Unity (Ten-Panel Folding Screen)

by Young Yang Chung

Korean 1960s

429.2cm(w) x 198.5cm(l)

Gracefully swimming fish, symbolizing wealth, abundance, and union, have remained a popular motif in East Asian painting and decorative art for millennia. Young Yang Chung received the commission for this piece in the 1960s from the South Korean government, which at the time sought to express its desire for the unification of Korean peoples through the visual arts. Chung chose to depict a school of fish to express the idea of togetherness. The weeds the fish are swimming through are stitched in the outline technique leaving the tail as part of the pattern. Each element of the feathery water weed is composed of a series of outline stitches, or a variation of the outline stitch, in which wispy “tails” are created for a realistic effect.