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Deorientalization of Korean Oriental Painting in the 1980s

Hyunsook Kim 1

1덕성여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The dominant group within oriental painting circles in the 1960s and 1970s strived to achieve modernity in furthering tradition by grafting the spiritual expression and symbolic overtone of The Southern Literature Painting with the Western painting’s use of perspective or abstract painting’s principles of composition. This was challenged in the 1980s by a new generation that brought to the forefront the use of Chinese ink emphasizing strong expressiveness and shaping of forms. The new movement in the oriental painting circles of the early 1980s, following the discourse on Korea Studies(國學), assumed Silgyeongsansu(實景山水; natural scenery painting) exemplified by Jeongseon(鄭善) from 18th century, continuing through Yi Sangbeom(李象範) and Byeon Gwansik(변관식), as the core of Korean tradition. But it was expanded to include landscapes and portraits of urban space as subject matters, and the expressiveness of sumuk(水墨) was also expanded to be utilized as material for expression of modern sensibility befitting the trend of thought in the new form-emphasizing art. The Sumuk Movement won over many young oriental painting artists through group or large-sized exhibits and collectively rose up as the general current in oriental painting throughout the 1980s. The start of the Chaemukhwa (彩墨畵; colored ink painting) era in the mid 1980s, when chaesaekhwa (彩色畵; colored oriental painting) overwhelmed Sumukhwa (水墨畵; black ink painting), was critically brought on by the work of Bak Saeng-gwang(朴生光), who was invited to the special exhibit of Korean art at the 1985 Paris Grand Palais. After Bak, Hwang Chang-bae(黃昌培) became notable for making great strides for the vision of Chaesaekhwa. He not only reached the level of "mubeop-yibeop"(無法而法, method without method) with the skillful expression of brush strokes based on Chinese classics, but also used acrylic, graphite powder, together with Chinese ink. As such, the boundary of genres between oriental painting and western painting crumbled and a horizon of existence simply as “just painting” was presented. The transformation of oriental painting circles of the 1980s, comprising the start of officially using the term ‘Hangukhwa’(韓國畵, Korean Painting) in place of 'Dongyanghwa'(東洋畵, Oriental Painting), and using sumuk for its materiality as a medium of expression rather than its spirituality, the climaxing of interest in the everyday and the present, the dominance of Chaesaekhwa which widely incorporated folk and shamanist paintings, the overcoming of the dualism of Chinese ink and coloring, is notable for indicating the deorientalization of oriental painting. The collapse of the dominance theory of the Southern School of Chinese Painting represented by Dong Qichang(董其昌)’s sangnampipbukron(尙南乏北論, High South Low North Theory) and the retreat of dongdoseogiron(東道西器論, Eastern Way Western Means Theory) correspond to the abandonment of the specter called dongyang(東洋, The East) that has weighed down our thinking for a long time after the end of the 19th century.

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