Blossoming Branch of an Old, Weathered Plum Tree

Because it blooms in winter, even before it dons its leaves and while snow and ice still cover the ground, the Chinese flowering plum (Prunus mume) became a symbol of purity and of strength in the face of adversity; as such, it was popular as both a literary and an artistic motif in China, Korea, and Japan. The plum, together with the orchid, the chrysanthemum, and the bamboo (three other botanical subjects imbued with symbolic Confucian meaning and conducive to depiction with a calligraphy brush and ink), came to be known as the "Four Gentlemen." In this delicately rendered painting, the old blossoming plum tree appears almost as if enveloped in mist and shrouded in silvery moonlight. Unlike the rugged, expressive ink plum paintings by Cho Hŭi-ryong (1791-1859), the emphasis in this work is on suggestive description and delicate brushwork-characteristics typical of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Korean paintings of plum blossoms. The wear and slight damage along the right edge of this painting, combined with absence of damage along the left vertical edge, suggest that it was once part of a folding screen. In that context, it is possible that the painting was salvaged from a damaged screen and subsequently mounted as a hanging scroll. One can imagine that the painting originally was one of six or eight panels, each of which represented an old plum tree.