2010, Vol.32, No.

Joosik Min | 2010, 32 | pp.5~36 | number of Cited : 9

Art criticism is a human activity to argue through critical statements. So, if we study art criticism, we should notice on its ‘language’ above all. In contemporary society, critical statements have expanded excessively in quantity, and further the vocabulary, method and logic used in criticism are complex and confusing. Furthermore, we are skeptical about the purpose and the function of criticism. We need to observe clearly this bewildering contemporary circumstance of criticism, and to recognize carefully the main concepts and task of criticism. In this paper, I would like to examine the problem consciousness of meta-criticism or philosophy of art criticism, which was emerged as a new trend of aesthetics in the latter half of 20th century, and investigate the significance of meta-criticism in these days. Generally, meta-criticism means criticism of criticism. In other words, it is the examination of the principles, methods, and terms of criticism either in general (as in critical theory) or in the study of particular critics or critical debates. The term usually implies a consideration of the principles underlying critical interpretation and judgement. We can think two reason why meta-criticism has emerged. Firstly, it is a new the tendency with the purpose which was needed from the real critical activity, and secondly it is a new transition of aesthetics which should deal with the second language on art. M. C. Beardsley and J. Stolnitz are the representatives of philosophy of art criticism or meta-criticism. Its purpose is to analyze and clarify the basic concepts which are used in describing, interpreting and evaluating the individual works of art by art critics. Philosophy of art criticism is the study on the critical arguments. It examines not only the existence of art criticism, but the principles of description, interpretation and evaluation. Accordingly, its main themes are the aesthetic usage, the standard of evaluation and the value judgement concerning the critical statements. The intimate relationship between criticism and aesthetics is gradually noticeable in the sense that criticism makes ground for aesthetics. In this context we can confer three examples of avant-garde art movement, namely Harold Rosenberg on action painting, Richard Wollheim on minimal art and Arthur Danto on pop art. They played crucial role to give citizenship to avant-garde arts. They cannot help to asking the nature of art in order to evaluate those arts. It means that criticism accompany and demand aesthetics. In this manner, the relationship between criticism and aesthetics is no less intimate than that between art and criticism. Meta-criticism will practice important role to solve actual problematic circumstance of art.

The Mainstream and Prospects of Analytic Aesthetics

Yu-Kyung Hwang | 2010, 32 | pp.37~62 | number of Cited : 4

Shusterman's identification of the features and themes as most typical in analytic aesthetics. They are as follows: connection with the various aims and methods of analytic philosophy; critique of Crocean idealist aesthetics; anti-essentialism about art and the quest for clarity; the conception of aesthetics as a second-order discipline of metacriticism, i.e., philosophy of criticism; the neglect of natural beauty; a tendency to avoid the issue of evaluating art; lack of emphasis on art's social and historical context. In addition, I observe a general nature of discussions about analytic aesthetics’ characteristic topics. Here such kinds of questions in aesthetics as meaning, reference, fictionality, definition, concept, representation, and ontology are briefly dealt with. Another observation is made of a notable aspect of more recent work in analytic aesthetics. It has been a tendency to attend to the individual arts: literature, painting, photography, music and film. By attending to particular arts aesthetics becomes closer to actual critical practise. Learning the limits of analytic aesthetics, not a few theorists have been in need of deeper discussions of art's social, cultural, practical, and ethical dimensions. I suggest this is a desirable way for analytic aesthetics to revise its old paradigmatic questions concerning the nature of art. In the first place, it is remarkable that, more recently, analytic aesthetics has shed new light on John Dewey's pragmatist thinking. Considering Shusterman's argument that pragmatist and analytic aesthetics are not entirely incompatible, I expect that future analytic aesthetics will more actively embrace Dewey's crucial insights concerning art's social and practical dimensions. Next, having observed the very radical changes in the artworld after a mid-20th century, Anglo-American theorists engaged in the analysis of them looked not to analytic aesthetics but to Continental tradition for guidance. For Continental thinking, discussing art in terms of a much broader cultural context of social change, offered them the kind of theory they were looking for. However, I show that some main issues, especially of Postmodern thinking are, in fact, not alien to analytic aestheticians. Here again, I prospect that future analytic aesthetics should look at art more directively and actively in its broader sociocultural context.

