The Arts Market of Seoul in the 1800s

2016. 7. 29 FRI___ 10. 16 SUN

The Cheonggyecheon Museum is hosting its second special exhibition of 2016, “The Arts Market of Seoul in the 1800s.”

This is a story about the arts market in Cheonggyecheon Stream’s Gwangtonggyo Bridge area, where paintings and

calligraphy works were bought and sold. This area was the busiest neighborhood of Hanyang(Seoul) during the

Joseon period. These works, once exclusively enjoyed by yangban, the gentry class, became widely consumed by

other classes due to an overall growth in affluence via commercial prosperity. Anyone with money could now purchase them.

Paintings and calligraphy works now adorned not only the studies of the yangban, but also commoners’ houses.

These changes reflected the socioeconomic changes that were transforming cities at the time, including population increase,

development of commerce and industry, and the gradual collapse of the class system. By tracing the history of paintings

from the yangban study to the market, then to the houses of the common people, this exhibition will present the urban change

during the late Joseon period.