Korean colour painting

Korean painting has used colour from early on: the Goguryeo tomb murals are still strongly coloured, temple Buddhist paintings are known for their bright colours, and minhwa, folk painting, shows tigers, carp, peonies, and clouds in vivid colour. Mineral pigments, ground from stone into grains, have no binding power of their own and are mixed with animal glue to hold to the surface; the same pigment looks darker and more vivid when coarse, paler and brighter when fine. Minhwa painters made their own pigments from natural materials and painted on hanji. In 1998 the modern painter Chun Kyung-ja (1924–2015) gave 93 works, colour paintings and sketches among them, to the Seoul Museum of Art; they can be seen in the permanent Chun Kyung-ja Collection display at its Seosomun main building.

Look at the picture at an angle: find where the colour looks grainy or catches the light slightly, and compare it with the parts in ink.

Was this colour laid on in one coat, or built up layer by layer?

• Ink painting 수묵→Ink painting is built on shades of ink, with at most a light wash of colour over it.
• Hanji 한지→Minhwa was painted on hanji.