Press Coverage — 'Dream Journey to Geumgang: 300 Years of Mt. Geumgang Paintings' at Ilmin Museum of Art (1999)

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• Mixed Artist's Note 1999-05 · Shin Jang-sik

  Munhwa Ilbo, "Mt. Geumgang Essay — Majestic Form, Canvas Falls Short" — Shin Jang-sik Artist Essay (1999)

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  Mixed Artist's Note 1999-05 · Shin Jang-sik

  Munhwa Ilbo, "Mt. Geumgang Essay — Majestic Form, Canvas Falls Short" — Shin Jang-sik Artist Essay (1999)

  Last November I took the first ship to Mt. Geumgang, and my longing and thirst for the mountain were somewhat eased; but after that journey, like one in a fever, I felt a new thirst rise. Leaving behind that Mt. Geumgang I had so longed for and boarding the night ship back, I saw the lights of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) lying along the great spine of the Baekdudaegan.

  The night-watch lamps along the DMZ ran in a long line that followed the contours of the mountains. South of those lights, points of light continued; north of them, dark stillness. Within that darkness and stillness, Mt. Geumgang lay. Seeing the condition of our country's division in such concrete, visual terms, I could not shake a tangled heart. Returning home and going through the sketches and slides I had made, contrary to my expectation that I would paint Mt. Geumgang in a fury, I could not paint. Why? Mt. Geumgang itself was too beautiful, too vast to compare with my feeble painting; I was overwhelmed by its qi and could not paint.

  Having actually seen the Mt. Geumgang I had painted from old paintings, photographs, materials, and imagination, I was thrown back to painting's fundamental question — the union of content and form. Were the forms of my Mt. Geumgang paintings up to now adequate? Seeing Mt. Geumgang in person, I came to understand why eighteenth-century Gyeomjae had painted as he had. From the standpoint of our day, looking toward the twenty-first century, how can my Mt. Geumgang paintings touch the actuality of Mt. Geumgang with my own temperament and sensibility?

  And on what basis can the legitimacy of such expression rest …? I could find no end to that intricate worry. And the longing for a Mt. Geumgang I had seen only hurriedly, as on horseback past blossoms, returned aching. I must go to Mt. Geumgang again. Now it can be visited at any time. The form of my painting, its newness — these will only resolve when I stand there again. Just as kimchi needs time to ripen into its flavor, so too my Mt. Geumgang paintings would naturally ripen in the flow of time, I thought. When will I visit again? I had seen Gaegol (the bare-bone winter form); in spring I would see Geumgang itself, in summer Bongnae, in autumn Pungak. If I could experience all four seasons of Geumgang, perhaps, by good fortune, a new inspiration for the Mt. Geumgang painting would visit my soul. Considering the wistful, unfinished feeling of painting without seeing, if I labored to see as much as I could, something would surely come to hand.

  In such a state, when the invitation to participate in the Ilmin Museum of Art's 〈Mt. Geumgang Found Again〉 (Mongyu Geumgang — Three Hundred Years of Mt. Geumgang in Painting) arrived, my joy was beyond words. Not only from personal interest but within the curation of a museum, I could see Geumgang again. To feel Geumgang together with other painters, to debate the new possibilities of our art, to vie and to encourage in painting — a new strength rose within me.

  On the evening of April 16th, the ship departed Donghae Port and turned again toward Mt. Geumgang. The grandeur of sunset, joined with the noble form of the Baekdudaegan, lit anew the beauty of our country. Could I more clearly set the direction of my painting this time, even produce a single drawing? With the hope of receiving the inspiration to render in painting, in harmony, a Mt. Geumgang that is grand, gorgeous, and ten-thousand-changing …

  Snatching only the lightest sleep so as not to miss the moment of arrival at Jangjeon Port, I stood at the bow; unlike that winter dawn arrival, in this bright morning sunlight Mt. Geumgang revealed itself as if blessing our reunion. The mountain was still there.

