This ten-panel screen portrays a festive banquet in General Guo Ziyi’s palace. Men in the left half play boardgames and engage in other leisurely activities, while women tend to children. The stately patriach sits at the center, surrounded by his family and servants, enjoying a dance performance. Guo was a Chinese general who saved the Tang dynasty (618-907) from a series of internal rebellions and foreign invasions in the 700s.
In Korea, General Guo became an ideal for the elites not only for his military accomplishments and loyalty to the state but also for his large family, which included several sons who served in the military. The panel portrays a historic theme, but the painter used what would be considered a modern palette for the time. He employed the newly imported Prussian blue chemical pigment for the architecture and garden rocks, while also retaining traditional mineral pigments like azurite and malachite to render the mountains blue and green.
Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.
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