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Course: Art of Asia > Unit 3
Lesson 7: Joseon dynasty (1392–1897)- The Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
- Inheritance Document of Yi Seonggye, founder of the Joseon Dynasty
- Album of Poems on “Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers”
- Bongsa Joseon Changhwa Sigwon: Poems Exchanged by Joseon Officials and Ming Envoys
- Portrait of Sin Sukju
- Four Preaching Buddhas
- Sajeongjeon Edition of The Annotated Zizhi Tongjian
- White porcelain moon jars
- Moon jar
- Buncheong Jar with cloud and dragon design
- Blue-and-white Porcelain Jar with Plum, Bamboo, and Bird Design
- Yun Baek-ha, a calligraphic handscroll
- Kim Hongdo, album of genre paintings
- Yi Che-gwan, Portrait of a Confucian scholar
- Yun Du-seo, Portrait of Sim Deukgyeong
- Portrait of Kang Sehwang
- Yi Myeonggi and Kim Hongdo, Portrait of Seo Jiksu
- Portrait of Yi Chae
- Kim Jeonghui’s calligraphy of Kim Yugeun’s Autobiography of Mukso
- Chaekgeori-type screen
- Portrait of Yi Haeung, Regent Heungseon Daewongun
- Jar with tiger and magpie
- Gujangbok, a ceremonial robe symbolizing the king’s prestige
- Jeogui: the most formal ceremonial robe of the Joseon queens
- Jeong Sanggi, Dongguk Daejido (“Complete Map of the Eastern Country”)
- Cheonggu Gwanhaebang Chongdo, or “Map for the National Defense of Korea”
- Kim Jeongho, woodblocks of Daedongnyeojido (“Territorial Map of the Great East”)
- Royal palaces of Seoul
- Confucian scholar's house
- Nine Cloud Dream
- Conservation: Korean lacquer
- Dhratarastra, Guardian King of the East
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The Joseon dynasty (1392–1910)
The Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) was founded by the powerful Goryeo (918–1392) military commander Yi Seong-gye, who named it Joseon. Yi Seong-gye moved the capital to Hanyang (now Seoul), and allied himself with a group of reform-minded Confucian scholars, who reorganized Korean society using the teachings of Confucius as their guiding principles. These teachings emphasized order and peace based on the cultivation of harmonious interpersonal relationships and proper conduct.
The Joseon dynasty is often characterized as yangban society. Yangban, meaning "two orders," refers to the civil and military branches of officialdom, which governed the state according to the rules and regulations laid out in the national code. Appointments to government posts, the gateways to success, were achieve through state examinations. Men of the yangban class were privileged to receive certain types of higher education.
For the most part, the arts of the Joseon dynasty mirrored yangban tastes. Men of this class placed great emphasis on the qualities of restraint and unassuming simplicity. The types of painting most popular during this dynasty were portraits of high officials and ancestors, actual rather than imaginary landscapes, and genre paintings depicting the everyday life of ordinary people. From the mid–1700s onward, many painters took up some Western techniques of rending space and form. In contrast to the restrained yangban artwork, folk paintings produced for the masses were refreshingly creative in their use of bold colors and playful forms.
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it's the most famous dynasty for making movies.(6 votes)
Pop Quiz: Who was the greatest hero of Joseon, specifically the greatest military hero? (This is a must to know)(3 votes)
Why Joseon? Is it a Korean word for something, the name of a deity, a wordplay on his own name, ... ?(1 vote)
It means 朝鮮, or land of the morning calm(7 votes)
How powerful were the Yangban did they get special privileges from government?(1 vote)
The yangban formed the bureaucratic/noble class in Joeseon Korea. They held offices from minor rural administrators to serving in the royal court. They were well-paid and enjoyed a low tax.(3 votes)
- what exactly happened to the royal family after the empress was murdered(2 votes)
If you are wondering about what happened to the nation after the empress was murdered around the 1890s, it can be simply explained by saying that Japan colonized the country using unfair treaties and forced settlements.(1 vote)
- So Yi Seong-gye was both a military commander in Goryeo and its downfall?(2 votes)
How much land did the Joseon Dynasty have at its peak?(2 votes)- At its peak, Joseon had the land which is pretty much modern day Korean borders, if you count both Koreas.(1 vote)
Did Yi Seong-gye overthrow the Goryeo government, or was he asked to take over?(1 vote)- No, the king wanted him to attack China but he decided not to because the chances of him winning weren't so hot. He instead just started a rebellion and then made himself king.(1 vote)
Who is Goryeo in the first paragraph?(1 vote)
Goryeo (고려; 高麗; [ko.ɾjʌ]; 918–1392), also spelled as Koryŏ, was a Korean kingdom established in 918 by King Taejo. This kingdom later gave name to the modern exonym "Korea"(1 vote)
- I know that during the Joseon Dynasty, everyone was focused on Confucian scholars and Buddhism was shunned upon, but was there a time during the Joseon Dynasty where Buddhism was accepted again?(1 vote)
- An increasing number of recent scholars have challenged the narrative of Korean Buddhism as persecuted, isolated, and debased under the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910). These scholars have revealed the continued support from both the state and Confucian aristocrats afforded to Buddhism; the friendship between yangbans and monastics; and the recognition of monastics’ role in Chosŏn society. While these insights provide a welcome nuance to a consideration of the period, it should be also recognized that the anti-Buddhist paradigm was a pervasive norm at the state and local levels throughout the Chosŏn era. The perception that Buddhism was heretical and that monastics were socially inferior was so deeply ingrained in the minds of aristocrats and the populace for so long that monastics developed a sense of collective trauma. This article revisits the vicissitudes of Chosŏn Buddhism by considering an incident that took place in the 1930s in colonial Korea. This case will help scholars of Korean history and Buddhism understand how colonial-period monastics acted from the trauma of the anti-Buddhist paradigm of the Chosŏn dynasty. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/671785(1 vote)