This book explains the principles underlying traditional East Asian paintings and provides a roadmap for better understanding those artworks. In the East, men of letters were the main producers and consumers of art; they equated paintings with poems that had to be deciphered. The author relies on his training as an anatomist and his extensive knowledge of Chinese classics to identify and classify recurrent subject matters and to extract their respective meanings. He translates these --objects into a lexicon that can be used to communicate specific messages. 책의 제목 「동양화 읽는 법」에서의 ‘동양화’는 중국, 한국, 일본을 관통하는 ‘동양의 그림’ 혹은 ‘동양그림’을 의미하며, 시기적으로는 동양 3국에서 1910년대까지 그려진 그림을 주대상으로 한다. 한중일 동양 3국에서 1910년대까지 그려진 그림은 모두 의미를 담고 있는데, 그 의미를 글자로 바꾸어 ‘읽어서 감상하는 방법’이 있었다. 이 책은 이에 대해 소개하기 위해 쓰였다. 책을 읽으며 평소 동양화를 접하며 가졌던 의문들, 즉 ‘백로는 왜 한 마리만 그리나?’ ‘학은 어째서 파도치는 바닷가에 그리나?’ ‘모란꽃에는 왜 나비를 그리지 않나?’ ‘게는 왜 갈대꽃을 물고 있나?’ ‘쏘가리는 두 마리를 그리면 모반죄라는데…’ 등에 대한 해답을 얻을 수 있다. 먼저 실례의 도판과 캡션을 읽고 그림이 가진 뜻의 대강을 알아낸 후, 여기 해당하는 본문을 읽어 더 상세한 지식을 얻을 수 있도록 구성하였고, 평소 접했던 동양그림에 그려진 소재에 대하여 궁금한 경우는 색인을 통해 찾아볼 수 있다.있었다. 이 책은 이에 대해 소개하기 위해 쓰였다.

Preface....v Introduction....viii Chapter 1: Questions That Cross Our Minds as We View Eastern Paintings Irrational details....3 Paintings with the same format....7 Events that did not take place in the real world....13 Art is a cultural compact....17 Appreciation of Eastern art should begin with an Eastern approach...18 Eastern paintings are for reading....19 A lone heron on a pond with a withered lotus is a typical example of art-reading....25 The forgotten principles of art-reading....29 Chapter 2: Homophony-based Reading Distortion of the magpie and the tiger....37 It should be a pine tree, a magpie, and a leopard in the painting....37 Countless examples equating homophony with synonymy....38 Mere homophony is sufficient....39 A trend especially pronounced in ideogram systems like the Eastern culture....42 Why pair the crab with reeds?....42 Two crabs holding reed flowers in their mouths....45 White deer paired with Chinese juniper....49 Spelling longevity (壽) with a Chinese juniper....51 Writing longevity (壽) in 16 different ways....51 The reason for pairing the bamboo with rocks....53 So long as we are drawing a bamboo, let us draw a Phyllostachys edulis....55 What is an autumn cricket doing on a summer orchid?....57 The creepy bat signifies fortune....59 Reeds and wild geese symbolize a comfortable old age....61 Cat paintings congratulate someone who just turned 70....63 Cat-and-butterfly pairings....65 A cat next to chrysanthemums....67 Owl paintings with the same congratulatory meaning....69 The ingrained belief in the power of language or letters....71 The act of sedition by National Academy (成均館) students under King Sejo....73 Bookcase paintings in the study....75 Chapter 3: Allegorical Reading The winter bird mandarin duck on a pond in July....85 The contents of the Five Blessings, revised in Tang China....87 Guo Ziyi and his many descendants....87 Pomegranate paintings denote a wish for many sons....89 Peony paintings stand for wealth and nobility....91 The Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms is responsible for the mistaken belief that peonies are odorless....93 Peonies were painted without butterflies as early as the Tang Dynasty....95 Queen Seondeok was unaware of the principles of art-reading....97 The iconography of Hanafuda....101 Pairings of peonies and a rooster....109 Peonies with a vase....109 A pine tree, bamboo, and a pair of white-headed birds....111 Peonies and plum blossoms do not bloom at the same time....113 Crane paintings....117 A crane with a pine tree....119 A crane by the rolling sea....121 The pine and the lingzhi mushroom....123 The lingzhi mushroom means, ‘to have one’s wish realized’....123 Most paintings of vessels with cut branches (器皿折枝圖) express a wish for happiness in this life....125 The rose is a symbol of youth....127 The peach should be painted green....129 Donfang Shuo (東方朔) of the three thousand jia and the peach....131 It is incorrect to draw Dongfang Shuo as a grizzled old man holding a peach....133 The ugly black crested myna denotes filial piety....137 Goldfish paintings convey the message, ‘May gold and jade fill your home!’....139 Lotus paintings encourage a thrifty lifestyle....141 Chrysanthemum paintings symbolize longevity....143 It is wrong to pair the chrysanthemum with multiflora rose hips....145 Seeking meaning in --objects is a cognitive attribute specific to humans....145 Finding meaning in the shape or biology....147 Art-reading principles may sometimes restrict artistic expression....149 Minnows and duckweed....151 Why draw the carp in twos?....155 Minnows, duckweed, carp, water pepper, lotuses, mandarin ducks, wild geese, and reeds....157 Chapter 4: Reading Art by Invoking Classical Quotes or Anecdotes Pictures were also used in the pursuit of spiritual values....163 The moral of The Three Hibernal Friends concerns the society of good friends....165 Flowers from all four seasons in the same painting....167 Even paintings of foot-bathing mean something....169 If the water of the Canglang is clean....169 The reason scholars adopted the character 滄 in their pen names....171 The Four Books and the Three Classics at work even in palatial architecture....173 The patterns shaped like the calyx of a persimmon were inspired by the Classic of Poetry (詩經)....177 Paintings of three fish belong in the study....177 Qi Baishi’s message in his painting of three fish....179 Paintings of nine fish....181 “Long live the homeland” (江山萬代)....183 Nine quails....187 Quails stand for comfort and peace....187 Fish idling about....189 Nine herons....191 The foremost consideration(s)....192 Art criticism in the East....193 The Four Grades....195 A boy pointing at a mountain shrouded in clouds....199 Scene of an old man fishing....201 Painting of a middle-aged man fishing....203 The Eight Anecdotes....205 Ear Bath in the Yingchuan....205 Painting of four old men playing Go....207 Sailboat against an autumnal backdrop....209 Staring at Nanshan leaning against a pine tree....211 Pointing at wild geese in flight....211 Admiring a waterfall....213 Standing on a bridge on a donkey’s back as a blizzard howls....215 With the plum blossom as wife, and the crane as son....217 Painting as another medium depicting the ideals of Eastern scholars....219 Chapter 5: How To Appreciate Contemporary Korean Art How to appreciate contemporary Korean art....223 Eastern art and Western art are fundamentally different....224 Western artists paint as they see, whereas Eastern artists recorded what was....225 Art criticism in the East versus the West....227 Paintings that are read do not exist in Europe....227 What every Korean artist longs for....228 The factors that have landed Korean painting in its current quandary....238 The fundamental problem of Eastern art in Korea-a dead end....245 Twenty years later: The artistic community in Korea today....246 Five requisites for the establishment of Korean art....247 Bibliography....250 Index....252