Jo Hui-ryong (趙熙龍) excelled in the three arts of poetry, calligraphy, and painting. Most of his surviving works are of plum blossoms. He wrote in detail about his obsession with plum blossoms in his book of essays, Seogu mangnyeonnok (石友忘年錄). This masterful painting here extends across a multi-panel folding screen with the entire area covered by the curling branches of two different plum trees. Most folding screens feature individual scenes on each panel, but this is a fine example of a screen that is spanned entirely by a single image: in this case, a plum tree in blossom. The branches, twigs, and trunks curve and sprawl across the entire screen, rising upward like a soaring dragon and stretching out from side to side, all bursting with red and white plum flowers in full bloom. Most previous paintings of plum blossoms were ink washes (black ink), but by the late Joseon Dynasty, plum blossoms were being portrayed in brilliant colors in the manner of Qing paintings, highlighting their vibrant red and white flowers. In the postscript on the right of the screen, Jo Huiryong proudly states that his plum blossoms were not depicted according to a painting style borrowed from existing art theory, but in a calligraphic style, specifically the seal script and clerical script. He also wrote that the colorful points of the blossoms remind him of “the stars of the Milky Way,” and also of “beautiful butterflies being released in the famous Mount Luofu (羅浮山, a mountain in China).” With this comment, he is comparing the aesthetic zenith of attaining a state of perfect self-effacement with freely-fluttering butterflies.