In late Joseon period Southern school-style literati landscape paintings a group of standardized pattern-like images become omnipresent. These images, which can be any objects, are repeatedly imitated in various paintings. Another unique characteristic of these images is the fact that they denote separate themes or contexts in various paintings even though they share nearly identical figurative features. The purpose of this study is to reveal the inner meaning system that enabled the repetition and polysemy of these pattern-like images. One hypothesis is that this phenomenon was influenced by the act of imitating Painting manuals,Huapu, imported from China. By proving this, the study attempts to understand how imitating painting manuals burgeoned creation, and also what kind of art form Southern school literati painting has. In Joseon, painting manuals were perceived as a canon, containing the artistic spirit of the late masters, which should be followed in order to practice theories of Southern school-style literary painting. By categorizing images according to individual properties, painting manuals provided a range of options to choose when an artist needed a certain image, enabling identical images to be used in various paintings. Moreover, this method of approach is similar to the way people categorize and systematize knowledge and information. This implies Southern school literati painting’s art form is close to method of learning in general. In brief, mastering the images (and also the categorizing system) of painting manuals and arranging them in a new original way could be understood as how creation was formed in Southern school-style literati landscape paintings.