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Overview:
Made for a prince who survived a brush with a death nearly 150 years ago, the "Ten Symbols of Longevity" screen is a Korean cultural treasure located in Eugene.
Yi Cheok was a very important 2-year-old.
The only male heir of the Joseon Dynasty, he would grow up to become Sunjong, the last Korean emperor, before Japanese colonization ended the final era of dynastic control in 1910.
But before all of that, he was a very sick toddler. In the 1870s, he was on the brink of death from smallpox. When he survived, it was a national celebration, marked by a lavish commissioned work of art that, some 150 years later, is on display in Eugene.
As University of Oregon students walk past the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on campus, they likely don’t know they’re walking past one of finest examples in the world of a 19th century Korean court painting, a snapshot of cultural collision near the beginning of the 20th century.
The “Ten Symbols of Longevity” screen, commissioned in 1879, is part history lesson, part “get well soon” card and part artistic splendor.
The artist (or, probably, artists) who painted the screen are unknown. It was likely made in a workshop setting. Painted screens with symbols of longevity are a well-known form of Korean folk painting, with screens featuring 10 symbols called sipjangsaengdo in Korean.
Anne Rose Kitagawa, the museum’s chief curator of collections and Asian art as well as its director of academic programs, said that she has heard from scholars that because of its history and attention to detail, it is one of the finest preserved examples of sipjangsaengdo.
“In this case, this is just putting all the bells and whistles of auspiciousness together into a single, beautiful composition,” Kitagawa said.
A closer look at the symbols of longevity
There is overlap between Korean, Chinese and Japanese traditions in what symbols are considered “auspicious.” The sipjangsaengdo format — arranging those symbols to create a heavenly landscape crammed with good luck — is quintessentially Korean, Kitagawa said.
The symbols included in this work are cranes, clouds, the sun, deer, mushrooms, mountains, bamboo, pine trees and turtles. Here’s a closer look at each of the symbols:
Cranes and clouds: These symbols speak to the relationship with the heavens. Cranes were seen as messengers from heaven, and clouds as the site of transcendence into the heavens. Clouds were believed to be concentrations of gi, the vital life force better known by its Chinese pronunciation qi or chi.
Sun: The sun’s outline, like some crane wings and rock ledges, is painted with gold. That comes from the earlier Chinese blue and green style, which accented landscapes in gold and was popular in the Joseon era. “In some ways, the Koreans were trying to be more Chinese than the Chinese at that point,” Kitagawa said.
Deer and mushrooms: Deer were believed to sniff out mushrooms, which Taoists in China used to try to achieve immortality. The mushrooms are styled after clouds, inspired by … potential properties. “They’re ‘wish-granting mushrooms,'” Kitagawa said. “Or hallucinogenic mushrooms, as the case may be.”
Mountains: As symbols, rocks and mountains were also believed to have gi. The rocks show the work’s painterly qualities with materials, Kitagawa said: The green is ground-up malachite mineral pigment while the blue is azurite. “Those things, unless something goes terribly wrong, can persist,” Kitagawa said.
Bamboo: Bamboo has a number of traditional symbolic associations in East Asian cultures, with the museum’s teaching materials on the sipjangsaengdo mentioning Taoist and Confucian interpretations related to its “upright” manner. Kitagawa pointed out one common symbol that isn’t in the screen: the peaches of immortality.
Pine trees: The pine tree’s tie to longevity comes from its hardy and resilient nature through bad weather and harsh winters. Kitagawa pointed to the trees, and their careful, plentiful brushstroke leaves, as a sign of this screen’s artistry when compared to more domestic, rustic sipjangsaengdo.
Turtles: Turtles are symbols of longevity because of their long lifespans. This screen includes multiple splashing around in the water. Apart from the symbolism, this specific turtle is Kitagawa’s favorite detail in the entire work: “Is there anything cuter than this one trying to get out of the water?”
One of the most telling details isn’t on the screen itself. It’s at the bottom.
The very bottom of the screen has small red feet, added by the Gochang Conservation Institute in South Korea as part of a 2014 conservation that also addressed water damage on the back of silk.
The screen first came to Eugene mounted on olive and brown-toned fabric, with no feet at the base.
That’s the Japanese style of mounting, Kitagawa said, reflective of colonial control over the Korean peninsula between 1910 and 1945. Sometime after its creation, someone remounted it to better fit the aesthetic that trickled down during colonization.
That tracks with the piece’s provenance. It first came to Eugene in 1924 when Gertrude Bass Warner, a collector of Asian art and founder of the UO art museum, purchased it.
Another sign of its history comes on the two leftmost panels of the screen. They feature the names of the 14 people who commissioned the work.
It wasn’t for art appreciation, though. It was for credit.
“They’re the people from the Imperial pharmacy who were responsible — they hope — for curing Yi Cheok from smallpox,” Kitagawa said.
How to see it
The screen is on display in the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art’s Wan Koo and Young Ja Huh Wing and Jin Joo Gallery of Korean Art.
A permanent part of the museum’s collection, the “Ten Symbols of Longevity” cycles in and out of being on display, typically on five-year rotations. It will be on view at the museum through May.
Taking a Closer Look at art in Lane County
This is the first installment of Closer Look, a new Lookout series where we spend time breaking down the details in a larger work of art on display in our community. Know about a work of art in Lane County that we should look at next? Submit it via email to our arts and culture correspondent Annie Aguiar at annie@lookoutlocal.com.
All photography credit: Isaac Wasserman / Lookout Eugene-Springfield / Catchlight / RFA
