary concern. The Kim Hong-do manner is not strongly felt in this work, with its simple composition and unpretentious brushwork. The gnarled, age-weathered trunk of the willow, the dense foliage rendered in small pointillist dots, the softly modulated treatment of the undulating ground surface that evokes both contour and texture, and the figures described with quiet precision in fine, delicate lines — all of these contribute to an overall quality of meticulous, unhurried craftsmanship. The pointillist rendering of the willow foliage and the elongated green and black dots applied in overlapping strokes in a single direction across the ground surface bear a particularly close resemblance to Yu Un-hong's Blue Mountains with a Solitary Boat (靑山孤舟圖) in the collection of the Korea University Museum.