檀園 金弘道 論

Abstract

Korean painters in the period of Yi dynasty were in general in such critical situation that required a certain climatic changes in their efforts to create local stylistic expressions of their own in painting, for their creative retrogression due to social uncertainty and idle, derivative attitude of painting was accelerated by the political as well as social preoccupation of the time that treated art of painting contemptuously while admiring imitation of Chines painting. Born in such critical situation painter Hong-do Kim (Tan Won) was to face a fate of an Innovator, or aa revolutionary, who had to creates new painting of traditional, local feeling of Korean peoples, while adapting the Southern tendency in Chinese painting and the current thought of realism, called "Silhak". His paintings of genre scenes were the depictions of everyday life of the humble people and of the painter himself. His paintings of fairies were also the visual representations of his will to dwell in the domain of enchanted place. However, when he was called to his duty as a court painter to paint Buddhist murals and portraits, his tried his very best as a humble artist of the period. Tan Won was such an artist as to devote all of his creative efforts to the search of an expressive style of his own, quite different in artistic attitude of others who were content with the life of idle ease. In his personal treatment of pictorial space Tan Won is best known for his new application of "perspective" approaches in painting. He had developed the Ideas of "round", or aerial, perspective, "central", or Linear, perspective, diagonal perspective, horizontal perspective, or triangular perspectives, etc, to create completely a new sense of pictorial space in lang tradition of Korean painting. To apply new methods of space arrangement he had also developed transitionary Korean treatment of pictorial lines to make them "live", "spirited", with their ups and down in the picture. In his treatment of color he had shown his innovator's taste. He had always drawn and painted Chinese ink in the spirit of"lightness" in accord with traditional color treatment founded by the Southern tendency in Chinese painting which admired the virtue of light drawing in stylistic contrast to the Northen tendency in Chinese painting. In short, Tan Won was the first painter in the history of Korean painting to create local, Korean expressiveness through painting; the first innovator who had true sense of scholarliness much admiredly the period of Yi dynasty and also of locality, contradictory sense of life to be shown in life of a court painter. In a sense he was a true revolutionary in the history of Korean painting to develope a local style in such critical situation and to stimulater stylistic transition in treatment of perspective, pictorial space, line, and color. Tan Won, Hong-do Kim was the origin of influences to the painters of his period and of later peridot. In this critical study on the art and life of the Korean painter, Hong-do Kim (Tan Won), I will conclude my study with the realization that he will make himself an origin and influence and a stimulation once again to painters of our age.