서문


비빔밥으로서 한국미술사 서문초안


The art of Korea has too often been treated as a peripheral footnote in global histories, reduced either to delicate fragments—celadon, white porcelain, calligraphy—or else overshadowed by the grandeur of neighboring civilizations. Yet this narrow lens misses the deeper pattern that has shaped Korean visual culture: a continuous, adaptive, and profoundly hybrid tradition that stretches from the megaliths of prehistory to the mediated spectacles of K-pop and contemporary cinema 


Korean artists and communities rarely created in isolation. They drew from Chinese, Japanese, and later Western precedents, yet never simply imitated them. Instead, they recontextualized these “originals” within local philosophies, social structures, and ritual practices, transforming them into something uniquely Korean before sending them back into the broader currents of world culture.

Consider the gold crowns of Silla, which adapted Central Asian motifs into a ritual language of authority;  or the subtle repetition of Dancheong colors and forms in Korean ceramics, which merged aesthetic refinement with everyday materiality; or the brushstrokes of Hangeul calligraphy, which combined Confucian discipline with a radical democratization of literacy.


What emerges is a visual culture defined less by empire or the demands of centralized authority and more by mediation, negotiation, and the voice of the peripheral or marginal, whether through folk painting, ritual masks, or community festivals. This is a culture of hybrid synthesis, where stone, clay, ink, and digital screens coexist as elements of a long, adaptive tradition. From Jeong Seon’s landscapes capturing the lived contours of place, to the abstraction of Dansaekhwa, to Nam June Paik’s global circuits of media art, to contemporary cinema and K-pop, Korea’s art constantly absorbs, transforms, and projects outward, speaking to publics far beyond its borders.  


To understand Korean art is to appreciate a constellation that is always in motion. It is neither a single, fixed identity nor the product of a single center. It is a hybrid, dynamic, globally resonant field, capable of challenging assumptions about linear modernity, elite vs. popular culture, and the very notion of what counts as world art. By tracing these entangled trajectories, we see that Korea is not peripheral at all; it is a vital node in the ongoing conversation of global visual culture  


The global narratives of art history still largely overlook, or else reduce to a footnote, the complex visual cultures that have shaped Korea’s transformation from prehistory to the present. Too often, “Korean art” has been cast as derivative of East Asian counterparts, or else compressed into a few decorative fragments stripped of the social worlds that gave them life. 

Engaging with ancient dolmens, Silla gold crowns, Joseon literati painting, and contemporary media experiments, each work unfolds with echoing rituals, vernacular gestures, and global resonances. Here, local and transnational elements collide and recombine, materiality dances with abstraction, and historical memory pulses through modern installations. 


This volume offers a new kind of survey, one that seeks neither a linear chronology nor a nationalist inventory, but a rethinking of Korea’s artistic traditions as a series of evolving encounters while revamping the conventional narrative of Korean art; presenting it not as a series of isolated achievements but as a bibimbap hybridity, constantly evolving with borrowing, remixing, and transforming

between the local and the transnational, the material and the metaphysical.


Challenging conventional assumptions that Korea is either marginal or imitative, this book proposes that Korean art is best understood as a bibimbap hybridity—a layered mixture of influences, traditions, and innovations, carefully balanced yet constantly recombined. At times it mediates between East Asian visual cultures, at times it generates radical experiments, and increasingly it engages global audiences across media and genres. Its history does not follow a single linear trajectory; instead, it forms a dynamic field of resonances, where ancient rituals and folk practices echo in minimalist ceramics, calligraphy, and contemporary installations, and where vernacular imaginations find new life in media art, cinema, and K-pop. In Korea, the local and the transnational, the elite and the popular, the ancient and the contemporary continually meet and transform one another,  creating a visual culture that is as hybrid as it is globally resonant.


Only by tracing these entangled trajectories—stone, clay, ink, and screen—can we begin to understand how Korea’s art illuminates the broader contradictions of modern culture: the tension between empire and periphery, tradition and innovation, resistance and global integration. To follow this history is to discover that Korean art is not peripheral at all, but central to reimagining what world art history might mean.






