沈師正(1707∼1769)繪畵硏究

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to rediscover the position and significance of Sim Sa-jeong (1707-1769) and his works in the history of Korean art on the basis of the views of art historians formed during the late Joseon and colonial periods, as well as the intentions and subjects of his works. Sim Sa-jeong was a painter of the gentry class of Joseon who was active in the mid and late eighteenth century. Although he was born into a wealthy and influential family, he led a relatively lead hard life as an artist after his family collapsed due to its involvement in a treasonous plot, and he died without an heir. That is why his paintings have often been regarded as a symbol of artistic endeavor in the face of many trials and tribulations. Sim Sa-jeong produced numerous imitations of the works of old Chinese masters. While he is known as a pupil of Jeong Seon (1676-1759), a great landscape painter of the late Joseon period, experts believe that he was more interested in the imitative, ideal beauty of nature, whereas his tutor vigorously explored scenes of nature as they appeared to him, establishing the unique style now called Jingyeong Sansu, or "true view landscape painting." This conventional view is based on the dualistic view that art consists of two fundamental spheres, in which the artworks belonging to one are ideologically superior to those belonging to the other. The reputation Sim Sa-jeong earned among his contemporaries is, however, clearly expressed by the comment made by the renowned connoisseur Kim Jo-sun (1765-1832): "The later paintings of Gyeomjae [i.e. Jeong Seon] displayed the most wonderful skills, raising his reputation as high as that of Hyeonjae [i.e. Sim Sa-jeong], and resulting in the circulation of the term "Gyeom-Hyeon." The widespread use of this descriptive term clearly shows that Sim Sa-jeong enjoyed the same elevated reputation as that enjoyed by Jeong Seon among his contemporaries. Despite the high degree of appreciation he shared with Jeong Seon, Sim Sa-jeong's works should be reviewed carefully in terms of their nature and their aesthetic and historical significance. The first part of this study focuses on Sim Sa-jeong's imitations of works by old Chinese masters. The works addressed in this discussion include Sim's Diamond Mountain (Geumgangsando), which was appreciated as highly as that created by Jeong Seon among the contemporary literati elite, and was used to revaluate the relationship between the styles of the two artists and identify the characteristic features of the "real landscapes" (Silgyeong Sansu) of Sim Sa-jeong. The discussion also focuses on paintings of poetic ideas, which have been discussed only partially to date. Given that the paintings on poetic ideas created during the late Joseon period contain - unlike the landscape-figure paintings of the mid-Joseon period - expressions of lyrical feeling and personal sensibilities, resulting in a more elaborate depiction of fine details, the 'literary paintings" of Sim Sa-jeong show that he accommodated the new changes in a more positive and active manner. As for the development of the critical views of Sim's works, valuable information is provided by various private literary collections, including The Grove of Paintings by Seongnong (Seongnonghwawon), a large collection of paintings in which the art collector Kim Gwang-guk compared Sim's works with those of Dong Yuan, Mi Fu, Shen Zhou and Dong Qichang, and particularly favored his Diamond Mountain. As for the paintings by Jeong Seon, the collector, unlike today's critics, preferred