Though premodern Korea represented one of the world’s longest continuous civilizations, its art for many Americans remains overshadowed by that of China and Japan. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Beauty and Learning” — a modestly sized but ravishing exhibition — is the first in this country to focus on a unique genre of Korean art, the ch’aekkori folding screen.

The painted folding screen originated in China, where it eventually evolved into a highly carved and decorated form of furniture. As a painting genre, it reached its apex in Korea in the latter part of the Choson dynasty (1392–1910). The four remarkable screens in “Beauty and Learning” all belong to a style, popular from the late 18th through early 20th centuries, depicting collections of scholars’ paraphernalia. These ch’aekkori — the term translates as “books and things” — were, in effect, the first Korean still lifes, picturing in exquisite detail all the objects a scholar might possess (or a non-scholar might dream of acquiring): natural curios such as bits of coral and shells, flowers and fruits, vases and clocks — and, above all, books.

The bronze and porcelain vessels in these paintings are not contemporaneous (and more austere) Korean pieces but, rather, ornate Chinese pieces. The screens incorporate another foreign element, too: Western-style perspective and chiaroscuro, which appear almost nowhere else in Korean painting, and were probably absorbed indirectly through contact with China. Two of the ch’aekkorihave “trompe l’oeil” designs, with frontal images of bookcases filling their painted dimensions. One exceptionally sumptuous eight-panel screen, on loan from a private collection, features a vibrant background of deep cobalt blue behind each of its more than 40 “shelves.” In this 11-foot-wide screen, objects cluster in every compartment in various luminous shades of cool green, persimmon-red, and rust-brown. Meticulous details — stitchings on books, stylized dragons on vases, tiny tongs accompanying incense burners — impart an almost magical precision to each object; the thin, light ovals of the rims of vessels gleam with particular resolve among the darker tones. On one shelf sits a large wooden clock, its ample (and scrambled) Roman numerals attesting to the fashionableness, if not necessarily the utility, of Western accessories.

Even with a rudimentary sense of perspective, the painting’s spatial relationships seem awkward to the modern eye. The shelves angle in a confusing array of vanishing points. Cast shadows remain eerily nonexistent, and chiaroscuro is limited to a uniform, almost regimented darkening of the vertical partitions. None of this, however, detracts from the pictorial vitality of the painting, in which all the elements have the solidness of the reverently observed.

The installation includes some 20 real-life vases and accessories typical of those depicted in the screens, most of them Chinese pieces from the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). In one display case, a large inkstone and porcelain brush holder stand in for the “Four Friends of the Scholar” — brush, paper, ink, and inkstone — that appear in each of the four screens.

On loan from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a smaller trompe l’oeil screen with a brown background shows a more consistent use of linear perspective, as well as the intriguing illusion of drawer fronts filling the smaller compartments. The wall text explains that a peacock feather and segment of coral, placed together in one vase, symbolize career advancement. A third screen, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, represents the strange “floating” or “isolated” style of ch’aekkori; here, the usual objects appear separately against an open, featureless background, with only occasional overlappings and angles to suggest spatial depth. Without their bookcase support, the objects take on a decidedly abstracted, hieratic air. The last ch’aekkori, from the Metropolitan Museum’s own permanent collection, shows a fascinating combination of trompe l’oeil and floating styles, with items piled tightly atop small wooden tables and cabinets in each panel.

The installation also includes one modern work: a large, six-panel collage by paper and fiber artist Shin Young-ok that cleverly updates the genre. “Space of Yin-Yang” (2002) consists of antique printer trays applied over a painted pattern reminiscent of the compartments of ch’aekkori screens. Twisted, flowing strands of fabric, embedded in the painted background, add an organic delicacy to the geometric design.

The traditional screens in “Beauty and Learning” suggest one other aspect of Western painting: its materialistic impulses, as reflected in 17th-century Dutch still lifes and 18th-century British portraits of landed gentry. The ch’aekkori screens, however, alloy this possessive urge with aspirations to learn and to wonder. King Chongjo, ruler of Korea between 1776 and 1800, described his use for such screens with appealing modesty. Recalling what the great scholars said about the rewards of merely entering one’s study and touching the desk, he said, “Although I take pleasure in reading books, hard work keeps me from indulging in scholarly pursuits. I remember the words of the sages and look at this painting and enjoy myself. Isn’t this a wise thing to do?”

Astute advice, indeed, for workaholics, be they monarchs or museum-goers.

Until June 1 (1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd Street, 212-535-7710).