Taken from the secret album of the Gansong Art Museum
The story told by 30 old paintings
1.
flower
Jeong Seon's 'Leftover Time for Reading'
Shin Yun-bok, "Appreciating Lotus Flowers While Listening to the Gayageum"
Shin Yun-bok's "Beautiful Bonds Formed in Autumn"
Jeongseon 'Gosan Appreciates Plum Blossoms'

2.
full moon
Kim Si's "The Immortal and the Deer Watching the Moon"
Lee In-mun's "Dongjeongho's Sword"
Kim Deuk-shin's "The Old Fisherman Falls Drunk"
Shin Yun-bok's "Night Dialogue by the Well"
Jeongseon 'Sijongdae'
Jeongseon's 'Foggy Moonlit Night in Seoul'

3.
sunrise
Jeongseon's "The Sun Rises on Mokmyeoksan Mountain"
Jeongseon 'Watching the sunrise at Munam'
Jeong Hong-rae's "The Sea Eagle Sees the Sun"
Simsajeong: "Fish Jump to Welcome the Sun"

4.
spring breeze
Lee In-moon's "The Joys of Youth"
Shin Yun-bok's 'Boy Picking Flowers'
Shin Yun-bok's "Spring Light Fills the Countryside"
Jin Se-bin's "The Fairy Mago Digs for Earthly Wisdom"

5.
Blue pine
Jeongseon 'East foot of Daeunam'
Kim Hee-gyeom's "The Joy of Living in the Mountains"
Lee In-moon's "Incitement is the Best Medicine"
Jeongseon's 'Autumn Cicadas in the Pine Forest'

6.
Dokrak
Kim Hong-do's "Fishing on a Willow Tree"
Jeong Seon's "Cheokjae Writes Poetry"
Lee Do-young, "Sitting Alone and Playing the Geomungo"
Kim Deuk-shin's "Evening Snow Falling on the River and Sky"

7.
Elegance
Shin Yun-bok's "Young People's Spring Outing"
Shin Yun-bok's "Boating on a Clear River"
Shin Yun-bok's "Going to See the Autumn Leaves with a Gisaeng"
Shin Yun-bok 'Going despite the curfew'

A book that reads famous paintings from the Gansong Art Museum

A secret treasure trove that opens only twice a year.
Thanks to this, it is a high-threshold place that presents a spectacular sight of endless lines of people on the outskirts of Seongbuk-dong twice a year.
A challenging art gallery that makes tens of thousands of people prepare to wait for an hour or two.
I think this is the image many people have of the Gansong Art Museum.


《Grim Sodam: Beautiful Paintings from Gansong Art Museum》(hereafter 《Grim Sodam》) is a book that reads about the famous paintings from Gansong Art Museum, which have been shrouded in mystery and have stimulated curiosity even more.
The author is Tak Hyeon-gyu, currently a researcher at the Gansong Art Museum, who has served as a link between our paintings and the public through lectures to students and various writings.
He has a deeper knowledge of the works of the Gansong Art Museum than anyone else, and he has carefully selected 30 paintings from the museum's collection and is introducing them to readers.


The criteria are clear.
We chose a theme that stands out only in our paintings, which is difficult to find in paintings from other countries, and selected a painting that matches it.
And with a delicate gaze, he explains every nook and cranny of the works of Shin Yun-bok, Jeong Seon, and Kim Hong-do, and talks about their meaning.


Finally, the first collection of works from the Gansong Art Museum

Gansong Art Museum is Korea's first private art museum.
This place is filled with works by Korea's representative painters that we have only seen in art textbooks.
However, in order to properly preserve such treasures for a long time, the museum is open to the public for free only twice a year, in spring and fall.
Because of this, it is true that the paintings stored in the Gansong Art Museum had a sense of distance equal to the number of people who wanted to see them but could not.
《Drawing Sodam》 can be said to be the first book to deal exclusively with paintings from the Gansong Art Museum, other than the catalogs sold at the museum during exhibitions.
The author, a researcher at an art museum, has spent more time in front of the works of art in the museum's collection than anyone else, and thus has an excellent understanding of art.
《Picture Sodam》 is organized as if planning an exhibition by setting a theme for each chapter.
It is very gratifying that not only famous paintings by familiar artists were featured, but also paintings that are less well known to the general public due to the artist's fame.


Seven very Korean themes

All things in the world and all human actions become the subject of paintings.
But among them, there was a subject that our ancestors particularly enjoyed drawing.
The author chose seven major themes and selected masterpieces that correspond to them.

Flowers, full moon, sunrise, spring breeze, green pine trees, loneliness, elegance.
Just thinking about these seven keywords makes me feel something that Western paintings cannot provide.
A sunrise scene that feels quite different from the sunset paintings of Impressionist painters, a scene of a nobleman enjoying his solitude that exudes a completely different atmosphere from that of nobles sitting together on the lawn, a yard where a noble and elegant pine tree stands firm instead of a gorgeous garden in full bloom with colorful flowers.
Gansong's famous paintings express moments that represent Korean sentiment.
《Painting Sodam》 introduces to us the works of Shin Yun-bok, Jeong Seon, Kim Hong-do, Kim Deuk-sin, and Yi In-mun, who are currently living in the Gansong Art Museum, by bringing them out into the world, each with its own subject matter.


A personal docent just for you who wants to know about old paintings

In “Picture Story,” the author does not stop at superficial descriptions of pictures.
We have included various pieces of information that are not easily visible to the general public but will be helpful when appreciating the painting in the future.
Furthermore, it reminds us of the Korean sentiments and emotions that we have forgotten, but which we can fundamentally relate to.

Through Shin Yun-bok's 'Boating on a Clear River', which depicts scholars enjoying a boat ride, we convey Shin Yun-bok's innate ability to compose space, and through Kim Hong-do's 'Fishing on a Willow Tree', which he enjoyed painting, we tell the story of how Kim Hong-do conveyed the atmosphere of the times through a single painting.

Here, the painting 'Leftover Time for Reading', in which a scholar stops reading to admire flowers, reminds us of the attitude of our ancestors, 'readers', who did not neglect both emotion and reason.
In the West, the moon is contrasted with the sun and constructed as a gloomy image of 'minus', whereas for our people, the meaning of the moon, which was a close friend, is conveyed through several pictures.

《Drawing Sodam》 is a colorful story about our paintings, which makes readers who do not have knowledge of painting interested in our paintings.
It feels as if you are walking around an art museum with a personal docent.
Thanks to this kind docent, I might just stumble upon the 'picture of my life'.