Visualizing Korea

A royal letter to Cho On 趙溫 (1347-1417), a Merit Subject of 1388, 1392, 1398, and 1400, conferring a large fief in return for his involvement in the Coup of 1398. 1399.

This portrait was drawn amidst the Coup of 1454, in which he was involved as a leading conspirator.

A record of the oath sworn by Merit Subjects of 1392, 1398, and 1400 at a covenant held in 1404, reaffirming their mutual trust and allegiance to the throne.

From The Complete Works of Yi Sunsin 李文忠公全書, compiled under the auspices of King Chŏngjo in 1795.

A replica of an earlier portrait. The original possibly dates to the early fifteenth century.

Sin Yunbok 申潤福 (b. 1758). Selections from Hyewŏn chŏnsinch'ŏp 蕙園傳神帖. Circa 1805.

A pictorial map of Taegu.

A gathering of middle-ranking bureaucrats in the Board of Personnel and their superior.  There are ten entertainers (three are outside of this frame, preparing the delicacies to be served) for nine officials, because by convention the senior official was served by two entertainers.

An idealized depiction of P'yŏngyang.  According to pseudo-legendary accounts Kija 箕子, a sagacious nobleman from North China Plain in high antiquity, migrated with his retainers to the Korean peninsula and established the utopian state of Chosŏn 朝鮮.  The square-shaped fields within the outer city walls represent Kija's well-field system.

A rustic Neo-Confucian scholar and spiritual leader of the ruling Noron faction in the seventeenth-century Chosŏn court.

The fortified walls in the mountainous northern city of Anju in P'yŏngan province.

An influential nationalist-Confucian intellectual in the late nineteenth century.

A pictorial map of Chinju showing two urban settlements, one outside of the city walls and one within.

A medieval courtier-intellectual of provincial origin who is often credited with the introduction of Neo-Confucian ideas in the Korean peninsula.

Sŏngsi chŏndo 城市全圖, the whole painting.

A portrait of one of the most influential courtier-oligarchs in Korea at the turn of the eighteenth century.  A member of the illustrious Andong Kim descent group 安東金氏.

Sŏngsi chŏndo 城市全圖: close-up of the two-storey book shop.