金剛山: NYT

choi

Jason Farago, Gems Shrouded in Mystery; An influential and inspiring Korean Mountain range. New York Times, Feb 9, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/ ... tains-olympics.html
(review of the same exhibition)

Note:
(a) "The skiing events [in this winter Olympics] take place in the Taebaek Mountains, and for centuries before Alpine sports came to this country, pilgrims, artists and tourists trekked to these thickly forested peaks that span the eastern crest of the Korean Peninsula. No mountain in the Taebaek range is more august than Mount Kumgang, also called the 'Diamond Mountains' * * * 'I wish that I had been born in Korea,' the 11th-century Chinese poet Su Shi is said to have wept, 'so that I could see the Diamond Mountains in person!' * * * except during the years of Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine Policy, it has been impossible to travel there from the South (or, indeed, from almost anywhere). * * * But even now, when anyone can fly over Kumgang’s peaks with Google Earth, these paintings offer a more complete view of the Korean landscape "
(i) 太白山脈
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/太白山脈
(map)
(A) This is hanja.
(B) In this mountain range 山脈, Mount Kumgangsan (1,638 m) is the second highest. The highest is Mount Seoraksan 雪嶽山 (1,708 m), in South Korea.
(ii) "中國宋代大文人蘇東坡曾以 '願生高麗國，一見金剛山' 的詩句， 讚美天下第一名山--金剛山"
金剛山. 韓國旅遊官方網站 - 韓國觀光公社  Visit Korea, undated.
http://big5chinese.visitkorea.or.kr/cht/SI/SI_CH_2_6_4_1.jsp

This is the very source of the purported poem. The poem is not heard of in Taiwan. And Chinese in China have expressed doubt and concluded South Korea government makes it up: lack of the complete poem, not found in any works of Su's, he never visited Korea, and there is no evidence that he eve knew of it.

(b) " 'Diamond Mountains' [short title of the exhibition] is organized by the Met curator Soyoung Lee, who also mounted the museum's 2013 exhibition of art from the earlier Silla dynasty. She has obtained some flabbergasting loans of works from the National Museum of Korea and other institutions, most of which have never been shown in this country — as well as a suite of paintings that have never been publicly exhibited anywhere. Among the choicest loans is a collection of works on silk by Jeong Seon, an 18th-century artist who revolutionized Korean painting by depicting real local landscapes, rather than Chinese vistas or idealized visions. * * * His paintings of the Diamond Mountains from 1711 are his [Jeong's] earliest surviving works * * * A subsequent painting in the album, of Buljeongdae Rock, a stark outcropping in the middle of Kumgang, sees Jeong render the white peaks in ink that fades from the top of the composition to the bottom, making the mountain range deliquesce as if in fog. * * * his 'true-view landscapes' (jingyeong sansuhwa, in Korean) had a particular resonance in the 18th century, when Korean elites grew more passionate about their own country's sights, and when new roads and better maps made visits to the mountains easier. * * * You can see Jeong's influence in a scroll painting from a century later, acquired by the Met last year and in the same case as his long Diamond Mountain landscape. The painter Sin Hakgwon, who never visited the site, drew on Jeong's example"
(i) 蘇東坡 (1037 – 1101 北宋)
(ii) Korea had 三國時代, wherein Silla 新羅 (57 BC – 935 AD) conquered Baekje 百濟 in 660 and Goguryeo 高句麗 in 668. Goryeo 高麗
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goryeo (918–1392; also spelled as Koryŏ ["ŏ" in McCune–Reischauer = "eo" in Revised Romanization of Korean (RR); McCune–Reischauer and RR are competing romanization systems for Korean language]; section 1 Etymology)
replaced the unified Silla, and in turn replaced by
Joseon dynasty (also transcribed as Chosŏn or Chosun; officially Kingdom of Great Joseon 大朝鮮國 (1392-1897).
(iii) "acquired by the Met last year * * * The painter Sin Hakgwon"

This refers to the same painting described in the WSJ exhibition review, at Note (c)(ii) ("陶菴 申學權 金剛內山總圖 朝鮮") of my posting published yesterday.

(c) "By the 19th century, representations of the Diamond Mountains had extended past elite artists and the literati to folk figures, and a market for images of the peaks had taken hold. One of the surprises of this show is a folk painting, lent from Seoul's Leeum Samsung Museum of Art and nicknamed 'Fireworks Kumgang,' ['by an unidentified artist' according to a caption in this NYT review] that forgoes the precision of Jeong's and Sin's visions for bizarrely isolated views arrayed with no regard for spatial hierarchies. The gray, crenelated clumps look little like mountains, and more like elephants on fire."
(i) I fail to find the painting in Leeum, Samsung Museum, and do not know the painting title (in Korean or hanja).
(ii)
(A) crenelated (adj): "having crenellations  <a crenellated wall>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crenelated
(B) battlement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlement
("These gaps are termed 'crenels' ")
(iii) About Leeum. Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, undated
https://leeum.samsungfoundation. ... troduction/main.asp
("Leeum is a name that combine 'Lee' the family name of the Founder of Samsung [李秉喆], and 'um' of the word 'museum' ")

(d) "The Japanese occupation of Korea, from 1910 to 1945 * * * In 1918, the former court painter Jo Seokjin 趙錫晉 traveled to Kumgang and painted a 10-panel screen, whose more saturated passages of ink reflect western and Chinese artistic influences. The screen's most notable panel depicts the Nine-Dragon Falls, whose V-shaped valley gives onto a ripping white waterfall."