his literary paintings, such as those on poetic works by Wang Wei, and the Xieyi landscape paintings of Jeong Seon, rather than his Jingyeong landscapes. The discussion also deals with the process by which an equivalent and complementary evaluation of the paintings of Jeong Seon and Sim Sa-jeong during the late Joseon period was followed by a reinterpretation of their works in the 1930s as part of the effort to overcome Orientalism, resulting in the rise of the view succinctly expressed by the four-character expression "Gyeom-U-Hyeon-Ryeol", which, when translated literally, means "superior Gyeomjae and inferior Hyeonjae". The use of the poetic nickname "ill-fated painter" and the tendency to connect the art of Sim Sa-jeong with the tragedy of his family originate largely from the epitaph on the "Memorial Tablet for the Hermit Hyeonjae" dedicated to Sim Sa-jeong by one of his descendants, Sim Ik-un (1734-?). My research on his family's situation at the time the epitaph (i.e. 1769-1770) was written has revealed that the latter wrote many essays about the psychological difficulties both he and his ancestor suffered at the time. In these writings, the author stresses that his ancestor, Sim Sa-jeong, by then in his early forties, was already widely regarded as a master of "Confucian paintings", while the older master, Jeong Seon, then in his seventies, was no longer productive. He also seems to argue in his essays that an incident that occurred in 1748, in which Sim Sa-jeong was removed from the supervisory position in a state project for the reproduction of King Sukjong's official portrait, was not a major source of frustration or despair in the artist's life. Imitating the masterpieces of old Chinese masters was in fact a crucial factor in the art of Sim Sa-jeong, as shown by numerous works from Watching a Waterfall from a Pleasure Boat (Juyu Gwanpok, 1740) to Cliff Road to Chok (Chokjando, 1768). Sim Sa-jeong studied very closely the works of great Chinese masters such as Shen Zhou, Dong Yuan, Ni Zan, Huang Gongwang, Wu Zhen and Wang Meng in order to experiment with their brushing techniques, combining them with his own compositions. He used a seal bearing the inscription 倣古人各體 ("Different Scripts by an Imitator of the Old") when he was in his early forties, and attempted a fusion between the Southern and Northern Schools of old Chinese painting. His experimentation with the rough brush strokes of the Northern School on the paintings of the Southern School, combined with new techniques such as finger painting, can be seen in the paintings in the Album of Paintings by Two Masters, Pyoam and Hyeonjae (Pyo-Hyeon Yangseonsaeng Yeonhwacheop, 1761), while the new style that he developed on the basis of an equivalent fusion between the two schools is represented by the works in the Album of Landscapes in Imitation of the Old Masters (Banggo Sansucheop). It shows that, for Sim Sa-jeong, the imitation of old masterpieces was not "an act of re-creation based on an interpretation of the subject and subjectivity" as the Confucian literary artists typically did in his day, but rather a synthesis of all the different styles and techniques used to create the masterpieces of the past. The enthusiasm for imitations of old masterpieces became a mainstream trend among the art lovers of his time, and Sim Sa-jeong, as a professional artist, faithfully responded to it. The works of "real landscapes" (Silgyeong sansu) produced by Sim Sa-jeong have been labelled as "freehand-style landscapes" (Saui silgyeong), but a closer examination of his oeuvre reveals that he produced not just