Study on Hyewon Sin Yun-bok’s Landscape Paintings with Focus on Kansong Art Museum Collection

Hyewon(蕙園) Sin Yun-bok(申潤福, 1758?-1817 or later) was a painter who exhibited excellent skills not only in his well-known genre paintings, but also in portraits, paintings of flowers, birds and furry animals, and landscape paintings. In particular, his landscape paintings, albeit the number of works which display his unique and innovative style, have not been comprehensively studied to date due to the popularity of his genre paintings or landscaping paintings by other artists of the same era. As such, this study was designed to closely analyze, examine, and re-evaluate his landscape paintings with a focus on the collection at Kansong Art Museum. Among Sin Yun-Bok’s landscape paintings, the Kansong collection was deemed appropriate for this study since it is highly likely that the works are his originals and the artistic quality is higher compared to his other landscape paintings. In terms of subjects and materials, these works are based on the classical Southern-school style literati landscape paintings, while in terms of structure, screen composition, mountain-drawing technique, and coloring, he was influenced by senior painters such as Jeong Seon, Sim Sa-jeong, Lee In-mun, and Kim Hong-do. Consequently, Sin Yun-bok’s landscape paintings embrace both the Southern-School style literati landscape paintings and the true-view style, intensively representing the landscape painting world of the late Joseon Dynasty. Under the influence of his senior painters, Sin Yun-bok established a unique and original landscape painting style that is characterized by simple brush strokes, bold omissions, and watercolor-style coloring. This became a constant inspiration to his contemporary and junior painters including Yun Je-hong, Kim Su-cheol, and Kim Chang-soo, serving as a stepping stone in the landscape painting world between the late to the end of the Joseon Dynasty and as a foundation for creating another unique painting style.