목차


Chapter 1. Introduction: Between Periphery and Node

👉 한국 미술은 주변부가 아니라 교차와 재맥락화의 장소다.


Chapter 2. Stones and Spirits

👉 강화 고인돌 거석문화와 신라 금관은, 땅과 하늘, 권력과 신성의 결속을 시각화하며 한반도 특유의 기복신앙, 메시아주의와 신정주의적 샤머니즘에 대한 발로다


Chapter 3. Networks of Transmission

👉 불교미술은 인도-중국의 단선적 문화 수입품이 아니라 한반도에서 변주, 재창조를 겪은 후 2차 창작되어 일본에 전파되었다


Chapter 4. Clay, Glaze, and Everyday Abstraction

👉 고려청자와 조선백자는 흙과 불로 빚은 추상적 조형예술이며 일상적이면서도 초월적인 미학의 정수다


Chapter 5. Landscape and Lived Space

👉 정선의 진경산수와 사대부적 회화공간에서 소중화주의와 글로컬리티를 읽어내자


Chapter 6. Vernacular Imaginations

👉 민화, 꼭두, 하회탈과 같은 민중적 조형문화는 제의와 오락, 공동체적 삶 속에서 형성된 시각적 언어로 볼 수 있으며 엘리트회화와는 다른 차원의 생활미학으로서 주목해볼 필요가 있다


Chapter 7. Scripts and Surfaces

👉 한글의 창제와 서예는 문자와 조형을 하나의 미학으로 결합한 세계 시각문화사의 독특한 실험이라고 생각하며 조선 주자학적 질서 속에서 문자와 권위, 감성과 수행을 연결했다


Chapter 8. Colonial Modernities

👉 제국이 아니라 식민지가 더 보편적인 근대경험이며, 유화, 사진, 박람회 등의 식민지 모더니티의 시각문화는 근대가 단절이 아니라 충돌과 변형 속에서 형성되었음을 보여준다


Chapter 9. Material Monochromes

👉 단색화는 반복과 물질성으로 한국적 추상의 언어를 세계의 무대에 새겼다(해방후 남북의 미술체제, 아방가르드도 고민중) 


Chapter 10. Media, Politics, and Global Circuits

👉 백남준의 전자 이미지와 네트워크 실험은 한국이 추후 글로벌 네트워크의 동심원 한가운데 존재하게 될, 먼저 온 미래를 예고했다


Chapter 11. Global Korea: Cinema as Visual Modernity

👉 영화는 근대 이후 한국의 움직이는 회화로, 식민지기의 기록영화부터 21세기 칸 영화제 수상작까지, 한국 사회의 서사와 미적 감각을 국제적 언어로 번역해왔다.


Chapter 12. Screens and Soundscapes: K-Pop as aesthetics of performance

👉 K-pop은 시청각과 몸짓의 연희문화를 통합한 총체적 미디어 아트로 접근할 필요가 있으며 무대 영상 패션 팬덤을 결합한 하나의 시스템으로서 오늘날 세계 대중문화의 문법을 다시 쓰고 있다.


Chapter 13. Korea in Larger Contexts

👉 한국미술은 돌에서 미디어까지, 고대 제의부터 K-pop까지, 늘 외부와의 접속과 내부적 재해석을 통해 자기정체성을 재구성해왔다.


동아시아와 서구, 민족과 세계를 가로지르는 긴장과 교섭 속에서 한국미술은 여전히 움직이는 목표물이며 세계사적 공명을 낳는 하나의 별자리이기에 세계 미술사의 재서술을 요구한다.


