Sun & Landscape

The sun in Korean art is a plain red disc — nothing more is needed. It shines, with a white moon, above five peaks and two waterfalls in the Irworobongdo screen that stood behind every Joseon king's throne, a painting of the cosmos in order. Older still, Goguryeo tomb murals of the fifth century put a three-legged crow inside the sun disc, an image of the sun's spirit that Korean designers still return to.

Landscape motifs — jagged rocks, layered mountains, rolling waves — come from the same cosmological vocabulary. Rocks and water are among the Ten Symbols of Long Life, and the base of every Joseon rank badge is a band of stylised waves and rocks on which the crane or tiger stands. On roof tiles and stone monuments the wave becomes a spiral scroll.

In Vol.04 the sun appears as a roundel and as a winged line drawing, and the landscape group includes a sunburst over mountains, two rock motifs and a wave-and-cloud roundel from a Joseon royal placenta-chamber stele. The sun roundel is also built into a half-drop tile.