Sigmund Freud and Michelangelo's Moses : Image-description for Neuroanatomy and Art Criticism

Seung-Chol Shin | 2010, 32 | pp.63~100 | number of Cited : 2

The creative moment of art criticism involves, inevitably, an occurrence of aesthetic value with regards to the dimension of sensual perception. The image-description of Sigmund Freud, a kind of method for art criticism, calls attention to this idea. Influenced by Givannni Morelli, Freud paid attention to the statue by Michelangelo in every detail, and tried to interpret the motive of the work, while he described it. In his close observation, details of the work build a totality of movement. In the analysis of this movement, Freud insists that the Moses was not created to represent an historical moment, but to portray the strong ego of Moses. Freud had developed this type of method, since he worked in the neuroanatomic laboratory of Theodor Meinert. Working in the scientific tradition that tries to show the essence of things by empirical observation and description, he was engaged in nerve cell research and wanted to illuminate the mechanism of psychological activity. He had suffered a few failures and these experiences repeated themselves in his art criticism. He felt uneasy about his interpretation and finally decided to contribute his manuscript anonymously. The cause of this kind of uneasiness is that Freud confused seeing a thing with knowing about it. He failed, because he tried to extract scientific knowledge of things with the aid of an image, standing in the tradition of natural science. But his method of the observation and description of an image deserves a special notice, because he dealt with the activity of image in an open logic. Although he shows his lack of modern knowledge about the image, his method illuminates the moment of aesthetic experience that is generated, very successfully, in the expanded field between the presence of a subject and an object. Sigmund Freud investigated the mechanism of the occurrence of an aesthetic value with an interest in the visual impression of art work and the activity of an image, whereby he achieves some noteworthy results by satisfying his own desire for the psychological progress and for the demand of the tradition of image-description from ekphrasis

The Politics of Modernist Criticism of Art Photography : Medium-Specificity and Abstraction in Photography

Lee, Phil | 2010, 32 | pp.101~140 | number of Cited : 1

This essay explores the relation between modernist photography criticism and modernist art criticism, tracing the transition in American art criticism from the era of Stieglitz’s dominance to that of Greenberg. It problematizes Greenberg’s marginalization of art photography in his modernist art criticism. Greenberg denies decades of the unique American contribution to photography theory and criticism his predecessor Stieglitz ardently had pursued. The essay argues that unlike Greenberg’s disconnection of photography from being a modernist art medium, photography was an integral part of American modernism and his denial of the tradition created a fissure in modernist art criticism and beyond. To prove this, the essay analyzes the notions of medium-specificity and abstraction in photography, mostly known as two root concepts of Greenberg’s modernist art criticism. It introduces how the concepts emerged and gradually developed in American art photography since the early twentieth century, along with the varied activities of the promoter of art photography and American modern art, Stieglitz. Greenberg creates a direct genealogy between Analytic Cubism and American abstract paintings, and he excludes photography from that tradition of abstraction. The essay makes a counterargument by investigating evidences of commonalities found in both Stieglitz’s The Steerage and Pollock’s abstract painting mediated through Picasso’s Analytical Cubism. Further, through the analysis of Stieglitz’s series of cloud photographs, Equivalents, created in the 1920s-30s, and Jackson Pollock’s abstract paintings created in the 1930s-50s, it proves the Greenbergian root modernist concepts which had excluded photography are equally applicable to both photography and painting. Lastly, it investigates the underlying politics of the photography criticism of Greenberg during the 1940s and 50s. He assured art photography’s exclusion in American modernism in favor of painting and of authority of his art criticism, though the practice of art photography continued to develop and Greenberg himself still considered photography as an art under certain conditions. It argues that photography, far from being marginal from abstraction, occupied a leading position in American modernism until the 1930s, continually developing abstraction in form and theory in the sense that Greenberg appreciated from abstract paintings.

The Philosophical Aspects in Understanding Artworks : The Dialectics of Transition in the Process of Artistic Interpretation

