Landscape with Fishermen (1600s): Art, History and Details

Landscape with Fishermen (1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Yi Bul-hae (Korean, active 1500s).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Clad in a straw rain poncho and wide-brimmed hat, a fisherman is seated in a small boat. Reeds sparkle on the far shoreline among dark, black rock forms that appear to float above the water. On the near shoreline are a pair of pines, a grove of bamboo or water reeds, and two withered deciduous trees from which moss hangs. This landscape painting, which emphasizes an intimate solitary moment through evoking various atmospheric elements—rain, evening light, and frosty air—was one of the main subjects of mid- and late 16th-century landscape paintings.

Object facts

• Title: Landscape with Fishermen
• Date: 1600s
• Creator attribution: Yi Bul-hae (Korean, active 1500s)
• Culture: Korea, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and slight color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 122.2 x 42.9 cm (48 1/8 x 16 7/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Korean Art
• Accession number: 2015.516

A detail from the museum

This landscape painting emphasizes an intimate solitary moment by evoking various atmospheric elements: rain, evening light, and frosty air.

Collection credit

Gift from the Collection of George Gund III

Further reading listed by the museum

• Masterpieces of the Early Joseon Dynasty [朝鮮前期國寳展]. Seoul: Hoam Gallery, 1996.
• Ahn, Hui-joon. "Trends of Korean Painting in the Middle Joseon Period [조선왕조 중기 회화의 제 양상]." Misul sahak yeongu (1997): 5–57.
• Cunningham, Michael R., Shinʼichi Miyajima, and Yūji Yamashita. Ink Paintings and Ash-Glazed Ceramics: Medieval Calligraphy, Painting, and Ceramic Art from Japan and Korea. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.