Sansu/Punggyeong 山水/風景

September 10 – November 27, 2026

Sansu/Punggyeong 山水/風景 brings together the landscape paintings held in the collection of the Coreana Museum of Art. Ranging from the lineage of Namjonghwa(Southern school of painting) in the late Joseon period to modern and contemporary work, the exhibition traces the shifting attitudes and modes of expression through which painters have looked at nature and carried it onto the picture plane.

In East Asian painting, sansu—mountain and water—was never merely a matter of reproducing the outward appearance of nature, but a form that embodied the painter’s spirit and ideals. To paint sansu was to contemplate nature, and through the painting one could experience wayu 臥遊, the reclining journey that invites the viewer to saunter across a landscape within the confines of a room. Punggyeong, meanwhile, belongs to a modern mode of seeing, in which an observer positioned in a particular place selects the world before them and composes it into a single scene. In Korean modern and contemporary painting the two concepts have constantly intersected with rather than displaced one another. Onto traditional brushwork and inherited views of nature were grafted the observation and sketching of actual scenery, Western perspective and color, the artist’s own memory and sensation; and with each accretion the modes of rendering nature shifted. The slash in the exhibition title binds the two terms together while holding open the distance that lies between them. 

The works of the twenty-five participating artists range from ideal realms envisioned in the mind and the symbolism borne by natural forms, through the observation and sketching of actual scenery, to landscapes reassembled out of the resonance of brush and ink and out of color. Together they disclose the many layers of vision through which Korean modern and contemporary painting has engaged with nature and translated it into visual form.

Artist

Kim Kichang, Kim Won, Kim Insoong, Kim Hyung-geun, No Soohyeon, Min Kyoungkap, Park Bongsoo, Park Seungmoo, Byeon Gwansik, Suh Seok, Son Eungsung, An Jungsik, Oh Taehagk, Lee Yootae, Lee Chongmoo, Lee Jongsang, Lee Cheoljoo, Lee Sangbeom, Lee Seoji Chang Woosoung, Jeong Sulwon, Ji Seongchae, Heo Geon, Heo Ryeon, Heo Baekryeon, Heo Hyung 

Opening Hours

Monday–Friday, 10:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.

※ Closed during the Chuseok holiday and on public holidays.
※ No opening event will be held.