댓글(0) 먼댓글(0) 좋아요(0)
좋아요
공유하기 북마크하기찜하기
 
 
 

本日、江南新沙の湖林(ホリム)美術館で「黒の叙事―黒でひらく無限と生成の風景」という題名の展覧会が始まりました。黒という色彩を主題に据えた作品が一堂に会しています。

오늘 강남 신사의 호림미술관에서 '검은 서사-검은 빛 무한과 생성의 풍경'이라는 제목의 전시회가 시작되었습니다. 흑이라는 색채를 주제로 한 작품이 한자리에 모여 있습니다.



東洋思想の中で黒はどのような意味をもち、どのような組み合わせで表現されてきたのか。黒を軸にした韓国の美意識や、古美術と現代美術との関わりを探っていきます。

동양사상에서 흑은 어떤 의미를 지니며 어떤 조합으로 표현되어 왔는가. 검은색을 축으로 한 한국의 미의식과 고미술과 현대미술의 관계를 살펴봅니다.


韓国の人びとは古くから「白衣民族」と呼ばれるほど白を尊び、黒はあまり目立ちませんでした。白磁の月壺ばかりが注目を集めてきましたが、木炭や黒磁、つまり青磁胎に鉄絵具を全面に施した鉄彩磁器も日常で用いられていました。

한국 사람들은 예로부터 '백의민족'이라고 불릴 정도로 흰색을 귀하게 여겼고, 검은색은 별로 눈에 띄지 않았습니다. 백자 달항아리만 주목받았지만 목탄이나 흑자, 즉 청자태에 철화구를 전면에 입힌 철채자기도 일상적으로 사용되었습니다.


ただし黒は白と対立する色ではなく、共に存在する色として深い意義を備えています。五方色の体系で黒は水を示し、水は生命の根源を象徴します。静かに染み入り流れる水を映す黒は、生の始まりや限りない深淵、内へと収束する叡智、落ち着きや完成、さらには新たな可能性を抱いた闇、生命の循環や宇宙の秩序にまでつながっていくのです。そのため、天の色を表す玄色と呼ばれることもありました。 

다만 검은색은 흰색과 대립되는 색이 아니라 함께 존재하는 색으로서 깊은 의의를 갖추고 있습니다. 오방색 체계에서 검은색은 물을 나타내고 물은 생명의 근원을 상징합니다. 조용히 스며들어 흐르는 물을 비추는 검은, 삶의 시작이나 끝없는 심연, 안으로 수렴하는 예지, 침착함이나 완성, 나아가 새로운 가능성을 품은 어둠, 생명의 순환이나 우주의 질서에까지 연결되어 가는 것입니다. 그래서 하늘의 색을 나타내는 현색이라고 불리기도 했습니다.


これまで色彩を扱う展覧会は多くありましたが、黒は白に比べ取り上げられることが少なく、否定的に見られてきた歴史があります。今回の企画はそのような黒に名誉を回復させる試みといえるでしょう。

지금까지 색채를 다루는 전람회는 많이 있었지만, 검은색은 흰색에 비해 거론되는 경우가 적어 부정적으로 여겨져 온 역사가 있습니다. 이번 기획은 그런 흑에게 명예를 회복시키는 시도라고 할 수 있습니다.


とりわけ崔滿麟(チェ・マンリン 1935-2020)の彫刻や仏教美術、黒磁の展示を通して、韓国の伝統文化に息づく黒の多面的な意味を垣間見ることができます。気候変動や酷暑が続く今の陽の時代に、陰がもたらす清涼や、静と動の均衡を感じ取れる貴重な機会になるのではないでしょうか。

詳しくは下記のリンクをご覧ください。

특히 최만린(1935-2020)의 조각과 불교미술, 흑자 전시를 통해 한국 전통문화에 숨쉬는 검은색의 다면적인 의미를 엿볼 수 있습니다. 기후변화와 혹서가 계속되는 요즘 시대에 그늘이 주는 청량과 정과 동의 균형을 느낄 수 있는 귀중한 기회가 되지 않을까요.


