A Long, Long Time Ago

In recent decades, Kim Daewon has made the tiger his signature motif. Kim taps into the tiger’s talismanic significance in Korean folk beliefs, placing the animal in the upper half of this painting as a guardian of the village below, its small houses surrounded by flowers and vegetation. The title of this work, A Long, Long Time Ago, refers to the standard introductory phrase in traditional Korean folktales.

The tiger is featured not only in the foundation myths of Korea but also in many Korean parables. Around the second century the tiger began to be seen in Korea as a symbol of the cardinal direction west. In Korean paintings of later times, the tiger was a symbol to expel evil spirits. It was sometimes depicted as the companion and messenger of an old man representing a mountain spirit. In the latter part of the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), tigers were sometimes accompanied by magpies in paintings, such as the one on view next to this one, or on the surface designs of ceramics, such as the vessel on view in the nearby case.