정용도 | 2010, 32 | pp.141~164 | number of Cited : 3

What is the aesthetic orientation we can define in contemporary situation of art since the early 20th century? what is the real thing that we can find in the process of understanding contemporary art? Can this be understood as a paradigm shift in the production and reception of art and in the process of creating art works, or have the changes of physical circumstances influenced some essential aspects inhabited in the tradition of making artworks? The contemporary art has achieved existential characteristic of its own, and then it has preserved its conceptual qualities as core part of human culture? All the questions mentioned above are related to the thought about art and its ontological basis in the sense of philosophical understanding and interpretation about a topology of contemporariness of present art. Consequently, this also possibly makes art have self-reflective quality based on cultural perspective as a means of productive activity in the spirit of our time(Zeitgeist). To interprete an object means someone understand it and recognize “about” its existential qualities in the sense of human history and his culture. One gets once knowledge about an object, he can establish a relationship between himself and an object, he can communicate with it, and naturally he can undiscover the original features of art and life which were hidden in the bushes of the seemingly unpurposeful world. And those revealed phenomena by the positive activities become philosophical texts which incessantly rely on the interpretations of human activities. Getting the knowledges of philosophical texts shows that interpretation constructs one of most important aspects in earning the knowledge of one's society and culture. An art work becoming an object of interpretation in contemporary art has not remained just as a motif, but a cultural model. However, the variable possibilities of artistic interpretation make one think about traditional definition of ‘prototype’ in the realm of internal aesthetic senses which orient toward self-sufficient being. In fact, this has made us possible to think about what art means in one's living circumstances. Just analysis and understanding of an artwork do not mean interpretation, but one can achieve new perspectives about the world in terms of an object of interpretation. With those achieved by interpretation, especially philosophical investigations into an artwork will let one gain a new narrative which can offer an another dimension of artistic reality, that is, a new explanation of one's living condition. Therefore, interpretation itself cannot be alive, but the activity which comes out of living can lead one to a metamorphosed state of the awakening and a cause of an artwork. Thus, the possibility of interpretation of an manmade object seems to have more possibilities to be settled on the aesthetic universality and this is the critical momentum gained by opened interpretation. Such resulted cultural texts will unfold a functionality which gives something more powerful dynamics to the world of common senses. So that the capability created in the process of finding a pathway toward a new interpretation and philosophical dimension will stimulate one to find a good way to grasp the point of contextuality and philosophy of culture in general. Through the positions that we have taken in the process of thought and pondering about art, we can place a different path from the settled road towards a theme and meaning of contemporary art. And this also will show us dim light toward the dialectics of transition in the process of artistic interpretation.

Justice and the Art of Technicity : The Aporetic Responsibility Between Us

Hugh J. Silverman | 2010, 32 | pp.167~196 | number of Cited : 2

A Preliminary Research for Yohan Zoh's Philosophy of Art

Ihn-Bum Lee | 2010, 32 | pp.199~226 | number of Cited : 4

Throughout life of Yohan Zoh (1926-2002), the philosopher had released several books and essays like Philosophy of Art (1973), The Philosophy of Aristotle (1988), An Articulation of Love for Art (1993), An Articulation of Love for Philosophy (1993) and An Exploration of Korean Aesthetic Beauty (1999). By spending his period of growth in the era of the Japanese colonization and experiencing the Korean War soon after, the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Jaspers captured his attention, and led him to the field of existentialist theory inevitably. As a consequence, he submitted a dissertation, Kierkegaard and Existence (1954) for his BA, which denotes his future interest of Greek philosophy and Christianity toward the Eternal. Since then, Zoh submitted The Influence of Eastern Thought on Early Greek Philosophy (1958) for his master's degree and The Analytical Problem of Aristotelian Philosophy (1975) for his doctorate. Both study reveals how he the deepened philosophical relationship of his early interest by exploring its contraposition and correlation. Despite of his philosophical subject matter in academic dissertations that he submitted, his first publication was in fact Philosophy of Art, and the last publication released three years before his death was An Exploration of Korean Aesthetic Beauty. In this respect, philosophy of art is bibliographically as important as his accomplishment in Greek philosophy or Christianity. Therefore, this preliminary study is to give a light on Zoh's achievement in art before the fully fledged research take a place. Philosophy of Art is consist of three chapters. The first chapter, ‘The Basic Concept of Philosophy of Art’, is based on his given aesthetics talks between the 60's and the early 70's. Although the most of up to date art theories and text were yet not introduced in Korean academic field since the early death of Yu-seob Ko, the chapter is strongly anchored to the use of traditional terms of aesthetics and fine arts of time. The second and the third chapter are entitled as ‘The Task of Modern Art’ and ‘Some Problem with Art Theories’ respectively. Each chapter is written on the basis of his several texts on art, that were also produced during the same period above. On the contrast to the first, these two chapters are philosophical analyses of the Korean art praxis. His last book, An Exploration of Korean Aesthetic Beauty, thus can be seen as a conclusive answer for one of the text that is included in Philosophy of Art, ‘The Character of Korean Aesthetic Value.’As a philosopher, Zoh picked up the thread that was left out for many years, and dedicated his entire life to elucidate the spirit of Korean art. He methodologically chose comparative science of arts for his investigation, giving examples of contrasting nature between the eastern and the western aesthetic, as well as comparing Korean aesthetic value with the art of neighbor countries like China and Japan in sequence. His academic path clearly shows that his love of art and philosophy are conflated in An Exploration of Korean Aesthetic Beauty.