  The port arrival and the entry procedures had been streamlined and systematized compared with the first visit. Passing Onjeong-ri, racing along between the pines of Hanhaegye through to Mansangjeong, where the bus arrived, I ran ahead toward Samseonam to meet the full view of Manmulsang. Manmulsang in the breath of spring received us with vigor and freshness. Past Samseonam, Gwimyeonam, Jeolbu-am, Ansim-dae, Mangjangcheon, I climbed straight up to Cheonseon-dae; the breath of spring embraced all of Manmulsang, and the warm sunlight, throughout my sketching, seemed to bless my return. As my hand moved and the drawing formed, I thought: this is not my will but the qi this mountain gives, and I drew dozens of sketches. The next day the miinsongs (beautiful pines) along the Changto pine grove on the way to Okryu-dong received us with the animation of a faintly green wetness, and the limpid waters of Yeonjudam deepened in jade-mystery.

  Biryong Falls, soaring as if into the sky, and Guryong Falls, pouring its grand torrent, were swollen with water — unlike their frozen forms of last winter — and their animation was at full peak. The flow of water, its sound, mysterious colors, the scent of spring, the blooming flowers, the trees rising with sap, the great rocks — all of it composed a single symphony of vitality. Mongyu Geumgang — a dream-journey through Geumgang. What more can be said! Carried away in painting amid that qi, I had no sense of the passing hours when, alas, the tour guide began to hurry us down.

  Paintings of Mt. Geumgang are countless — from the Goryeo monk No-yeong's Buddhist 〈Painting of Kṣitigarbha〉, to Gyeomjae Jeong Seon's 〈Geumgang Jeondo〉, the album leaves of Kim Hong-do, the many minhwa, and modern works such as Haegang Kim Gyu-jin's 〈Mt. Geumgang〉 and 〈Chongseokjeong〉 (painted after a sketching journey by order of Emperor Sunjong during the colonial period) and Sojeong Byeon Gwan-sik's 〈Samseonam〉. Mt. Geumgang painting, in particular, is a sanctuary in the history of our painting — the place where, from Gyeomjae Jeong Seon onward, our own aesthetics were established by sketching the beauty of our land from the actual scene (silgyeong). The inspiration for our painting in our age, made from our own, must surely be sought here.

  And yet since the division, not a single painter in the South has painted Mt. Geumgang. Even from imagination and materials, would it not be good to attempt Mt. Geumgang painting anew at this moment? With this thought I began, and from my 1993 solo exhibition through 1998 I have presented five solo exhibitions on the theme of Mt. Geumgang. In truth, my experience as assistant art director for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics gave the initial momentum: from interest in the formal vocabulary hidden in folk subjects — cheongsachorong, drums, gongs, flags, Gyeongbokgung — I worked under the theme of 〈Arirang〉. Afterward, expressing the animation and vitality dwelling in our land through subjects such as cockscomb, wild grasses, the pine, and Bukhansan, I came naturally to think: if so, why not paint Mt. Geumgang, the sanctuary of our painting? That simple thought was the beginning of my Mt. Geumgang painting. Painting Mt. Geumgang without having visited carried no small number of regrets. Yet I could not erase from those paintings the hope that one day I might go. Now, having met Geumgang twice, perhaps that animation and shinmyeong (exalted spirit) will seep into my paintings as well. There remain many places I have not directly seen — Sangpaldam, Inner Geumgang, Chongseokjeong, Singeumgang — but perhaps the shinmyeong and vitality our people carry are now possible within Mt. Geumgang paintings. Will a time not come, in the future, when the division of our nation is overcome and Mt. Geumgang is reborn as a symbol of the nation? Then I shall see it to my heart's content.

  At 〈Mt. Geumgang Found Again〉, I hope that some measure of this shinmyeong and vitality will be expressed in my paintings. I shall settle my impatient heart and build it up little by little.

  Mt. Geumgang is my Mt. Geumgang, and our nation's Mt. Geumgang. I hold this hope: that one day, painters from the South and the North together may paint Mt. Geumgang on its very soil, debate our art, and exhibit in Seoul and Pyongyang — would not our symbol thereby be made still more precious? Would it not be possible to meet through the sensibility common to our people? Not meeting an empty mountain devoid of people, but meeting the mountain together with its people — the joy then would be greater still.

  

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