Rock (竹方修石方貞)

An amateur scholar-painter born into a noble family, Jeong Hak-gyo became especially known for his monochrome ink paintings of strange rock formations. Unrivaled by his peers, he expertly depicted rocks that refer to natural stones collected and displayed in the gardens belonging to his fellow members of the elite literatus class. Yet they are unlike the more realistic renderings of eroded rock formations seen in the paintings of other Korean amateur scholar-painters. Rather Jeong’s forms are unnaturally elongated and feature crisply angular, crystalline surfaces. Traditional symbols of longevity and permanence in East Asia, oddly shaped rocks became a frequent theme in 19th-century Korea. Representations of such rocks rose in popularity during this period, perhaps in response to the unsettling internal royal court and foreign political intrigues that plagued much of the late Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). Jeong’s intentional use of deformation in his rock imagery—all the more apparent in this unusually austere example that lacks most of the subsidiary motifs of bamboo, orchid, or similar wild plants seen in his other paintings in this genre—thus seems to express a unique inner reflection by the artist of larger social forces undermining the authority of the last Joseon king. A diluted wash of pale green ink on the faceted surfaces of the rocks, however, tempers the otherwise overall somber sensibility of this refined subject.