Paul Tillich, The Theology of Art

San Choon Kim | 2010, 32 | pp.227~250 | number of Cited : 3

Paul Tillich(1886-1965) is well known as a theologian of culture. For almost 40 years, he expressed through lectures, speeches, and articles his consistent view on the interrelationship between religion and art. His essential conception of art is seen in the following statement: “Art is an expression of an individual's experience of the ultimate reality.” However, he himself did not collect his writings on art for a book. 『On Art and Architecture』(1987) is edited and published posthumously by Dillenberger. And it is the only material by which one can follow chronologically the essential ideas in Tillich's theology of art. Focussing on the book, therefore, this article wants to consider his theology of art in general and his expressionist theory of painting in particular. For adequate understanding of Tillich's theology of art, however, it is necessary to recognize the following points. First, Tillich sees that religion and culture are not contradictory but mutually indwelling. This article will elaborate on that point in relation to his so-called ‘theology of culture.’ Second, in explicating his theology of culture Tillich chooses the most typical form of art in culture, that is, ‘expressionistic style’ of art. It is because the expressionistic style itself for him is ‘religious.’ Third, Tillich is a theologian of Protestantism that rather distances itself from visual arts. As he points out, Protestantism tied to ‘words’ is suspicious of visual arts. But Tillich is personally attached to visual arts to the effect that he could be considered Catholic. This paper's task is to make clear Tillich's theology of culture, and his thoughts on expressionistic style and religious(Protestant) art. Tillich's theology of art is, in fact, a type of his theology of culture. If theology is a discourse on the manifestation of the divine in and through all beings, theology of art is possible and, in that case, it is a theory of the manifestation of the divine in the very act and creation of art. A theology of art presupposes that one is able to recognize the manifestation of the ultimate reality in artworks. As a result, - this is decisive - in order for art to be religious it needs not necessarily deal with specifically religious objects. A secular art can be religious if an expression is given to the experience of the ultimate meaning and being. Then, the art form of every age, in which experiences of the ultimate reality are expressed, is the record of the religious existence of the age. As Tillich sees it, the greatness of the 20th century lies in a discovery of the principle of expressionism, that is to say, a rediscovery of the principle of breakthrough into the depth reality by destroying the surface of beautifying naturalism. Therein, that is, in the abundance of secular subjects, Tillich sees rather the possibility of a new Protestant religious art.

The Study of the Correlation of Adorno's Aesthetic Nominalism with Postmodern Art Theory

