Arirang — Mt. Geumgang

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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)

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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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• Mixed Lecture 2011-05-25 · Shin Jang-sik

  Okinawa International University Symposium — 'Mt. Geumgang Paintings' (Shin Jang-sik) (2011)

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  Mixed Lecture 2011-05-25 · Shin Jang-sik

  Okinawa International University Symposium — 'Mt. Geumgang Paintings' (Shin Jang-sik) (2011)

  Geumgang stands there as space, yet it abides with the twenty years of time in which it met me. Through 365 days, through twelve months, Geumgang was together with my time. And it dwells, too, within the paintings in which I tried to hold its beauty. The Twelve Scenes of Mt. Geumgang (金剛十二景) are a small fruit born within this time and space. Time shared with me — and so, twelve scenes.

  Spring, summer, autumn, winter — the twelve meetings of earth and moon changed Geumgang's beauty, and I longed to paint what they held. The memory of sharing that changing time by the measure of the moon, and the beauty of the space-time meeting Geumgang in the days to come — may it meet my paintings once more.

  [[center]]Paintings of Mt. Geumgang

  [[right]]Shin Jang-sik (Professor, Kookmin University; Painter)

  1. The Tradition of Mt. Geumgang Painting

  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.

  2. Division and Mt. Geumgang

  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. Considered in the pictorial context of Mt. Geumgang as well as in its cultural-political weight, the "Mt. Geumgang" rendered by a painter of this age, who confronts the unrelenting reality of division, is yet another story of unification.

  3. Mt. Geumgang Found Again

  Now, having met Mt. Geumgang several times, perhaps that animation and shinmyeong (exalted spirit) will seep into my paintings as well. There remain many places I have not directly seen — Chongseokjeong, Singeumgang, and so on — 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. I hope, too, that some measure of this shinmyeong and vitality will be expressed in my paintings.

  4. Ideational Mt. Geumgang Paintings

  1993–1998 — 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. This work, begun long ago, was accompanied by research on Mt. Geumgang painting as a pictorial value. The works of that time, of which one could without exaggeration say they were ideational sansu (the East Asian landscape painting tradition), were thin in the connection between actuality and form, and drew doubtful looks from those around. My efforts to overcome this point appeared as research into old Mt. Geumgang paintings and the gathering of photographic materials, but a landscape painted without on-site experience was inevitably, perhaps, a painting in the head rather than in the heart. The black-and-white photograph from my 1996 solo exhibition catalog — me looking off into the distance with a cigarette — quietly shows my position standing at the clear fork between ideational sansu and true-view sansu (jingyeong sansu). A painter standing before the wire fence of the armistice line carries the air of one who longs for, or foresees, crossing it soon for Mt. Geumgang.

  5. Realistic Mt. Geumgang Paintings

  I approached Mt. Geumgang as a symbol and have now met its actuality. To paint the mountain yet to surpass the order of so-called representational sansu — that of merely transcribing the mountain — may be my principal task. Yet I have sought to step out of that frame, toward reading the actuality of Mt. Geumgang. The Mt. Geumgang paintings after my visits to the mountain differ in many ways from those before. First, ideational sansu can now turn into jingyeong sansu (true-view landscape). My recent works are jingyeong works of Mt. Geumgang, made on the basis of materials gathered by my own sketches and photographs on site. What I mean here by "the turn from ideation to true-view" is the process of finding "the union of actual landscape and painting." To speak — through Mt. Geumgang — of the animation of nature and the people, and further to take up concretely the contemporary and on-site (the situation including division) — this is the singular possibility that my painting cannot abandon. It is the work of attaining, through the union of symbol and actuality, an authenticity that runs through life and art.

  6. Prospects for Mt. Geumgang Painting

  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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