번창과 퇴락-개항 이후 한일 문학 및 회화에 나타난 서울/경성의 역사적 이미지들 간 교차와 역설에 관하여

Abstract

This article aims to read a variety of cultural representations of domestic and international literature and paintings on Seoul／Gyeongseong in the early 19th and early 20th centuries in relation to the dialectical dynamics of prosperity and decline. The prosperity of Seoul, the capital of the Joseon Dynasty, lasted for about 100 years from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century. In the paintings and poetry of the late Joseon Dynasty, Seoul was foregrounded as a world of living where people were overflowing and goods were exchanged. In particular, <Taepyeongseongsido> presented an image of the interior of the city, which was spatially levelled by the perspective of a bird’s-eye view of the city. The urban space flattened in the visual dimension weakened the existing idealistic meaning of space and hierarchy. Married man and woman, Yi Saeng and Cho Ok in Powuigyojip wandered about here and there in the urban space, and were dating each other beyond status. However, after the opening of the port, Seoul, at the turn of the 19th and early 20th centuries, became the old city to be saved by modern civilization represented by hygiene. In Nakarai Tosui’s Kosafukukaze, Gyeongseong was the place where various mudslingings and Machiavellian tactics over the fate of Joseon. Gyeongseong is also described as a city that is dualized by sewage of day and night entertainment. Meanwhile, the illustration of the so-called (French) “Journal” depicted Seoul as a city of unexploration and stagnation in the midst of power struggles. <Seoul Scenery> by Dutch- American painter Hubert Bos presented a privileged view of Seoul as an secret city. Natsume Soseki’s diary presented the city consisting of pine trees, mountains, white clothes, antiques and native products. The list of objects was a subject that was adjacent to past and present images of the entire Joseon Dynasty. The list of objects that make up the city of Gyeongseong was listed only as a kind of display or monument that holds historical memories and was therefore replaced by a value-neutral exchange. Meanwhile, in the Chosen of Takahama Kyoshi, Gyeongseong was a city of back alleys and suburbs. The characters of Chosen were eroded or captured by empathy, albeit temporarily, into the world of the past and the non-daily here such places evoke. In fictions such as Gomokhwa, “Gyeongseong Yuramgi” and “Giro” the Korean writers mostly paid attention to the prosperity of Seoul／Gyeongseong and the development of modern cities, but at the same time, they unexpectedly capture the image of reaction against its negativity.