"Wonderful Views of Chongseokjeong Pavilion" (1920) by Kim Gyu-jin / Courtesy of National Palace Museum of Korea



By Kwon Mee-yoo



The last decorative court paintings of the Korean Empire from Changdeok Palace were revealed to the public for the first time in 97 years. The National Palace Museum of Korea (NPM) revealed two mural paintings from Huijeongdang Hall in Changdeok Palace at a special exhibition that opened Wednesday.



"Wonderful Views of Chongseokjeong Pavilion" (1920) and "Extraordinary Views of Manmulsang, Mt. Geumgang" (1920) were both created by Kim Gyu-jin (1868-1933), who was a renowned calligrapher and painter during the 1897-1910 Korean Empire and the 1910-45 Japanese occupation.



Huijeongdang Hall was destroyed by fire in 1917, and when the building was restored in 1920 the ceiling was heightened and a Western interior was introduced. The high ceiling allowed additional space for a painting. The mural was not painted directly on the wall, but drawn on silk and pasted on the wall later.



Kim, who studied painting in China and taught painting to Imperial Prince Yeong (1926-1970), was chosen to paint landscapes of Mt. Geumgang for the palace building, which was used as the king's office and later a reception room for foreign envoys.



The paintings are large in size, reaching up to nine meters by two meters. Kim visited the mountain for three months and created these topographical landscapes, combining traditional and modern painting techniques.



Mt. Geumgang was not a popular subject for court decorative paintings, but the murals of Huijeongdang show the eastern mountain became a popular tourist destination after the 1914 opening of the Gyeongwon Line connecting Seoul and Wonsan, now in North Korea.



"Wonderful Views of Chongseokjeong Pavilion" was displayed on the east wall and depicts Chongseokjeong Pavilion of Tongcheon County, Gangwon Province. The district is known for clusters of rocks stretching along cliffs along the coastline for several kilometers.



The west mural "Extraordinary Views of Manmulsang, Mt. Geumgang" portrays the Manmulsang area in Goseong County, Gangwon Province. The area consists of beautiful rocks and cliffs and is one of the highlights of outer Mt. Geumgang. Kim painted the whole mountain area from a bird's-eye-view perspective.



NPM curator said Kim's paintings are drawn from a different perspective than other landscapes depicting the pavilion.

"Previous landscape paintings of Chongseokjeong were seen from land toward sea. However, Kim's perspective is from the sea, as if seeing the stony mountain on a boat. He exaggerated the height of the stone pillars and narrowed the space between the pillars, so viewers can feel the approaching stony mountain," the curator said.



The two murals had been located in Huijeongdang, which was off limits to the public, until being taken down for restoration in 2015.



The silk paintings will be stored in the NPM after the exhibition and a reproduction is displayed at Huijeongdang Hall.



A special lecture will be offered on Jan. 18 and Feb. 8, giving information on the architecture of Changdeok Palace and the life and works of the artist.



The exhibit runs until March 4, 2018. For more information, visit gogung.go.kr or call 02-3701-7500.

