UC Santa Barbara

Jeong Seon (1676–1759, 鄭歚, 정선), was one of the most prolific and inventive artists in Korean history. More than 300 of his paintings and a great deal of material written about him has enabled Korean art historians to study his work carefully in the past 20 years. His illustrations of nature after the site explorations spawned the so-called “true-view” art movement (jingyeong, 眞景, 진경) that dominated in the late Joseon period (ca. 1700–1850). Jeong’s approach was considered a shift away from traditional painting subjects. His appointment as the mayor of Cheongha in North Gyeongsang province in 1753 gave him opportunities to explore the famous scenic areas around the town. These paintings were collected in Album of Gyeongsang Province (yeongnamchup, 嶺南帖, 영남첩).

Jeong’s methods for simulating Korean landscapes have been the subject of much debate, but most of the discussion surrounding his work has been focused on the literature around him. For this reason, Jeong’s unique perspective style has yet to be clearly defined. Thus, after reading Kay Black’s exceptional paper on how to scientifically describe paint styles, I decided to define the true-view style.

This research presents clear answers about Jeong’s extraordinary perspective skill based on computer graphical analysis. Jeong’s paintings in Album of Gyeongsang Province were virtually reconstructed based on photographs and geographic data of the locations. The true-view landscape painting style utilized multiple distances, hemispheric distortion effect, morphological alteration, and constructing a linear narrative in painting. This dissertation explains how Jeong represented natural scenery using these techniques in his paintings. Finally, this research furthered the goal of our program to build bridges between art and science.