Old Weathered Plum Tree with Spring Blossoms, in the Manner of the Chinese Painter Wu Zhen (1280-1354)

This plum-blossom painting is an expressive combination of balanced contrasts: soft, rounded plum blossoms and buds delicately rest on sharp branches that burst in every direction; watery ink washes are punctuated with black dots scattered along the image. The vertical crease that runs down the center of this plum-blossom painting indicates that it was once part of an accordion-fold album. Now mounted as a hanging scroll, the painting is believed to have originated from an album of sixteen leaves, all by the same artist. The four-character inscription at the lower right of this painting reads Mae-do-in chak (Chinese, Meidaoren zuo), which might be translated "Made by Mae-do-in" or "Made by the Plum Daoist." While it would seem an entirely appropriate phrase for Cho Hŭi-ryong, Meidaoren is in fact a hao, or sobriquet, of the renowned fourteenth-century Chinese ink plum painter Wu Zhen (1280-1354). Thus, these four characters are not a signature of Cho Hŭi-ryong; rather, they indicate that in painting this album leaf, Cho imitated the style of Wu Zhen. The rugged, expressive brushwork, however, not only marks the painting as a nineteenth-century work, but distinguishes it from paintings done in earlier centuries, which typically would have attempted a more naturalistic depiction using more delicate and descriptive brushwork.