백두산: 만들어진 전통과 표상

Abstract

Baekdu Mountain holds great significance for many Koreans. In the early 2000s, South Koreans were finally able to visit the mountain, which soon became a favorite destination of South Korean tourists. During the 1980s, South Koreans used the slogan “From Baekdu to Halla” on occasions calling for the unification of the Korean nation. This paper attempts to investigate diverse reproductions of Baekdu Mountain based on the dynamics of perspective, and to study Baekdu Mountain's significance for Koreans through North Korean landscape paintings in which the mountain serves as a backdrop. In North Korea, the painting <Dusk of the Country Land>(1975) by Jeong Yeong-man received praise from the country's leader Kim Jong-il. It served as an occasion to re-establish landscape paintings as a priority among the country's painters. In line with the authorities' efforts to publicize landscape paintings via special events such as the Nationwide Landscape Painting Exhibition in the 1980s, many painters dedicated their efforts to that genre of painting. The main purpose of encouraging landscape paintings during the 1980s was to propagandize Kim Il-sung's ‘revolutionary achievements’ with paintings about historic revolutionary sites, particularly those in and around Baekdu Mountain, as opposed to the policy of “inspiring sublime patriotism in the minds of the people” pursued in the 1960s. With the emphasis on the spirit of juche(self-reliance) even in literature and the arts, the country established a guideline for landscape paintings to the effect that: “All natural objects should be portrayed in a way that conveys the full range of meanings and emotions.” From the 2000s onwards, the ‘portrayal of significance’ technique came to be adopted positively in landscape paintings. Amid such changes in the styles of painting, North Korea has used the symbolism of Baekdu Mountain, a mountain cherished by its people, in connection with the country's efforts for idolization of its current leader Kim Jong-il and his deceased father Kim Il-sung. In North Korea's ‘self-reliant’ fine arts, it is stressed that objects can be felt to be beautiful only through a person's subjective sentiment, although beauty is an objective phenomenon, meaning that the physical quality of objects, including Baekdu Mountain, can be discussed only through people's world view and philosophy. However, it is something of a paradox that such a discussion serves only as a basis for consolidating the ideology of self-reliance in North Korea.