Using black ink and yellow pigment, the Korean artist Yi Sang-Beom depicts a fisherman’s boat set in a misty winter landscape of gentle hills covered with blooming forsythia. One fisherman sits by a small fire at one end of the boat while the other contemplates the village on top of the hill. The yellow of the flowers announces the imminent arrival of spring and the overall composition conveys a quiet and serene atmosphere of a winter morning.

This painting is typical of the artist’s later style and displays a more personal and distinctive character. Rejecting the traditional practice of copying an ideal or existing scene, Yi opted for a more creative approach by composing his own vision of a Korean rural landscape. This mixture of traditional painting with concept of localism was innovative at the time.
The work also presents Yi’s signature brushstrokes where landscape forms are depicted by a series of short, hook-like strokes created by rapid, repeated movements of the brush, and dots of indistinct shape. Combining dark ink with light colours (probably a practice of Japanese influence), Yi made use of gradual shading to express a misty, delicate and lyrical landscape.
In his later years, he always chose to work in horizontal format to enhance the panoramic effect, with undulating hills as background and streams of water flowing in the foreground. In accordance with the Taoist philosophy of harmony between man and nature, Yi also incorporated man in its landscape both in a direct manner with the fishermen and in an indirect manner with the scattering of houses in the winter landscape.