realistic "real landscape" paintings, but also works in which he combined his own style with Jeong Seon's sense of composition. As such, it may be said that Sim Sa-jeong's landscape paintings achieve a "harmony between scenes of nature subjectively interpreted by the artist and the characteristic features of the actual scenes themselves". This study also discusses those of his paintings that expressed the ideas of poetic or other literary works, with a particular focus on the characteristic ways in which painting is combined with poetry, as represented by the poetic inscriptions on his paintings of animals and plants. Because the paintings researched for this study are largely marked with the postscripts, "倣 XX 筆意" ("copying the meaning of the brush strokes by XX"), the types of imitations and the motifs of the albums are not discussed here. The research on Sim's paintings conducted for the purposes of this study suggests that there are still some works he painted in the style and techniques of old Chinese masters that remain unknown. These hidden works and the legacy of his art adopted by later generations of artists will be discussed in a follow-up study. ;본고는 玄齋 沈師正(1706∼1769)과 그의 작품이 가지는 회화사적 위상과 의미를 재인식하기 위하여 조선후기∼일제강점기를 거치면서 굴절된 作家論을 시대별로 살펴보고, 그의 작품을 창작의도 및 주제를 중심으로 고찰했다. 심사정은 조선후기, 18세기 중반에서 후반에 걸쳐서 활동했던 士人畫家다. 그러나 융성했던 가문이 몰락하고 逆謀罪人의 후손으로 평생 활동에 제약이 따랐고, 후계자 없이 사망했다. 그래서 그의 회화는 고난을 딛고 일어난 입지전적 예술의 표상으로 인식되었다. 또한 심사정은 중국화풍을 따른 ‘倣古繪畵’를 많이 그렸다. 일찍이 謙齋 鄭敾(1676∼1759)의 제자로 알려졌지만 정선이 진경산수로 대표되는 창의적·현실적인 事實美를 추구한 것과는 달리 모방적·비현실적인 理念美를 지향한 것으로 인식되었다. 이러한 정의나 평가는 이분법적으로 시대를 규정하고 특정한 장르의 예술이 이념적으로 우위에 있다는 전제에서 비롯된 것이다. 그러나 화가로서 당대 그의 명성은 金祖淳(1765∼1832)의“겸재의 그림은 만년에 솜씨가 더 오묘해져 현재 심사정과 이름을 나란히 하여 세상 사람들이‘謙玄’이라고 불렀다”라는 기록이 보여주듯이 정선과 나란히 ‘謙玄’으로 칭해졌다는 사실로서 잘 알 수 있다. 그러나 회화에 있어서 정선에 대적할만한 진정한 맞수라는 평가, 작품의 성격과 의미에 대해서는 아직까지 검토할 부분이 많다. 본고는 이를 위해 중국 화가의 방작을 표방한 그의‘倣古繪畵’를 포괄적으로 살펴보았다. 심사정의 금강산도가 정선의 것에 뒤지지 않게 당대 문인들의 많은 애호를 받았다는 점에도 주목하여 심사정의 금강산도를 다시 살폈다. 그리고 이를 통해 정선화풍과의 영향관계를 재평가하고, 구체적인 양식 비교를 통해 심사정 실경산수의 특징을 찾아보았다. 그리고 지금까지 학계에서 부분적으로만 논의된 詩意圖를 면밀하게 고찰하였다. 조선후기의 ‘시의도’가 조선 중기의 산수인물도들과 달리 서정적인 감상을 담고 산수표현이 섬세해 진다는 점에서, 심사정의 ‘文學關聯 繪畵’의 양상은 그가 새로운 변화에 능동적, 적극적으로 부응했음을 드러내기도 한다. 심사정 회화에 대한 평가와 변천에 대해서 여러 문집과 특히 『石農畵苑』육필본에 실린 김광국의 평가를 통해서, 동원, 미불, 오파의 심주, 동기창에 비견되었던 내용과 심사정의 금강산도가 특히 애호된 사실을 확인했다. 정선에 대해서는 진경산수화보다 왕유의 시의도와 같은 문학관련 회화, 寫意山水에 대한 평가가 높았음을 살펴볼 수 있었다. 이와 같이 동등하면서도 상보적인 정선과 심사정에 대한 조선후기의 평가는 1930년대를 거치면서 동양주의를 극복하려는 노력의 일환으로 ‘謙優玄劣’로 변화해가는 과정을 거치게 된다. 심사정의 가계·사승·교유에 있어서, 심사정 가문의 불행과 ‘비운의 화가’라는 像이 형성된 배경에는 손자뻘 되는 沈翼雲의 묘지명「玄齋居士墓志」의 영향이 컸음에 근거하여, 묘지집필 당시의 상황을 다시 추적해 보았다. 그리하여 집필 시기(1769~1770) 전후에 심익운이 심리적인 어려움을 많은 글을 통해 표현하고 있음에 주목하였다. 1748년 ‘숙종어진모사 감동직 탈락’사건에 대해서도 좌절의 계기로 보기 보다는 당시 정선은 이미 70대로 노쇄하고 40대 초반이었던 심사정이 당시 儒畵 중 대가로 불리우고 있었다는 사실을 부각하고자 했다. 한편, 방작의 경우 1740년 <舟遊觀瀑>부터 1768년 <蜀棧圖>에 이르기까지 심사정 회화에 있어서의 매우 중요한 작화방식이라는 것을 전제로 했다. 그리하여 심주를 비롯하여 동원, 원 사대가 중 예찬, 황공망을 따랐고 오진, 왕몽의 경우는 화보에 실린 그들의 준법을 변형하여 심사정 나름의 구도 안에 넣어서 제작한 것으로 보았다. 심사정은 40대 초반부터 ‘倣古人各體’라는 관지로서 화법에 있어서 남북종 융합을 지향하고 있었으므로, 1761년《豹玄兩先生聯畵帖》에서 남종화풍 기반에 북종의 강한 준법과 지두화법과 같은 새로운 화법을 실험적으로 적용하였음을 확인하였다. 또한 1763년 《倣古山水帖》에 이르러 남북종의 화법이 한 화면 안에서 동등한 비중을 차지하는 ‘남북종 융합화풍’을 완성해냈다. 말하자면 심사정의 방작은 방작 본래의 취지인 ‘모방 주체의 해석과 주관에 의한 재창조’라는 문인의 방작과는 구분되는 화가로서 화풍의 종합을 지향한 것으로 평가할 수 있다. 당대에 있어서 중국풍 ‘방고회화’애호는 시대의 조류였고, 심사정은 충실히 이에 호응하였던 것이다. 심사정의 실경산수화는 그동안 寫意的 實景으로 이해되었으나, 본 연구에서는 寫生風 실경산수群과 鄭敾式 구도에 沈師正 양식을 가미한 실경산수群이 공존함을 확인하였다. 이는 경물에 대한 작가의 주관적 해석을 가한 부분과 실제 경물의 특징이 조화를 이룬 실경산수라 할 수 있을 것이다. 그리고 시의도와 문학관련 회화를 시론형식으로 살폈는데, 기존에 알려져 있었던 심사정의 시의도에 새로운 자료를 추가하고, 특히 翎毛花草畵의 題詩에 주목하여 회화가 시와 결합한 양상을 특징으로 부각해 보았다는 점에서 본 연구의 의의를 찾고자 한다.