*글 하단에서 한국어 텍스트를 확인할 수 있습니다.
1.
At organizing this special exhibition for Gallery Hyundai’s 50th anniversary, it took five advisory members and multiple rounds of discussions to reach agreement on an exhibition of figure paintings that would best demonstrate the trajectories of Korean modern and contemporary art.
Figure paintings were on the rise as a genre during a transition from the traditional to modern society. James Cahill(1926-2014) writes in The History of Chinese Painting that East Asian(Chinese) painting was dominated by ink wash landscapes since 1000 B.C. until the 19th century, and that it was replaced by figure paintings only at the onset of the 20th century. The history of Korean painting has also seen a similar development.
Traditional paintings, of course, also include a genre of figure painting. Portraiture would of course comprise its own category while genre paintings, paintings of Taoist hermits and those with figures within ink wash landscapes all adhere to the category of figure paintings. Figure paintings in modern art, however, takes significantly different contents and forms. First of all, they foreground the figure in itself. Works depicting and closing up on an unspecific individual such as a country girl and a sitting woman, reflecting the melody of life and lyricism of human emotions. This entails a clear sense of thematizing human values — which is why this exhibition is entitled Portrait, Figure and People.
Thoughts vary on the exact point where modern society emerges in Korea, and on the conceptions of its modernity. In art also, it is difficult to pinpoint one decisive moment. Yet, the indisputable fact remains that Korean modern art emerged with the influx of Western paintings, a change that was well underway at the start of the 1920s, a century ago from now.
Western paintings inevitably are accompanied with the arrival of other Western goods and cultures known at the time as “Western style” or “New style,” including transportations, communications, newspapers, clothes, buildings, educations and social institutions. Similar to these fields, Western paintings as foreign cultures came as a huge cultural shock for the public.
For instance, Maeil Sinbo reports on March 11th, 1915 concerning Ko Huidong’s return as the first from Joseon to study Western painting at Tokyo University of the Arts, under the headline The first Western painter: “It demonstrates major differences from Eastern paintings, from techniques of drawing to base material and coloring… This is painted by oily and thick pigments…”
As such, Western paintings were alien not only in material and technique but in theme or subject matter. Figure paintings provided a key example of this digression. Landscapes in Western paintings aligned with ink wash landscapes, flower bird paintings or plants and vase paintings may have prepared for embracing still life, but figure paintings were something entirely different. Especially the admiration of human bodies in nudes appeared utterly outrageous.
When Kim Kwanho majored in Western painting and graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts then proudly received Special Selection at the Ministry of Education Art Exhibition, a context exhibition organized by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Maeil Sinbo spotlighted the event delivered as breaking news from Yi Kwang-su(李光洙, 1892-1950) in Tokyo:
“Oh, Special Selection! Special Selection is equivalent of the first place at state examinations in the art world… we are so very proud of you, Mr. Kim!” Despite the excited review, the paper also asked forgiveness for not publishing the actual painting “because it is unclothed.”
These experiences of Western painting constituted the early stages of Korean modern painting. So we wanted to open the exhibition with Kim Kwanho’s Sunset (1916), and thankfully at the generosity of Tokyo University of the Arts are able to showcase these “two naked women bathing on the coast of Taedonggang River, rendered in oily and thick pigments” from the early moment of modern paintings.
2.
As such, developments in early Korean modern art embarked from the indirect influence of Western paintings through Japan, an inevitable effect of Western colonial powers. In the process, Tokyo University of the Arts produced Western painters from Joseon, 43 in total until the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945, all of whom eventually played a major role in Korean modern art.
Fine arts education at the time tended towards Academic Realism or Japanized Impressionism, styles that formed the government school around the Ministry of Education Art Exhibition in Japan and were in turn transferred to Korea’s mainstream modern art practices. Not many paintings survived, but some from self-portraiture for graduation assignments at Tokyo University of the Arts have remained part of its collection — we at this exhibition are indeed proud and grateful to have those from five Joseon students who were studying abroad at the university: Ko Huidong, Kim Kwanho, Lee Chongwoo, Oh Jiho and Kim Yongjun.
In 1919, the March 1st Movement led to the New Culture Movement permeating every aspect of society, gradually forming infrastructures for the art world by the 1920s. Traditional artists of painting and calligraphy formed the Society of Painters and Calligraphers and opened exhibitions under its name that saw great success. To suppress these mobilizations of the Korean people, The Japanese Governor-General of Korea created the Joseon Art Exhibition taking after the format of Japan’s Ministry of Education Art Exhibition with mass channeling financial and bureaucratic supports so that Korean modern art movements would center around the new venue. Early stars of the Joseon Art Exhibition include Na Hye-sok and Gim Jong-tae(金鍾泰, 1906-1935).