Yu HyunJu | 2010, 32 | pp.251~276 | number of Cited : 5

Adorno's aesthetic nominalism is connected with postmodern art theory about the aspect of contemporary art which is getting lost a clear concept of art. In terms of the resistance of universality, Adorno's aesthetic nominalism is revealed to be ‘deconstruction of genre’, right in that respect meets it the text theory from Derrida's deconstruction philosophy. Because the death of subject in Derrida's text theory is considered to be in close connection with ‘indeterminacy of meaning’ and ‘deconstruction of genre’ which is growing in today's art. Adorno's aesthetic nominalism basically starts with the rejection to Hegelian method which makes art historical style and genre objectively, and at the same time with his peculiar theory of ‘idol forbidden’ that art should be forbidden to be bound to specific period or history. In the other hand, Derrida's deconstructive text theory begins with a denial of ‘logocentrism’, in order to overcome western metaphysical tradition. Through the strategy of deconstruction, Derrida elucidates some paradox in many texts of western philosophy from Plato to Kant, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. Derrida insists that those texts have already a potentiality of deconstruction intrinsically due to arbitrariness of language or sign. Exactly in Derrida's deconstructive text, we can see that ‘deconstruction of genre’, ‘indeterminacy of meaning’ and ‘disappearance of subject in text’ is correlated with Adorno's aesthetic nominalism. Adorno's real meaning of nominalism consists in the fact that modern art must have refused the restraint of genre and style than that of the universal element in art. Adorno explains this phenomenon of modern art as ‘concept of open form in today's art’ from the fact that it is always difficult to gain the unity of universal and the particular in artwork, which is regarded as an original sin of art, for Adorno, ‘aporia of nominalism.’ This is the point where Adorno's nominalism of modern art meets postmodern art theory. Another meeting point of aesthetic nominalism and postmodern art theory is the subject in text. Basically Adorno's aesthetics doesn't want to equate the subject of artworks with its' author. Adorno says that today the subjectivity is just mediated one. Adorno's analysis of the subjectivity or the subject consists of his criticism on ‘subject-centered thinking’, or ‘self-centered universalism’, indebted for critical theory linking Marxism with Freud. On the bottom of this criticism lies Adorno's own philosophical impulse to pulverize the illusion(Schein) of totality. This criticism is from Adorno's refusal of identical thinking which is widespread in administered society. In this context, the subject would have many voices mediated by the social subjectivity. This helps us understand why nominalistic viewpoint of Adorno meets the death of the subject in postmodern text theory. Derrida draws plentiful reading of proper name, signature, Signéponge, through deconstructing it. It is ‘différence’ that is the strategy created by Derrida to show the sign continually inversed, highly fluid. Finally such texts as Derrida's come to indeterminacy of meaning through the circulation of signs and author. The subject could be transferred to signs of text, not just the voice of author. Even though Adorno and Derrida are correlated with the subject of text, their philosophical ground have a definite difference. However Adorno, as a modernist who still relies on reason, criticizes on the subject, he does not entirely give up the subject, while Derrida, as antimodernist who is opposed to reason-centralism, eagerly attempts to deconstruct the subject in text to overturn the subject-centralism in western metaphysics. In spite of that, both of philosophers have one thing in common. They are against any ideology of subordination of human beings. As it were, their reflection on the subject seems to be converged to the point of interest in ‘the nonidentical’ or ‘the others.’Finally through consideration of aesthetic nominalism, we can say that Adorno and Derrida criticize on the subject-centered thinking in common, and based on that, we can understand the point where aesthetic nominalism meets postmodern art theory. That is just the opaqueness of contemporary art concept from aesthetic nominalism and indeterminacy of the meaning of text from deconstruction of genre.

L'Être de l'objet technique : la recherche préparatoire pour l'ontologie de l'image digitale

Kim Hwa Ja | 2010, 32 | pp.277~310 | number of Cited : 8

Le happening et l'installation faisaient changer la propriété substantielle de l'oeuvre d'art en propriété indéterminable. L'image digital du nouveau média qui se produit par lui-même, accélérait l'indétermination et la contingence dans l'art contemporain. Cette fissure indéterminable engendre beaucoup d'occasions d'interaction entre les individus. Cette indétermination permet l'insertion de l'homme à l'objet technique, il s'en suit qu'elle produit le nouveau milieu et la prolifération des différences, et qu'elle possède le caractere génétique de l'image du processus. Ainsi nous avons envisagé le caractère de l'indétermination de l'objet technique qui fournit la possibilité de l'interaction active entre l'homme et le mileu du média à travers le point de view phénoménologique de Mikel Dufrenne et le point de view génétique de Gilbert Simondon. En plus cette recherche se fonde sur l'intermédiaire de l'ontologie phénoménologique de Merleau-Ponty, car nous pouvons découvrir la trace de la phénoménologie de Merleau-Ponty qui a eu de l'influence sur la penseé de Dufrenne et celle de Simondon. L'esthétique phénoménologique de Dufrenne révèle le fait que l'être virtuel, abstrait de l'objet technique devient être actuel, concret par la perception esthétique. Dufrenne décèle le fondement originaire dans la Nature qui existe à la fois comme matière de l'a priori subjectif, le savoir virtuel dans le sujet et comme celle de l'a priori objectif, l'élément composant dans l'objet technique. Dufrenne considère la technique comme médiation entre l‘homme et le monde, il insiste sur l'aspect positif de la technique malgré son usage violent et politique. Simondon prend l'être de l'objet technique pour système de la transduction dans l'objet technique lui même qui produit la structure différenciant en état métastable. Ce système désigne la transduction ontologique par laquelle le germe en état sursaturé est en train de devenir cristal. L'objet abstrait se change en l'objet concret par la transduction ontologique, l'objet technique s'individualise à travers élément, individu, ensemble. Le marge virtuel de l'indétermination permet d'intervention de l'homme à l'objet technique, de telle sorte que cette intervention donne l'occasion de l'interaction entre l'homme et le milieu. L'unité de l'objet technique et du monde n'est pas la finalité prévue mais l'affinité spontanée. Merleau-Ponty a souligné que le comportement humain dépasse en perpétuel de la situation présente par l'interaction dialectique entre le sujet et le monde. Sa pensée correspond à la personnalité de base qui a le non-individu chez Dufrenne et au transindividuel chez Simondon qui ne réduit pas à la simple relation sociale et psychique. 'La chair opaque' de Merleau-Ponty, ‘l'a priori matériel de la Nature’ chez Dufrenne, ‘l'élément en état métastable’ de Simondon ne sont pas des subatances mais des préindividuels indifférenciés qui ont la puissance virtuelles. Ces préindividuels qui existent dans chaque individu, sont à la fois le fondement qui peut devenir totalité de individu social et la singularité qui ne peut être structurée. En fait nous pouvons constater que le préindividuel entraîne l'indétermination et la contingence qui révèlent la possibilité de l'interaction entre l'objet technique et l'homme, milieu. Il y a le champ perceptif comme histoire opaque dans la chair de Merleau-Ponty, et dans la Nature de Dufrenne, alors que Simondon critique le rapport entre la genèse et le champ perceptif, et qu'il recherche la genèse de l'objet technique à l'horizon immanent.

