Autumn Colors of Samseonam Rocks in Outer Geumgang
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.The modern artist most closely associated with the Diamond Mountains, Byeon Gwansik visited the celebrated site multiple times during his travels through the country between 1937 and 1945. The locale figures prominently in many of Byeon’s paintings from the late 1950s to the 1970s. Presumably based on his earlier sketches from observation and his subsequent recollections, they attest to the site’s significance to the artist.
Samseonam Rocks, the trio of imposing pillars seen here, were rarely captured by Joseon-period artists. Byeon returned to this scenery repeatedly. His bold, cropped composition focuses on the spiky rock cutting diagonally through the center and rising to the height of the painting. The artist’s rough and insistent brushwork—his trademark—not only shapes and gives texture to the various elements of the landscape but also emerges as its own powerful visual language.
Samseonam Rocks, the trio of imposing pillars seen here, were rarely captured by Joseon-period artists. Byeon returned to this scenery repeatedly. His bold, cropped composition focuses on the spiky rock cutting diagonally through the center and rising to the height of the painting. The artist’s rough and insistent brushwork—his trademark—not only shapes and gives texture to the various elements of the landscape but also emerges as its own powerful visual language.
Artwork Details
- 소정 변관식 외금강 삼선암 추색
- 小亭 卞寬植 外金剛 三仙巖 秋色
- Title: Autumn Colors of Samseonam Rocks in Outer Geumgang
- Artist: Byeon Gwansik ( Sojeong) (Korean, 1899–1976)
- Date: 1966
- Culture: Korea
- Medium: Ink and colors on paper
- Dimensions: Image (with frame): 49 7/16 × 49 7/16 in. (125.5 × 125.5 cm)
- Classification: Paintings-Canvas
- Credit Line: Lent by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art