Musée Guimet Explores Korean Screen Painting of Painted Libraries

A new exhibition at the Musée Guimet in Paris presents Korean screen painting that depicts books and scholarly objects in trompe-l'œil fashion. The genre flourished on the Korean peninsula between the 18th and 20th centuries, when painted folding screens transformed into illusionistic libraries. The show invites visitors to discover this pictorial tradition through works that represent volumes and related objects painted on screens. By gathering these pieces, the museum highlights a form of Korean art that used visual deception to evoke the erudition and material culture of the period. The display spans roughly two centuries of production, from the 1700s to the 1900s. No further details on the number of works, lenders, or curators were provided in the source material.