Ars Animalis | Myojakdo

Korean painter Byeon Sang-byeok depicted cats and birds with amazing detail

[Animals were there at the beginning of art. But how did we get from Chauvet to "Dogs Playing Poker" and beyond? That's one of the questions 13.7 will be asking with this month's series, "Ars Animalis"—art of the animals.]

Eighteenth-century Korean painter Byeon Sang-byeok was so good at depicting cats and birds that he earned the nicknames "Byeon goyangi" ("Byeon cat") and "Byeon dak" ("Byeon rooster").

This work, Myojakdo (literally, "Painting of Cats and Sparrows"), an ink and wash painting ("sumukhwa") on silk, is considered to be a prime example of "yeongmohwa," a Korean genre painting of birds with other animals.

The title of the work combines the words for cat ("myo") and sparrow ("jak"). "Myo" is similar to the Han Chinese word "mo" ("old person," between 80-90 years old), while "jak" is similar to the Han Chinese word for "magpie," which is considered an auspicious bird in Korean culture. Consequently, cats and sparrows were common subjects in Korean paintings to symbolize longevity and good fortune.

Painted around 1730, during the Joseon Dynasty, Myojakdo has been praised not only for its exquisite detail, but also for its simple yet dynamic composition, which exudes a powerful sense of movement. It is housed at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.

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image: Myojakdo (~1730, during the Joseon Dynasty), by Byeon Sangbyeok, (Wikimedia Commons)