Page 242 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

“Three Stars” , when used as a title in China, occasionally refers collection of the Nezu Museum, Tokyo. The theme’s popularity
to a painting that depicts Confucius (551–479 BC), Laozi (6th continued through the Ming dynasty and well into the Qing. In
century BC), and the Buddha (traditionally, c. 563–c. 483 BC) fact, a 1761-dated hanging scroll on the theme by Huang Shen
engaged in an imagined, but historically impossible, conversation. (1687–1770) and now in the collection of the Palace Museum,
With his crooked walking stick, long beard, and elongated head Beijing suggests the type of Chinese literati painting that influenced
with cranial protuberance, the central figure at the weiqi board portrayals of the subject in Korea, where the theme became popular
on this jar indeed bears a striking resemblance to conventional, if during the Joseon dynasty.
fanciful, portraits of Laozi, but the other two figures clearly are
neither Confucius nor the Buddha; if the central figure isn’t actually The scene represented on this jar shows a strong visual kinship to
Laozi, then he likely is a Daoist hermit. In short, this scene can a privately owned, nineteenth-century, Korean folding screen that
best be generically titled “Three Elders in a Landscape Playing depicts the “Four Elders of Mt. Shang”. Although this jar dates to
Weiqi”. A game of strategy, weiqi was considered one of the “Four the eighteenth century and the screen to the nineteenth, the scenes
Elegant Pastimes” in traditional China, along with playing the on both works likely derive from a once well-known but now lost
qin, or classical zither, painting, and doing calligraphy; those four painting by the mid-Joseon painter Yi Gyeong’yun (1545–1611).
have been considered appropriate leisure time activities for learned, Like the jar, the screen features as its central theme three elderly
cultivated gentlemen since Tang times (618–907). Weiqi originated men seated around a flat-topped rock in a pine grove and playing
in China at least as early as the fifth century BC and is regarded weiqi. The screen further features a fourth gentlemen who sits by
as the world’s oldest board game. As weiqi is mentioned in the a rock a little to the (viewer’s) left of the main group and gazes at
Analects of Confucius—indeed, it is assumed that Confucius himself a deer standing beside a babbling brook; two servants appear in the
played weiqi—the game traditionally has enjoyed the highest level foreground of the screen’s left half, each tending a small stove to
of cultural acceptance. It spread to Korean in the fifth or sixth heat water for tea. A crane descends at the right edge of the screen
century AD and then on to Japan by the seventh century. to join another crane standing on the ground. Thus, although the
composition of the screen is more complex than that of the jar, the
In fact, the theme represented on this jar derives from Chinese essential elements of the two depictions are virtually identical, as is
paintings depicting the “Four Elders of Mt. Shang”. Such paintings the mode of representation.
visually recount the story of four elderly gentlemen who retreated
from public life at the end of China’s Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) In depicting the “Four Elders of Mt. Shang”, Chinese painters
in order to escape the dynasty’s turbulent end; they fled to Mt. emphasized traditional virtues, particularly noble retreat to a
Shang, in Shaanxi province, where they lived in seclusion and humble mountain abode in troubled times—and, in peaceful
pursued their scholarly interests. These legendary gentlemen came times, finding solace in the company of friends in a secluded
to symbolize the proper mode of behavior for scholars and statemen country villa or garden and passing the time cultivated, tradition-
in times of tyranny, political turbulence, and dynastic decline—i.e., sanctioned activities; though adopting that basic approach,
the noble retreat to the solitude of the countryside—and thus Korean artists added such auspicious wishes for long life as the
became a favored theme in Chinese literature and painting. (In deer and cranes—which, together with the pine, are symbols of
modern parlance, they would be termed “culture heroes”.) Indeed, longevity—and they also infused the scene with Daoist overtones
retreat from the “dusty world”, eremitism, and life as a recluse by presenting the central figure as, or in the guise of, Laozi.
had already become a celebrated theme in Chinese thought and Additionally, they incorporated something of the spontaneity and
literature by the time of Tao Yuanming(c. 365–427), as revealed by whimsicality of Korean folk painting.
his famous poem Guiqulai, or “Returning Home”.
Its bold form, vibrant brushwork, and silvery hued cobalt blue
Chinese paintings on the theme of the “Four Elders of Mt. Shang” in both light and dark tones make this an exemplary eighteenth-
typically depict the elderly scholars playing weiqi while seated century jar, while its virtually unique subject matter and its kinship
under a pine in an idyllic mountain landscape. The subject gained to contemporaneous figural paintings mark it as a one-of-a-kind
popularity in China at least as early as the Yuan dynasty (1279– work. The rarity, importance, fine condition, and early—indeed
1368), as evidenced by a meticulously rendered hanging scroll by enviable—publication record elevate this magnificent jar to the rank
an otherwise unknown painter surnamed Zhu and now in the of major masterpiece of Korean blue-and-white porcelain.