작업 소개

57STUDIO는 국립현대미술관의 열린강좌 프로그램 중 미술관 소장품 강좌 시리즈를 제작하였습니다. 윤범모 관장이 직접 작품을 설명하는 형식으로 구성하였으며, 실제 교육 현장에서 효과적인 학습 자료로 활용될 수 있도록 제작되었습니다. 또한, 어느 장면을 캡처하더라도 교육 자료로서의 기능이 충실히 전달될 수 있도록 화면을 구성하였습니다. 이 시리즈는 작가 12명의 작품을 조명하며, 매주 수요일 YouTube LIVE를 통해 공개되었습니다.

57STUDIO produced the Museum Collection Lecture Series as part of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s (MMCA) open lecture program. The series was structured in a format where Director Yoon Bum-mo personally explains each artwork, ensuring its effectiveness as a valuable educational resource for use in learning environments.

The videos were designed so that every frame could function as an informative material, regardless of where it was captured. This series highlights the works of 12 artists and was released weekly via YouTube LIVE every Wednesday.

Jung Chanyoung, Peacock, 1937

Hello, I am Youn Bummo, the Director of MMCA. Today we will take a look at Peacock, a masterpiece by artist Jung Chanyoung. Jung Chanyoung was a woman artist of the 1930s who was especially proficient in traditional color painting. However, she has remained relatively unknown to the public, due to the small number of her remaining works, and the fact that she stopped working in later life. Nevertheless, I believe she is an important artist, a successor to the tradition of Korean color painting who achieved new developments in the genre during the 1930s.

Born in Pyeongyang in 1906, Jung had the opportunity to witness new culture. It is well known that in the first half of the 20th century, Pyeongyang and Daegu, as well as Seoul, were major centers of art. As a region that had accommodated the new Western civilization early on, Pyeongyang was also a center for the study of new forms of art. During the 1910s, artists such as Kim Kwanho and Kim Chanyoung, who had studied in Tokyo and begun a new tradition of oil painting in modern Korea, were from Pyeongyang. Jung’s teacher was Lee Youngil. He, too, was a proficient traditional color painter, but because he gave up his practice of art early, few of his works survive today.

Country Girl, a large masterpiece by Lee from the late 1920s, is among the MMCA collection. Jung Chanyoung, who studied traditional pigment painting technique with Lee, submitted her work to the Joseon Art Exhibition competition in the 1930s. During the Japanese colonial era, the annual Joseon Art Exhibition, held each May, was the only stage for the debut of ordinary artists. In 1929, Jung’s color painting Lotus was selected for the Exhibition, after which she continued to submit her works. Jung often painted birds, such as peacocks. On her visits to the zoo, she actually observed and sketched various birds and animals, diligently developing her drawings into paintings.

In 1935 she received the Changdeokgung Award, the highest prize at the Joseon Art Exhibition, for her work A Girl. But this promising young woman artist of the 1930s gradually grew apart from her artistic practice after forming a family, due to her lack of time to paint. During the Korean War, her husband, a botanist named Do Bongseop, was abducted to North Korea, thus forcing the artist to become the sole breadwinner for her family. This misfortune further distanced her from the art scene, consequently making her an artist with very few remaining works. Long ago, on a trip to Pyeongyang, I visited the Chosun Art Museum, the national art museum of North Korea. There, I had a surprising experience. To my astonishment, Lotus, known as the artist’s early debut work, was in a permanent exhibition at the museum. Upon returning to Seoul, I introduced this work to people through a color photograph, thus confirming the new status of artist Jung Chanyoung.

Peacocks, also part of the MMCA’s collection, is a horizontally long painting of a pair of peacocks. Besides this work of two peacocks perched on the trunk of a pine tree, characterized by the birds’ long, draped feathers, there is also Peacock, which is of a single peacock with his wings fully spread, filling the entire surface of a 4-piece folding screen. Peacocks have beautiful patterns on their wings, but they are by no means easy subject matter, since the artist must portray them delicately, with a fine brush. Without masterly skills in detailed brushwork, the portrayal of peacocks and pine trees is a very challenging task. Jung Chanyoung was up to it, painting the peacocks with exquisite, fine brushwork. The mainstream of Korean traditional painting has been color pigment painting. But because such coloring technique was also characteristic of Japan, Korean public sentiment toward color painting was negative, and the genre was devaluated following liberation. Color pigment painting originated in China, where it can be categorized into the Southern School and the Northern School. Compared to the ink paintings by literary artists of the Southern School, color painting can be seen as belonging to the Northern School. Since color technique was associated with the Northern School style, artists practicing such technique in the Korean peninsula, which was under strong influence from the literary ink painting style, were not highly evaluated. Against this background, it is noteworthy that a skilled color artist such as Jung Chanyoung gained prominence.

Looking at the masterpiece Peacock, we are moved to think again about the tradition of color painting, about Jung’s artistic merit in her elaborate work, and about her inner desire to pursue a new future through the brilliant peacock, despite the dark and gloomy times. The work seems to be asking us to think about what the Peacock means to us, in our life and era today.