국립중앙박물관 소장 <태평성시도(太平城市圖)>의 아동상

Abstract

The painting, Taepyeongseongsi-do (Painting of Prosperity in City), chronicles an era of peace and depicts an urban landscape in the midst of the strong development of commerce and a rapid growth of population. The figures in the painting can be categorized into street paraders, merchants, farmers, builders, spectators, old gentlemen who are amused with idle hobby, and laborers such as weaving women. In addition, children are portrayed in a variety of forms such as errand boys shown doing various activities such as laboring, playing, servicing, shepherding or staying with mom. In Baekja-do (Painting of One Hundred Children), the errand boys catching fish, playing in the water, performing 'a show for officers', or 'riding on a wooden horse' symbolize holy rebirth in the next life, richness, many sons, and success in life. These errand boys also include the servants who brewed teas for old gentleman, respected scholars or sages, who had to maintain endless discipline, obedience, and virtue. In addition to this, Doljabee (an event held on a child's first birthday where they choose one of several symbolic objects such as a piece of thread, money, a pencil, etc) and a village school in Pyeongsaeng-do (Painting of One's Lifetime) served as a big event along the life and growth of the gentry's offspring as well as an important step in the process of their training. The merry-making errand boys happily spending time with their friends symbolize the innocence and purity of childhood, evoking a sense of nostalgia and longing in adults reminiscing about their past. The painter of Taepyeongseongsi-do appropriated these ideal images of young errand boys, symbolizing the inherent longings and unworldly ideals of human beings and reinterpreting them into actual figures. One's life and purity of childhood along with the visualization of a spirit of diligence are all incorporated into the canvas and represented through normal figures. In other words, classical painting and common painting, seemingly having nothing in common, are naturally combined on the canvas and reborn into a genre painting depicting a reign of peace. Representing such concepts as the birth of many sons, success in life, obedience, virtue, peace, purity and diligence, each figure is painted identically, thus presenting a coherent sense of harmony on the canvas. Therefore, the prosperous city portrayed in the painting embodies virtually, as well as realistically, the interchange between rural life and urban life, the past and the present, and the divine and the secular. At such a temporal and spatial intersection, like in the prosperous cities of the late Joseon period, all kind human behaviors were visualized through ideal urban scenes, including these images of children, which served to bolster the enhancement of national prosperity and defense.