한국전쟁기 북한에서 미술인의 전쟁 수행 역할에 대한 연구

Abstract

This essay examines North Korean art as part of the preparation for the Korean War, which North Korea had been geared for since Kim Il-Sung took power, by focusing on the artists who were active in North Korea during the Korean War. As a way of mobilizing the public, art served as a powerful means of propaganda in socialism. In North Korea, art education for art's sake was prohibited; instead, art education as part of the preparation for war was encouraged and the activities of artists during the war were an outcome of such education. With this as a premise, this essay explores art education in North Korea right before the Korean War and the role of North Korean artists during the Korean War. During the war, the government exercised its power, emphasizing its authority to take retaliatory actions against its people, and the nation submitted themselves to the government in a state of national emergency. During the Korean War, many North Korean artists came to South Korea and equally many South Korean artists went to North Korea. However, even right after the liberation of Korea from Japan and before the war when the 38thparallel was already established, some artists chose to work in North Korea by crossing the 38th parallel. Therefore, the artists who went to North Korea can be divided largely into three groups: those who went to the northern peninsula before the war, those who went after the restoration of Seoul, and those who went after the war. There were also artists who grew up and lived in North Korea. They were affiliated with many socialist organizations and leagues and devoted to socialist art. There was also a group of artists who did not have professional education in art but allied themselves and worked as artists after North Korea established itself as a nation. Finally, there was another group of artists which was newly identified during this study. They were artists who studied art in the Soviet Union and were included in the talent education program after the war. Even during the period of the Korean War, artists in North Korea produced many works with Kim Il-Sung as the major theme, including Kim's portrait. Also, they were actively engaged in propaganda more than ever before, as art was a critical means of propaganda during the war.In fact, the flyers and posters produced by North Korean artists far outnumbered those by Korean armies and the U.N. forces. Newspapers and publications by North Korea were widely distributed across the peninsula, which included 7,000 posters of "Kim's Portrait" and 4,000 posters of "the Portrait of Stalin." One group of artists produced and distributed 15,000 fliers of "Actions for the Expulsion of the U.S. Forces," 80,000 flyers of the "Expulsion of the U.S. Forces," and 8,000 posters of the "Statement for the Expulsion of the U.S. Forces." The propaganda paintings for victory in the war were considered a privilege only the artists loyal to the communist party or with a strong sense of patriotism could produce and artwork produced during that period was also limited to propaganda. The posters and flyers seen in the pictures in South Korea tend to inspire military actions through the portrayal of military soldiers or by highlighting cruelty by the U.S. forces through the depiction of South Korean people inpain. Propaganda paintings during wars require persuasive power and incitement more than any other art genre, especially when the illiteracy rate was high and the public did not have access to printed matter like newspapers and magazines. Propaganda paintings should be readily understandable and convincing to the public. Accordingly, North Korean art at that time focused heavily on simplicity so that the public could easily understand the message it attempted to convey. As a result, it is speculated that the artists who produced propaganda paintings during the Korean War had been obsessed with the conception that art based on socialist realism should be readily understandable and thus faithful to socialist doctrines. Since the Korean War, the North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung actively utilized art and established socialist art, making the public believe that fantasy or utopia was real. An understanding of art in North Korea as a means of shaping a nation gives a glimpse of North Korean art as kitsch art.