Roland Barthes's ‘Camera Obscura’ : The Photographic Specificity

Park Sangwoo | 2010, 32 | pp.311~342 | number of Cited : 3

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This paper attempts to make a critical analyse of Roland Barthes's idea of photographic specificity, which is the central subject of his Camera Lucida. By doing so, I aim to make a contribution to the discussion on the ontology of photography and suggest a method by which to interpret photography more appropriately. Barthes's real concern in this book is not ‘punctum’ but the specificity of photography, which is the fundamental properties of the photography as distinguished from those of language or other images. It is, in a word, ‘what is photography?’, finally the ontology of the photography. The specificity of the photography by which Barthes means in the book is that of the photographic referent. From this photographic specificity Barthes infer ‘that-has-been’, which is, he thinks, the essence of photography. The conclusion is summarized as follows. First, Barthes sees only the referent in a photograph, and forgets the operator(photographer and camera) faced with the referent. However, in all photographs, remain the traces of the photographed and of the operator. Thus we have to stick to the dualistic approach considering the referent and the operator at the same time when interpreting a photograph, instead of having the monistic approach considering only the referent in the photograph. Second, Barthes's arguments that the specificity of photography is that of the referent, and that photography has the power of authenticating the existence of the referent are very appropriate. But his argument is limited in that what he meant by the contents of the photographic authentication is not concrete but abstract. A photograph does not authenticate the abstract, general space and time, but the very concrete, specific space and time such as universal time, exposure time, referent speed. Barthes gives a photograph the excessive power of authentication. Consequently he makes a mistake of taking the authenticating capacity of the text for that of the photography. Thirdly, Barthes connects photography with Camera Lucida meaning the idea of lightness, based on the certainty of the referent and of the ‘that-has-been’. But otherwise photography do not have the certainty of any kind, I will connect the photography with the idea of darkness. So photography is not Camera Lucida, but Camera Obscura or black box.

