Royal, academic or museum, the library remains a treasure of knowledge and escape. At the end of the 18th century in Korea, in the Joseon kingdom, King Jeongjo (r. 1776-1800) found in contemplating a library painting a way to remain symbolically surrounded by his books: a trompe-l’œil extending the spirit of the study, stimulating virtue, curiosity and learned conversation. Jeongjo then entrusted painters of the Royal Academy with creating the first trompe-l’œil library paintings, installed in his study or even behind his throne. Korean embassies in Beijing then played a decisive role. Joseon envoys discovered Chinese treasure cabinets, as well as the Jesuit art of perspective, disseminated at the Qing court and in the churches of the imperial capital by European artists. The alliance between Chinese scholarly accumulation and European expertise in trompe-l’œil fed the inventiveness of Korean painters, who developed a singular use of perspective, the chaekgeori.
Quickly, this new art of the book and of objects spread through palaces, aristocratic residences and provincial homes. Books, porcelains, archaizing bronzes, writing instruments and objects from China, Japan or the West accumulated in a masterfully controlled play of optical illusions. Far from European vanitas, these painted libraries do not refer to real collections, but to a cabinet of desires, to what one aspires to possess someday. From the end of the 18th century, the book lost its scholarly value to become decorative; perspectives broke, forms distorted, fantastic animals appeared. The library moved away from reality to join a universe halfway between surrealism, fauvism and dreaminess.
For the first time at the Guimet Museum, an exhibition restores this pictorial movement to its central place, far from the folkloric or purely decorative image too often associated with it. It weaves links between Jesuit art and Korean art, shows the impact of Korean embassies at the Chinese court, notably through an exceptional painted scroll of over five metres from the 18th century presented for the first time, and reveals the dissemination of the codes of perspective thanks to works from the Louvre and the Asian Civilisation Museum in Singapore. It also demonstrates that Joseon Korea was the exact opposite of a "hermit kingdom" but an open, curious country, in constant dialogue with the world.