詳しくは下記のリンクをご覧ください。


https://www.horimmuseum.org/ko/exhibition/68a27267826c236d3c4181c8


https://www.ggbn.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=57474


댓글(0) 먼댓글(0) 좋아요(0)
좋아요
공유하기 북마크하기찜하기
 
 
 

한국미술사를 영어로 쓰고 있(싶)다고 했는데 이것도 걍 대충 올려야겠다. 준비가 안된 것 같다고 너무 꽁꽁 싸매고 끙끙 대지말고


At first glance, the two images on these open pages appear to draw from the tradition of Munjado (文字圖, 문자도), the ideograph paintings of the Joseon dynasty. Yet something in their visual logic feels distinctly unconventional, suggesting a departure from orthodoxy toward a more abstract, even modernist sensibility.


Rather than adhering to the balanced symmetry and decorative restraint typical of classical Munjado, these works adopt a more assertive visual language. Thick black contours carve out space with graphic confidence, blocks of color interrupt the composition with bold contrasts, and the overall structure leans toward asymmetry, lending the images a restless, almost kinetic energy. 


On the right-hand page, a two-story cheonggiwa—a traditional wooden building with blue-tiled roof—seems to perch improbably atop a single sweeping line of choseo(草書, 초서), the fluid cursive calligraphy. The effect is at once architectural and gestural, suggesting a deliberate fusion of form and stroke, structure and spontaneity.


Despite the surface textures that evoke the patina of age, the overall aesthetic feels deliberately hybrid. It could be a late 19th reinterpretation, or just as plausibly, a contemporary work that reimagines Confucian form through a modernist lens. Without attribution, one can only speculate—but the ambiguity is part of the intrigue.


On the left, the inscription reads: 「百世淸風夷濟之碑」. This classical Chinese phrase, rendered in a 4-4 rhythm, can be translated as “A stele commemorating the pure and upright conduct of Yi and Ji, passed down over a hundred generations.” The first half—百世淸風(in korean: Baekse Cheongpung/in chinese: Baishiqingfeng, in japanese: hyakuseiseifu)—literally means “the pure breeze of a hundred generations,” a metaphor for moral virtue that transcends time. Its origins trace back to the Zhou dynasty in ancient China, where the brothers Bo Yi and Shu Qi (known in Korean as 백이Baek Yi and 숙제Suk Je) refused to serve the conquering regime after the fall of the Shang(Yin) dynasty. Choosing self-imposed exile, they survived on wild plants(in korean: 고사리 gosari) and ultimately starved rather than compromise their principles.


The renowned Confucian philosopher Mencius revered them as “the purest among sages” (夷齊.聖之淸者), and their story became a cornerstone of moral discourse in East Asia. The line appears in the Mencius, Wan Zhang Xia(만장하), the second volume of the fifth chapter of Mengzi(맹자). I recall vividly from my year in traditional school, where I memorized the Sishu(사서) in its entirety through daily recitation. That rigorous training embedded these classical texts not only in memory but also in instinct, making the resonance of this stele's inscription all the more immediate.


In Korea, the brothers' legacy was especially admired during the Joseon dynasty, referenced by figures such as Prince Suyang(수양대군) In modern times, the independence activist An Jung-geun(안중근) invoked their names in calligraphy, underscoring their continued relevance as emblems of integrity.


The pure breeze of hundred generations, Baekse Cheongpung(百世淸風) serves as a kind of moral shorthand—an ideal encapsulated in a phrase—symbolizing the endurance of ethical clarity in an age of ambiguity. The stark formal treatment in these images, particularly the sculptural density of the black forms, reflects that clarity with unexpected visual power. Whether a historical artifact or a modern intervention, the work reclaims the language of virtue and repurposes it within a bold, expressive framework. It is a deeply Confucian message, refracted through a strikingly experimental visual idiom.


사진출처: https://www.threads.com/@o.binyoun.o/post/CuZWva5LL-Y?xmt=AQF06SiyRP-vtYfjx7SdgS241J14oUZYO1TY9wHdHg8bJQ


댓글(0) 먼댓글(0) 좋아요(0)
좋아요
공유하기 북마크하기찜하기