Heirpetal Journal

In Korea the peony has a title: the king of flowers. For centuries it stood for one wish above most others, bugwi (부귀), wealth and honor. You will find it on embroidered pillows, wedding chests and porcelain, and above all on folding screens taller than the people standing in front of them. A queen who read a painting The peony's best-known Korean story is about a painting. According to the Samguk Yusa , a 13th-century collection of histories and legends, Emperor Taizong of Tang sent Queen Seondeok of Silla peony seeds along with a picture of the flowers. The queen studied it and said the flowers would have no fragrance. When the seeds bloomed, she was proved right. Asked how she knew, she pointed out that the painting showed no butterflies. Many readers have taken the missing butterflies as a veiled jab at a ruler without a husband, and the queen's reply as a quiet win. (Real peonies, for the record, are often fragrant. The story is about reading a picture, not botany...

If you have ever seen a Korean painting of a tiger, there is a good chance it looked a little ridiculous. Wide eyes, a goofy grin, stripes that wander off in their own direction, and a small black-and-white bird sitting in a pine tree above it, apparently unafraid. That pairing has a name, and a long story behind it. Minhwa: paintings for ordinary homes The tiger-and-magpie picture belongs to minhwa , often translated as Korean folk painting. During the Joseon dynasty (1392–1897), minhwa were made for everyday households rather than palaces or scholars' studios. Most of the painters are anonymous. The pictures were meant to be used: hung for a holiday, pasted near a door, folded into a screen for a wedding. Their subjects were wishes people could name out loud: a long life, a good harvest, children, protection, good news. Kkachi horangi: the tiger, the magpie and the pine The genre is called kkachi horangi ("magpie and tiger") or jakhodo (호작도, "magpie and...