In the Korean art history book I’ve been reading (in English), I ran across the following painting. I don’t think I knew about this – it’s not just a painting, but a many-times-repeated symbol: it’s the image that goes behind the Joseon throne, and thus symbolizes the Joseon kings. Joseon was the dynasty of kings that ruled Korea for 600 years, ending in 1910 with the Japanese annexation.
Anyway, I did an image search for it and found many, many versions. But here’s the one that I saw in my book, that I liked enough to try to find.
It’s almost VanGoghish. It’s called: Sun, Moon and Five Peaks (일월오봉도 (日月五峰圖)). It’s overladen with symbolism.
