Initial Korean Art Research and Practice

Initial Research

Through this process of researching Korean art, I've struggled to find examples of modern Korean artists let alone general information about Korean art. Many of the websites or videos I can find center around Japanese or Chinese art. Gravitating toward Chinese art makes sense because Korea used to be a part of China. I assume Japanese art pops up because of the Japanese control of Korea during the early to mid-20th century. Regardless of this, I find it weird that Korean art isn't given a platform like Chinese or Japanese art. I understand there is a lot of eastern history that I'm just unaware of. Although I took AP World History in High School, again, we only learned about eastern history in China, India, and Japan. I learned nothing about Korea other than briefly being told about the Korean War. Luckily, I am taking a number of Korea-based classes to learn more about Korea's history as well as Korea's culture and language. I will have another tab on my homepage dedicated to detailing what I've learned from these classes.

However, there was one type of Korean art style I did learn about: Munbangdo painting. This type of painting was prevalent from the mid-18th century until the 20th century and was actually a relatively new type of painting for Koreans. Unlike their Western counterparts, still-life paintings were very new to Koreans. There are a number of types of Munbango paintings but the one covered in this video was centered around panel and shelf paintings. In these works, there is a high emphasis on education. Objects in the pictures are not placed by chance. Instead, the objects are used to emphasize different values and beliefs. For example, most munbangdo paintings have many different books which emphasize education and study. As the narrator in the video stated, "munbangdo shows antiquarian and past traditions, new technological trends, and cultures outside of Korea." Whereas 18th-century munbangdo appears more flat, 19th and 20th-century munbangdo incorporates more perspective into their pieces. I've included example pictures below. Learning about this style of painting has shown me a new perspective of art history, an eastern perspective I haven't had a chance to explore. While this is probably touching the very surface of Korean art, I'm excited to learn more in my classes and by visiting various art museums.

 Additionally, the Korean art/artists I can find are mainly contemporary performance, calligraphy, or installation/sculptural artists. I don't know a lot about these types of art in general, so this was a little confusing for me to learn about. There was one woman who did a lot of performative-type art that rebelled against the sexism she was facing in Korea which I thought was interesting. A narrator of the video also commented on how Korean art is "not just the fusion of eastern and western art but also the mixing of traditional and modern." I understand this description in a general sense but am excited to learn more about this over the course of my time in Korea.

Practice

In Colorado, there is definitely a lack of diversity or at least a lack of diversity of where I went to high school and at Mines. When I was younger, I lived in Fort Lee whose community was mainly made of Koreans, Chinese, and Russians. However, since moving back to Colorado, I've missed this diversity. In the art classes I've taken at ASLD, there is some variation in the models but the majority are white models. In art classes I've taken in the past, the focus was on studying primarily white/European faces. I never really thought about this before starting my practicum. I have tried drawing people in the past who had eastern features but, most of the time, they would end up sort of looking... well... white. I think I've grown accustomed to drawing white people so much that I unintentionally whitewash models I draw. I hate that I do that, so I wanted to practice drawing people from Asia to practice recreating true features rather than recreating features I have a method of drawing (I have a template in my head about how to draw a face, but it's how to draw a white woman). To do this, I practiced three different times and redid the last attempt when I was unhappy with the results. While I don't like showing my "bad" work, I am stringent on showing all of my work and process work over the course of this practicum. I think it would be untruthful--and stupid--to only show finished products.

Note: I got irritated with my Michelle Yeoh portrait so I decided to redo it. I documented the process and final picture below (3 hr). I think I mildly overworked the paper in the shadow sections so I couldn't build up the shadows as much (helping with depth). Still not perfect, I can see an improvement compared to my first study of her.