Heirpetal Journal

In Korean art, a crane is rarely just a bird. It stands for a long life, a clean mind and a message from somewhere higher. You find it on palace screens, on the chests of court officials and, every winter, in the rice fields near the border, where real cranes still arrive by the hundreds. One of the ten symbols of long life Korea has a set of images called sipjangsaeng (십장생), the ten symbols of longevity. The most common list is the sun, clouds, mountains, water, rocks, pine trees, deer, cranes, turtles and the mushroom of immortality, called bulrocho or yeongji . Lists vary a little; some swap in bamboo or peaches. Painted together on large folding screens, these ten things made a whole landscape of wishes for health and long years. Within that set, the crane has a special place. It was thought to live for a very long time, and it was often described as a messenger between heaven and earth, which is why it is usually shown flying through clouds or standing near pine trees an...

There is an old story about a fish that refuses to stay where it was born. Every year, it is said, carp swim up the Yellow River against the current until they reach a roaring stretch of rapids called the Dragon Gate. Most are swept back. The few that leap the falls are transformed into dragons. From a river legend to an exam The legend comes from China, where the Dragon Gate was tied to the mythical flood-tamer Yu, and it soon became a picture of one particular kind of success: passing the imperial civil service examinations. Those exams were famously hard, and passing them meant an official post and prestige for a family for generations. A carp jumping the falls became the standard image for a student who finally made it. Korea chose its officials by examination too. Under the Joseon dynasty the state exam was called gwageo , and the story came along with it. Korean still has an everyday word from it, deungyongmun (등용문), "climbing the dragon gate." It originally me...

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...