1945-1950, Nationalism and the Utopia of Korean Art

Kim Ju Weon | 2010, 32 | pp.343~372 | number of Cited : 2

This study examines the characteristics of Korean art of years 1945 to 1950 that developed with its focus on the post-liberation reestablishment of the country and nation. In this particular period of Korean history, it is crucial to understand and analyze the nationalist utopia that had been dreamt under the circumstance of the loss and reestablishment of the nation, for such analysis is an important basis in defining the characteristics and identity of Korean beauty, a continuant investigation that had been initiated by Yanagi Muneyoshi's study on Korean art in the 1920s. A utopian period takes the subject or individual to be the party/person concerned of the history in other words, the owner of ones own fate ; Chosun after liberation was going through such utopian era. Having undergone a transfiguration from a colonial object to an independent subject, most individuals and groups of Chosun started to focus on the nation and the country as a principal of their own destiny after liberation. However, the recovery of nation and the reconstruction of Chosun had to face the contradictory reality - colonial remnants ; derived from colonial politics, it lived for thirty-six years yet needed to be cleared up. Artists then showed contrasting opinions about the matter yet each set their own utopian visions for the nation and the country. However, the polemics whose issues put emphasis on praising the beauty of Chosun's nature and the superiority of the nation show utopian fantasies made up of nationalist solidarity and self-deception. A utopia illustrates its future through the silence and omission performed by the loss of historical memory. The desire to lapse, hold silent and to omit the past is a common post-liberation phenomenon accompanied by the emergence of independent nations. The post-colonial loss of memory of Korean art of years 1945 to 1950 deepens and expands its symptoms in art historical volumes written directly after liberation. This can be understood as a utopian act of defining and predicating the history of Chosun only up until the pre-colonial era as well as a nationalist desire to delete the painful memories of colonial subordination. It is interesting to notice that Japan's colonial imaginative history that despised Chosun was repeated during the period of American military government. The intentional lapse and omission of the past by the post-colonial subjects were conveyed and inherited through various media such as myth, classics, ideological or academic volumes, literature, tales and illustrations, attempting to overthrow the image of Chosun as a disrespected country. Such endeavors embellish the nostalgia to re-discover the past lost amongst the colony yet at the same time show the desire to delete the past that had been hurt helplessly and was tainted and captivated by colonial forces, a never-wanted-to-be-seen-again spiritual wound.

The Meaning and Ideological Character of Child Image in the North Korean Painting

Hong Ji Suk | 2010, 32 | pp.373~402 | number of Cited : 2

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In 1960, Philippe Ariès suggested that the pure, innocent, light and fragile ‘Child’ concept that we know today had appeared in modern age. According to him, this ‘birth of child’ is involved inseparably with the appearance of modern family which bring up that child. Family as a kind of fence keep away external threat. Appearance of modern child and family amplified the request about private life and intimacy, and the home became refuge that could avoid external gaze and place of affection between parents and their children. In our occasion, ‘Birth of modern child-family-home’ that Ariès speaks is closely connected with ‘children movement’ of Bang Jeong-hwan at the Age of Japanese Imperialism. At this time, modern child, family, and home which Ariès said - although as a imperfect form - appears in Korean society. On these proposition, I examines the aspect that the ‘child image’ have been changed in North Korean art after 1950's. In this examination, the important thing is the fact that the request about private life and intimacy connected with the appearance of modern child-family collides with the public request of the society(social system). So Ariès claimed that the modern family relationship and the sociality are incompatible. One could be develop without the other's sacrifice. This may become problematic especially on totalitarian society such as North Korean social system after 1950's. Because the intentionality of totalitarian society which pursue the collective profit will collide with the intentionality of modern family which pursue the private isolation and comfort. In this point of view, I examined the change of child image in North Korean art in order to know how the North Korean social system correspond to the presented problem. In North Korean art, There are so many paintings emphasized the child image. Because the pure, innocent, light and fragile, lovely ‘Child image’ of modern age really in accord with the positive character to which social system want. Therefore the lovely child image became the stereotyped icon of North Korean's Juche Realism(Nam Jae-yoon, 2008). By the way, We can find important quality if we observe the historic change of child image in North Korean art. In 1970's, We can hardly find parents image in North Korean painting. At this time, the image of parents who had been with child in earlier painting have been disappeared or replaced by powerless grandmother or grandfather image. At first, we can interpret this as a victory of public or totalitarian domain in the competition between public(totalitarian) and private(familiar) domain. However, if we observe more closely, we can find the fact that vacant place of parents be occupied gradually by Great father, namely Kim Il-Sung. We can draw following conclusion from these truth. In the Juche era, The North Korean social system solved the problem - conflict of public and private domain - by the way that replace parent's image by the Kim Il-Sung, the Great parent's image. As a result, the child image painting of that time looks uncanny feudal and modern image overlapped. This is the North Koran model sutured the conflict of public/private of family/society. But in the late 1980's, a changes occurred. From this time, Image of parents and happy family which had disappeared begins to appear again on North Korean painting. Now. North Korean social system cannot suture the conflict of public/private of family/society by simple and clear way. we may regard this fact as a symptom of a change or crisis of North Korean's social system.

An Iconographic Study of ‘Manus Dei’ in the Early Christian Art

조수정 | 2010, 32 | pp.403~430 | number of Cited : 1

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2010, Vol.32, No.