On the other hand, academia in the 1920s saw the rise of socialist and nationalist movements striving to overcome the reality of colonial rule. Socialist inclinations waned after a bout of Japanese oppression in the 30s, leaving only the nationalist aspect that would transform into vernacular lyricism resisting styles of Japanese paintings. Representative pieces include Oh Jiho’s Portrait of Wife(1936), Park Sangok’s Standing Boy (1936), Pai Unsoung’s A Big Family (1930-35), Seo Jin Dal’s Standing Female Nude (1934), and a work from a later period, Shim Hyungkoo’s Woman (1959).
By the mid-1930s, the artists with high caliber, like Lee Insung demonstrated the animated, Fauvist brushwork in One Autumn Day (1934), Self-Portrait with White Hat (1940s), and Child (1940s). Kim Insoong left numerous masterpieces based on Classical Realism, illustrated most clearly in Wearing Makeup after Bathing (1955) and Girl with Pottery (1955).
3.
In the early 1940s, the last years of Japanese occupation, Korea was introduced to Modernism as heralded by the magazine Munjang. Artists like Kim Whanki and Lee Jung Seob made their debut with the blessing of this art movement, but the arrival of the Pacific War and Japanization policies saw many of them mobilized for war. Following the liberation of Korea from Japan in 1945 and the establishment of South Korean government in 1948, yet another tragedy would strike in 1950 with the Korean War that left the country in ruins after the ceasefire agreement of July 1953.
The liberation from Japan and the Korean War marked watershed moments in the epoch between modern and contemporary Korean society. Their gravity makes the scantiness of artistic reactions nothing short of astonishing. Debates on art in post-liberation Korea escalated to great intensities and the psychological, social torments of soldier or refugee artists must have been immeasurable — but few works exist that narrate these complexities. This would suggest the extent of loss and damage of war and division on the history of Korean people.
Amidst the lack, Lee Quede’s Crowd (1948), Korean immigrant in the Soviet Union Pen Varlen’s Girl in a Sunny Spot (1953) that was created in North Korea, as well as Lee Jung Seob’s Family and Dove (ca.1954) and Family on the Road (1954) provide an indirect view of their time. While these works do not directly reflect reality, the essential function of figure painting that figures moments of our lives and the emergence of sentiments from within can be celebrated as one of the major achievements of Korean modern and contemporary art.
At its return to daily life after the Korean War in a now depredated country, the art world organized itself into two main branches. One was the authoritarianism of the National Art Exhibition that inherited the Joseon Art Exhibition, and the other was the academism centered around fine arts universities. The merging of these two currents established the predominance of government school styles that had been passed on since days of the Joseon Art Exhibition.
The National Art Exhibition was consisted of two sections: Eastern(Korean) and Western(oil) paintings, and the latter was dominated by figure paintings. Chang Reesouk’s Old Real Estate Broker (1958), Park Yong-seun’s Model (1957), Lee Bongsang’s Woman In Nude (1955), Yim Jiksoon’s Woman (1961), Park Hangsup’s Autumn (1959), Kwon Okyon’s From Ruins (1951) and Choi Youngrim’s Heart of Child, Heart of Spring (1970) are characteristic of these trends. Sitting women, in particular, emerged as a favorite subject matter for artists who received the Presidential Award.
Authoritarianism, however, also created side effects including corruption, leading to the formation of the Anti-National Art Exhibition group and the separation of some artists from the National Art Exhibition who pursued their own practice. Kim Whanki’s Jars and Women (1951), Chang Ucchin’s Mosquito Net (1956), Park Soo-Keun’s By the Roadside (1954), and Kim Sou’s Two Friends (1957) may not represent the mainstream of their time, and yet ironically would be appraised by art history as a key accomplishment of the era.
Turning our attention to the Eastern Painting section, the activities of six major artists of Korean painting including Lee Sangbeom(李象範, Pen name: Cheongjeon(靑田), 1897-1972) and Byeon Gwansik(卞寬植, Pen name: Sojeong(小亭), 1899-1976), most of which consisted of ink wash landscapes. Kim Eunho demonstrated his excellence at figure painting but his subject matter does not reach beyond Taoist hermits or beautiful women, making it hard to locate him generally in the progress of figure painting. The lineage of this genre survived through artists who recognized and materialized it, as seen in masterpieces such as Lee Ungno’s View of Street (1946), Working People (1954), Kim Kichang’s Barley Threshing (1956), and Chun Kyungja’s At the Cotton Field (1954) and Tango Flowing at Dusk (1978).
4.
With the rise of the Contemporary Art Movement in 1957, Korean art transitioned into a confrontation between the National Art Exhibition group and championing Abstract Art group, and the National Art Exhibition eventually subdivided into figurative and non-figurative(abstract) sections. These two trends would come to form twin currents in Korean contemporary art.
