Grapevines

An enormous tangle of grapevines emerges at center left and trails up and away across the eight panels of this folding screen. The vines, depicted only in monochrome ink, are loaded with globular fruits and adorned with myriad spiraling tendrils. Although grapes lack the rich symbolic associations of the so-called Four Gentlemen (plum, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo), paintings of grapevines are nevertheless common in all East Asian cultures, beginning with artists active in China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279). Grapes and grapevines became a favored pictorial subject among Korean scholar-painters after the 1500s and remained popular throughout the Joseon dynasty.