Knowledge in Trompe-l'œil: Korea, 18th-20th Century

Whether royal, academic, or institutional, the library remains a treasure of knowledge and escapism. In late 18th-century Korea, during the Joseon Kingdom, King Jeongjo (reigned 1776-1800) found that contemplating a painting of a library was a way to remain symbolically surrounded by his books: a trompe-l'œil extending the spirit of the study, stimulating virtue, curiosity, and scholarly conversation. Jeongjo commissioned the painters of the Royal Academy to create the first trompe-l'œil library paintings, installed in his study or even behind his throne. Korean embassies in Beijing played a decisive role. Joseon envoys discovered Chinese treasure cabinets there, 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 fueled the inventiveness of Korean painters, who developed a unique use of perspective: chaekgeori.

This new art of books and objects quickly spread to palaces, aristocratic homes, and provincial households. Books, porcelains, archaistic bronzes, writing instruments, and objects from China, Japan, or the West accumulated in a skillfully mastered game of optical illusions. Far from European vanitas, these painted libraries do not refer to real collections, but to a cabinet of desires—what one aspires to possess one day. From the late 18th century onward, the book lost its scholarly value to become decorative; perspectives shattered, shapes became distorted, and fantastic animals appeared. The library moved away from reality to reach a universe halfway between surrealism, fauvism, and dreamscapes.

For the first time at the Musée Guimet, 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 18th-century painted scroll over five meters long presented for the first time—and reveals the diffusion of perspective codes through works from the Louvre and the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. It also demonstrates that Joseon Korea was the complete opposite of a "hermit kingdom," but rather an open, curious country in constant dialogue with the world.