Onset of the 1970s sees the era of commercial galleries starting with the opening of Gallery Hyundai. The upper-middle class appeared in Korea at this time, symbolized by the construction of luxury mansion-style apartments, and formed a new demand for art. Galleries that numbered a mere three or four in the early 1970s in Seoul would jump to fifty at the end of the decade.
Meanwhile, emerging artists who graduated from fine arts universities founded en masse after the liberation of Korea from Japan resulted in the growth in the number of practicing artists as well — the increasing frequency of their solo and group exhibitions demanded the creation of rental venues that formed a gallery district in Insa-dong, Seoul. One may call this the first art boom in Korean society.
Under these circumstances, democratization movements against military dictatorship of the 80s were accompanied by Realist art movements. Spearheaded by the Reality and Utterance coterie, the Realist movement expanded into the Minjung art movement at the formation of the Korean People's Artists Association. Its members resisted both commercialism and abstract art’s unconditional emulation of Western art trends, instead aspiring to a living art not alienated from reality. The establishment labelled their art Activist(anti-dictatorship) art to ignore and underestimate it as a movement outside the boundaries of art — yet, history would later celebrate Minjung art as a style particular to Korean contemporary history, symbolically associated with the 80s democratization movements. It especially came under spotlight abroad, marking its new bearings within and outside Korea.
This does not imply, however, that figure painting in the 80s was monopolized by artists of Minjung art inclinations. Lee Man-ik’s Jeongeupsa (1976), Kang Yeongyun’s Market People (1989). Hwang Youngsung’s Winter Family (1985), Ryoo Byungyup’s Morning at Gwanghwamun Gate (1987-2009), Kwun Sun-Cheol’s Self-Portrait (1994), Kim Hong Joo’s Untitled (Self-Portrait) (1979), Son Sang-Ki’s Artificial City-Drunken Woman (1982), and Kim Myonghi’s Preparing Kimchi (2000) testify to the enduring relevance of Korean traditional figure paintings.
Examples of Korean traditional paintings in the 80s that transitioned abruptly to figure paintings include Park Saengkwang’s Woman and Folklore (1981), Lee Sook Ja’s Nude at Barley Field (1997), and Jung Jongmee’s Woman in Bojagi (2008) that reached new heights in Korean colored figure painting, while Kim Wonsook’s Dance of the Beloved (2002) imparts unique effects of the ink wash medium. On the other hand, Kim Ho-suk reinterpreted traditions of figure painting through a contemporary eye, leaving timely portraits such as Scholar Chungmyung at Gigok Seodang (1991).
The predominant trend of 80s figure paintings still remained Minjung art. In the democratization of the 1990s, the Minjung art movement experienced a self-transformation in several directions depending on artist, some of whom utilized the symbolism of this transition to secure their standing in Korean modern and contemporary figure painting. This was made possible by the essence of Minjung art in the human, people, and social life amid the neglect of figure painting from abstract painting, government schools to commercial practices.
Among Minjung art artists, Oh Yoon pioneered a new dimension of Minjung woodprint through works such as Dad (1981) and Grandmother (1983) that deliver an emotional resonance. He was followed by numerous younger artists. This exhibition features his rare oil painting work Heavenly Maid (1985), hinting at the profoundness of Oh’s art.
Shin Hak-Chul is best known for his series of Korean Modern and Contemporary History but in fact produced many other works thematizing farming villages and famers including Let’s Go! (2016) and Bearer (2012). Lee Jong-gu sketched Father and Cow (2012) and Hwalmok Grandmother (1990) upon a grain plastic or paper sack or abandoned door boards, further enhancing the vividness of his subjects. Hwang Jai-Hyoung moved to a mining village in the Taebaeksan mining town early in his career to convey the daily life of miners in his consistent works, revealing the lives of common people at the bottom tier of society.
If Kim Jungheun’s Daughter-Hye Lim (1984), Nho Wonhee’s Mother (1990), and Choi Minhwa’s Meal (1992) stem from the artist’s own life to visualize a daughter, mother, or himself, Lim Ok-Sang’s Barley Field (1983), Kang Yo-bae’s Chest of Earth (1990), and Hong Sung-dam’s Garden Balsam (2014) generalize the particular manifestations of Korean people into figure paintings of universal export, utilizing a highly complex symbolic figurative language that transfigures its subject matter.
Portrait, Figure and People–Modern and Contemporary Figure Paintings of Korea was thus composed of seventy-one works in total by fifty-four artists. In retrospect, the directions of Korean figure painting have indeed been vast and multifarious beyond expectations, subsuming the traces and growths of the century of Korean modern and contemporary art.
You Hongjune is an art critic and Chair Professor of Myongji University.
This essay from the exhibition catalogue of "Portrait, Figure and People–Modern and Contemporary Figure Paintings of Korea"