Lee Soyoung with Ahn Daehoe, Chin-Sung Chang, and Lee Soomi, Diamond Mountains; Travel and nostalgia in Korean art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018, at page 78
https://books.google.com/books?i ... kjin%22&f=false
(Figure "72. JO SEOKJIN (Korean, 1955-1920). Mount Geumgang. 1918")

has five panels (out of 10).

(e)
(i) review text: "In 1921, Elizabeth Keith, a Scotswoman who was one of the very rare westerners to visit Japanese-occupied Korea, made a [1921] woodblock print of the gorge, whose rich greens and blues sharply contrast with the Korean grisailles. She took the name a bit too literally, adding in the nonet of dragons at swim in the pool of the waterfall and slithering through the trees on either side."
(ii) photo caption: "Elizabeth Keith's 'Nine Dragon Pool, Diamond Mountains.' Credit Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, via Metropolitan Museum of Art"

Nine Dragon Pool 九龍淵 is the pool that Nine Dragon (Korean Romanization: Kuryong) Falls empty into.

(f)
(i) review text: "after World War II, Mount Kumgang receded into the imagination for artists from the South. The painter Lee Ungno 李應魯 [Lee Ung-no; 1904 – 1989] never saw the mountains, but his expansive panorama of Kumgang (perhaps painted after he moved to Paris in 1958) offers a modern take on an old tradition."
(ii) Photo caption: "Lee Ungno's 'View of Kumgang from Jeongyang Temple.' Credit National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, via Metropolitan Museum of Art"
(A) View of Kumgang from Jeongyang Temple  正陽寺望金剛, where Jeongyang-sa is 正陽寺.

(g) "Park Dae-sung’s “Nine Dragon Falls on Diamond Mountains.” Credit Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, via Metropolitan Museum of Art"
(i) 小山 朴大成,  金剛山 九龍瀑圖 금강산 구룡폭포.  (The first three hangul and the next four represent 金剛山 and 九龍瀑圖, respectively.)
http://searchcollection.asianart ... 3-bd5d-9ed750ef54b3
( [acquisition] Date: 2004; Materials: Ink and colors on paper; Dimensions: H. 70 in x W. 31 in, H. 177.8 cm x W. 78.7 cm (image); H. 82 in x W. 35 3/4 in, H. 208.3 cm x W. 90.8 cm (overall [frame]); Credit Line: Gift of Park Dae-sung; Object Number: 2005.61)
(ii) Asian Art Museum (San Francisco)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Art_Museum_(San_Francisco)
Is owned by City of San Francisco.

(h)
(i) The NYT review in print has reproduction of just two paintings:
(A) " 'General View of Inner Kumgang, Leaf From the Album of Gyemojae Jeong Seon [謙齋 鄭敾, with 謙齋 being his artist name].' Waegwan Abbey, on loan to National Museum of Korea, via Metropolitan Museum of Art."

Waegwan Abbey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waegwan_Abbey
(located at Waegwan-eup, Chilgok County, North Gyeongsang province 慶尙北道 漆谷郡 倭館邑)
is a Christian abbey.
(B) Lee Ungno's painting described in (f).
(ii) ONLINE there is one more painting not described in text: "Jeong Seon's 'General View of Mount Bongnae 蓬萊全圖 [about 蓬萊山] .' Credit Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art, via Metropolitan Museum of Art"

金剛山. 韓國旅遊官方網站 - 韓國觀光公社  Visit Korea, undated.
http://big5chinese.visitkorea.or.kr/cht/SI/SI_CH_2_6_4_1.jsp
("金剛山隨著季節的變化，呈現出不同的美麗景觀，因此每個季節它又有不同的名稱。春季，花崗岩石上的晨露，在陽光照射下熠熠閃光，猶如七大寶石之一的金剛石一樣，故得名金剛山；夏季，溪谷和山峰被綠蔭覆蓋，又叫蓬萊山；秋季，漫山遍野的楓樹與松樹和諧相間，故稱楓嶽山；冬季，樹葉調零，裸露金剛山的大石，使金剛山山峰如骨頭一樣顯露，故稱皆骨山")