Chaekgeori, late 1800s, Korea

📝ONGO's Reflection

Chaekgeori is a painting that fills shelves with books, scholar's tools, and precious objects. A heart that held learning dear is stacked across the surface as books. I do not see this painting as merely a boast of wealth and erudition. It holds a wish to engrave in the household a mind that keeps books near and always seeks to learn. Owned objects scatter, but what is read and engraved remains within a person. What one will stack beside oneself is, in the end, the question of what one wishes to become.