王이 그린 蘭・竹의 의미와 기능 ―壬亂以前을 대상으로

Abstract

Several kings in the early Chosŏn period painted orchid and/or bamboo,using literati style of ink and brush, usually for giving to their faithful men. This study focuses on the political meaning, functions, and the actual power of these kings’ paintings, and also investigates the process in which the two botanical themes, orchid and bamboo, became the king’s political painting. Images of orchid and bamboo made by Chosŏn Kings, namely Sejong,Sŏngjong, Injong and Sŏnjo, were extolled as monarchic beneficialness which have real power to arouse men’s allegiance to the dynasty. A scholar,Kim Inhu, who received Injong’s bamboo painting performed a sincere service on the Injong’s deathday every year. A monk, Hujŏng, for whom Sŏnjo painted a bamboo painting showed his great loyalty at the risk of his life when Japanese invaded Korean peninsular in the late sixteenth century. This usage of bamboo and orchid image by the kings of the early Chosŏn period was deeply related to the cultural policy of the Mongol government,the Yuan dynasty. Bamboo painting during the Song dynasty was regarded as noble character cultivated often by Zen Buddhism, but the seemingly same painting under the Mongol empire was subtly changed into the imagery embodied by the virtue of social order in Confucian sense. The Yuan, non-chinese government, used the authentic culture of Bamboo painting, in need to enhance the social system of order and loyalty of people in China. The changed meaning of bamboo by the Yuan flowed into the late Goryŏ. In doing so, a Goryŏ government office installed a bamboo screen with a public notice informing that office workers ought to watch the bamboo screen for their righteous behaviors like bamboo image. The Yuan government also employed orchid painting to inculcate people into patriotism. Although orchid paintings originally appeared as a strong symbol for loyalty to the Song but against the Mongol invader, the Yuan took the symbol of the loyal spirit of the painting. The last emperor of the Yuan kept an orchid painting by a famous painter who obstinately resisted the Yuan,and gave the painting to his man expressing gratitude for the man’s loyalty to the emperor. This man came to Korea with the orchid painting, which imparted the emperor’s way of using orchid painting to Korean by the late Goryŏ. Yuan emperor’s political way of using the image of orchid and bamboo surely influenced on the Chosŏn Kings.