Grapes

Choi Seok-hwan, Joseon Period 19th Century (1808~?)

The grape was a subject beloved by literati painters of the Chosŏn period, and the tradition of ink-grape painting was sustained through a succession of such figures as Hwang Chip-chung (黃執中) and Sin Saimdang (申師任堂) of the mid-Chosŏn period, Hong Su-ju (洪壽疇) of the seventeenth century, and Sim Chŏng-wi (沈廷胃) of the late Chosŏn era. Ch'oe Sŏk-hwan was the foremost painter of grapes in the nineteenth century; his date of death is unrecorded, and what is known of him amounts to little more than his sobriquet, Nangok (浪谷), his place of residence in Imp'i township, Okgu County, North Chŏlla Province, and his celebrated mastery of the grape as a pictorial subject. He left behind numerous paintings in which the vine sweeps and envelops the entire expanse of a large picture surface — as in the present work — as well as grape-vine folding screens executed across multiple panels with a brushwork of vigorous, kinetic energy. The majority of his works, like this ink grape painting, tend toward large format and display a quality of brushwork that is firm and rough in character.