The dignitary is represented here in a three-fourths frontal view against a deliberately abstract background. The strong presence of this figure is heightened by the intensity of his gaze, his hieratic countenance, and the gravity of a face marked by experience and age. Modelling and painted shadows are applied with accuracy, thus giving the illusionism and precision of a photograph. He is wearing the traditional costume of the late Choson period: an ample and bright robe held at the waist by a light blue belt, and a black horsehair bonnet with flaps. This shape and its emblematic character derive from the Chinese Tang (618-907) model and characterise the Yi Dynasty class of literati officials, converted to the neo-Confucian ideal. The calligraphy, in the upper right of the composition, presents this seventy year-old high dignitary under his pseudonym: “P’ung eun”.
Here Yi Han-Chol, a professional painter and Academy member, achieved a work of the utmost intensity, amazing by the calm and humanism it radiates. The artist, with great sensibility and virtuosity, was able to grasp the truth of a mature man, and render the moral rigour of the intellectuals prevailing at the time, in this “Hermit Kingdom” voluntarily cut off from the world.
This work, dated 1845, shows the maturity of this painter already a full master of his art; he then began a career at Court, painting the last sovereigns of the Yi Dynasty. This extremely important picture symbolises the harmonious union of the psychological portrait inherent to the lettered circles and the illusionism inherent to Western art introduced in Korea through China.
