Mt. Geumgang

Related materials for this work

• Text Review 1995-02-21 · Park Eun-soon

  Shin Jang-sik's Paintings of Mt. Geumgang — Park Eun-soon review (1995)

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  Text Review 1995-02-21 · Park Eun-soon

  Shin Jang-sik's Paintings of Mt. Geumgang — Park Eun-soon review (1995)

  Shin Jang-sik is a painter who searches in earnest. He ceaselessly pursues, and seeks answers to, the meaning of artistic work, distinctive techniques of expression, the conditions of our life in this age, and the question of self-identity. The fact that he has taken as his subjects the simple wildflowers and cheongsachorong (blue-and-red silk lanterns), the great drum, and Gwanghwamun — objects formed in history and still present in the now — was not simply a riding of the wave of subject-fashion or a superficial extraction of tradition. In expressing such subjects, he sought to express together the formal sense and sensibility that have, after long experimentation within our history, life, and art, become embodied in our constitution. And further, in order to find new values in our culture and life, he pursued the meaning and role of artistic expression, and the aesthetics and styles that might appeal to the sensibility of the contemporary person.

  In this exhibition, Shin Jang-sik paints Mt. Geumgang. What distinguishes Mt. Geumgang from Mt. Seorak or Mt. Hallasan — these mountains within reach — is that it lies beyond the Demilitarized Zone in the north, unreachable; and at the same time, for over a thousand years from the Goryeo period to the modern age, it has been the source of inspiration that gave birth to varied faiths and thought, literature and visual art. Mt. Geumgang has been considered, at times, a Buddhist holy ground — to see it once meant one would not fall into the realms of evil after death — at other times the exalted landscape of the Confucian scholar who would cultivate his temperament with that of the wise and benevolent, and again the longed-for immortal realm: he who has not seen Mt. Geumgang once in his lifetime cannot count himself among men. To us who now live in an age of division, Mt. Geumgang has come to carry yet another meaning — an emblem standing for the unification of the nation and the vision of a new future. Yet from some point on, young artists who could not reach Mt. Geumgang no longer painted it; and that, in itself, is the bare voice of a long culture and tradition severed — of our nation's contorted history.

  An auspicious mountain etched deep in the heart of the entire nation — Mt. Geumgang. What, then, is the reason and meaning of painting a Mt. Geumgang one has never visited? Especially now that Mt. Geumgang is no longer an object that can be treated as a mere landscape, to discover Mt. Geumgang and take it as a subject of artistic expression is by no means a thing one can do casually or by chance. Such a venture requires a deep-rooted attachment to and reflection upon our history and culture, a fierce examination of the real conditions of life, and a clear vision of the future; it requires a serious inquiry into the essence and the role of art; and naturally, the eminent sensibility and expressive capacity to sublimate such conditions into artistic expression.

  Through long years of ruminating on our culture and art in his practice, Shin Jang-sik at last came to discover Mt. Geumgang. To paint it, he studied the geology and forms of the mountain by composing the colonial-period photograph albums of Mt. Geumgang together with recently filmed videos of the mountain. He also examined the Mt. Geumgang paintings of various Joseon masters, beginning with Jeong Seon, studying the features and techniques of their expression. He has highlighted in particular the dynamic forms and the emissions of qi from the rocky peaks of Manmulcho (Outer Geumgang), soaring as if pushing into the sky, and at times has emphasized the spiritual power and mystery of a Mt. Geumgang the artist himself has not visited — a mountain that has by now become almost legendary. Painted in dominant blues and deep cobalts, the heavy, solid form of Mt. Geumgang seems on the one hand to take root firmly in the earth, unshaken by any storm, and on the other to possess a vigorous form and animation soaring toward the sky. If such scenes epically represent our nation's spirited bearing and tenacious vitality, the other Mt. Geumgang paintings — gentler, almost undulating peaks rendered flatly, with white richly applied to emphasize a mythic atmosphere — lyrically express the longing and affection for a Mt. Geumgang that is always longed for in the heart yet, for now, cannot be visited.

  Were the Mt. Geumgang work of Shin Jang-sik to draw only from the character and features of Mt. Geumgang as a subject, our curiosity about his work would be halved. But by skillfully fusing content, form, and technique, he maximizes the artist's intent and formal achievement, opening new horizons in his painting. The forms, colors, and various techniques he chooses combine very intimately to yield a singular expressive force. The blues, deep cobalt, and white used as the dominant palette to symbolize the atmosphere and meaning of Mt. Geumgang reinforce the symbolic atmosphere; the deft arrangement of form and color emphasizing an ascending current; the distinctive texture and vitality of expression rising from the dak (mulberry) paper pre-applied to canvas; and the finishing with sprinkled acrylic paints of various colors — producing the feeling of inner energy or qi bursting forth as it once did under the brushstrokes of old ink paintings — these are all of a piece. Likewise, the squares of deep-blue horizontal and vertical lines that sometimes cover the entire surface are at once an expression suggesting that one looks upon the Mt. Geumgang of one's dreams through an inner window, or that compensates for the lack of confidence in an actually surveyed landscape one could not yet directly observe and paint; a metaphor for the present situation, and at the same time a means of showing a more layered formal richness. The bolts and nuts atop the knots of the squares seem at once symbols of yin and yang, supports for the tenacious topography and force of Mt. Geumgang, and a contemporary reading of the constellations.

  Thus, mobilizing new themes and subjects and varied techniques of expression, Shin Jang-sik has revealed a new formal accomplishment — more substantial than before, more topical, more tightly fusing form, content, and technique. Watching the many shifts and the tenacious artistic will manifest in this exhibition, we direct our gaze toward him once again.

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