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.

Park Saengkwang, Jeon Bong-jun, 1985

Today, I’m going to talk to you about Jeon Bong-jun,
representative work by Park Saengkwang painted in his late period. Compared to other painters, Park has a unique career trajectory. In his 70s, Park changed his painting style dramatically. Most painters have limited innovation at the end of their lives, in their 70s and 80s. However, exceptionally, Park ventured on a new challenge in his 70s, as if he was a young artist.

The work is characterized by the use of primary colors, including five cardinal colors, particularly Jin-chae (眞彩), which means deep-colored pigments, also called Nong-chae (濃彩). As can be seen in the popularity of Dansaekhwa (Korean monochrome painting), even in the 1970s, very few artists focused on color. So Park was quite unique in this regard. The subject comes from the history of the Korean people and their traditions, including Dancheong (traditional multicolored paintwork), folk painting, Buddhist painting, and shamanic painting. His work suggested a novel way forward for Korean art.

As is evident, this is a huge piece. Park produced this painting in 1985, a year before his death. During this time period, I visited his studio several times to prepare for Park’s retrospective exhibition. He was working in a small room of his studio in Suyu-ri. The size of the work implies a reasonably large studio for its production. However, in fact, he worked in a tiny room by the door of his studio. Because it was impossible to unfold the work all at once, Park rolled the paper up and proceeded to work on individual portions spread out one at a time. Even Park himself could only see the full scope of his large pieces from his late period in the exhibition gallery for the first time. We can see that Park produced his representative works depicting Korean people even in these challenging surroundings. In particular, Park focused on modern Korean history in his late period and produced his essential works, including Empress Myeongseong (1984). He passed away while preparing another masterpiece that presents a historical scene of modern Korean society in addition to the works on Jeon Bong-jun.

Let’s look at the work. As we can see, the portrait of the protagonist General Jeon Bong-jun occupies the center of the painting. His eyes are filled with the same kind of energy evident in photographs of him, even at the moment of being arrested. There are government forces around him, as well as farmers with shocked expressions. The farmers are wearing plain white clothes while primary colors are used for the surroundings, showing the difference in social class and identity.

In fact, Park himself looked like this. In his late period, he had laryngeal cancer that caused a big balloon-like lump on his chin. Jeon Bong-jun’s depiction closely resembles that of the artist himself. The painter depicted Jeon Bong-jun in a simplified form, but does not negate the intensity and energy of the figure. It is impressive that the level of energy felt in the surrounding groups is entirely different from that of the main character, Jeon Bong-jun.

Regarding the details, we can see motifs, such as a rooster and a cow, that fill the painting. Technically, there is no law of perspective operating in the painting. Lines are used to emphasize the contour, and the inner space is filled in color. This technique is called the Baekmyobeop (白描法). It is characterized by robust and straightforward expression of the object’s features. A great artwork has dynamics in it, and the artist expresses the main and the subordinate elements, creating an artistic rhythm. This work is an excellent example of that. It means that the work reflects the artist’s mature compositional capacity.

Park highlights the protagonist Jeon Bong-jun by depicting him in the center. Also, at the same time, he emphasized the crying farmers. On the other hand, he painted the government army in a smaller size. Such difference of emphasis and size leads us to read the subject matter of the work and what the artist meant to express in his Jeon Bong-jun painting.

It is also interesting to find how the overall theme is permeated in every corner and detail of the work. The artist reveals the historical site as the Jeollabuk-do region by writing “The Principal City of Honam, Jeonju (湖南第一成)” in the upper part of the painting. Viewers can also read the story and the way Jeon Bong-jun, the principal city of Honam, the government army, and the peasant army are expressed. Therefore, this work lets us appreciate the zest and possibility of ‘reading paintings,’ which means understanding a painting like a book.

Before the age of 70, Park used to work traveling to Japan. It is incredible how he could produce works like Empress Myeongseong (1984) and Jeon Bong-jun (1985) in his 70s.

Since the mid-1970s, Park attempted a new style of painting. Reflecting his artist name ‘Naego (乃古, As it is),’ we can categorize this style as ‘Naego painting style.’ The definitive work of this approach is this work, Jeon Bong-jun. If Park survived for only three or five more years, there would have been several series of Jeon Bong-jun. It is a pity that he died while trying it in earnest.

It makes us happy to have an artist like Park Saenggwang at the end of the 20th-century history of Korean painting. Jeon Bong-jun was made possible by this unyielding artist who worked while rolling up the large paper in a tiny room. It leads us to contemplate art, and we, as viewers, are moved by it.