Seoul Museum of Art holds ‘The Great Faces’ exhibition of Korean, Chinese and Japanese portrait artists. An exhibition of this scale is unprecedented in Korea, with ‘Self-Portrait of Yoon Doo Seo’ which is recognized as a masterpiece of the country’s portraits, and 36 other portraits of national treasure level, 57 portraits of Chinese nobilities including emperors and senior government officials by Chinese artists from the Han and Ming to Qing dynasties, and 10 portraits by Japanese artists which are first introduced in Korea. In addition, the exhibition also features dress, ornaments, furniture, metal craftworks to help viewers understand the background of and characters in portraits.

Exceptional advancement in portrait painting in Korea, China and Japan is attributable for its respect for ancetors and Confucius tradition of loyalty and filial piety. While portraits in the Western painting were developed for recording and appreciation purposes, portraits in these three countries were used for ancestor worshipping ceremonies. As such, subjects of portraits were also subject of worshipping such as saints, loyal servants and faithful wives, and the paintings not only captured realistic features of subjects, but expressed characters, disposition, dignity and other nature of the subject. As a result, portrait art of these three countries has reached a unique stage where distinctiveness and idealism of each of these three countries are in exquisite harmony with individual character of each subject. Despite common purpose and objective, portrait art of each of these three countries come to have distinctive features from different cultural background.
The exhibition provides a rare opportunity to have a glimpse of artistic and historic value of East Asian portrait pieces and also serves educational purpose to let viewers understand unique Oriental Confucius theory. Featured in the exhibition are such rarely displayed treasures as ‘Self Portrait of Yoon Doo Seo’, National Treasure No. 240, ‘Portrait of Choi Duk Ji’, Treasure No. 594, ‘Ki-sa-kye-chop’, Treasure No. 639. More magnificent Chinese portraits have various selections including portraits in official uniform, of a couple, and of a group of ancestors. For Japanese pieces, portraits of Daimyo of the Edo period owned by Fukuoka City Art Museum are put on display for the first time in Korea. They all present a rare opportunity to appreciate unique feature of portrait arts of the three countries.