Landforms in Old Landscape Paintings of Jeju Island, Korea, and Their Implications of Geomorphological Perception

Jeju Island Governor Lee Iktae produced a folding screen decorated with landscape art after carrying out two official inspection tours across the island in 1695. He selected ten geomorphosites for a series of pictures named Ten Scenic Views of Jeju. It was composed of six scenic beauties and four fortresses. The representative images of geomorphological landscapes in Jeju Island, which had been shared as a collective representation by Jeju natives, were firstly externalized through his pictures. And they have long been handed down and established as a kind of stereotype for geo-landscapes of Jeju Island. They have been consequently considered the first collection of outstanding landforms in Jeju Island because even the four pictures of fortresses also exhibit various landforms around a castle. The landforms in the paintings could be largely classified into volcanic, fluvial, coastal, and weathering, respectively. Volcanic edifices appear most frequently, reflecting particular emotions of Jeju natives toward sacred Mount Halla and over three hundred monogenetic volcanoes, referred to as Oreum in Jeju dialect, which have created a prototype landscape of Jeju Island. Lava tubes were also regarded as an intriguing feature but underestimated due to their dark and frightening images. Fluvial landforms were not highly evaluated since Jeju rivers are not perennial owing to the high permeability of basaltic drainage basins. However, three famous waterfalls in the southern area were depicted in four pictures, implying there are scarce freshwater-friendly spaces. Rocky coastal landforms, such as a vertical cliff with columnar joints and caves and a sea stack, were not also properly appraised due to their difficult access and limited viewpoints. The evaluation criteria vary with the times so that ecologically important landforms, including a coastal dune or a wetland, do not appear except a summit crater lake which symbolizes Mount Halla. Since the viewpoints of a mainlander, the governor, as well as Jeju natives were simultaneously projected on the old paintings, Ten Scenic Views of Jeju is a historical document for analyzing the ancestor's perception on geomorphological landscapes of Jeju Island.