근대기 미술제도 도입과 문인의식

Abstract

In modern Japan, traditional arts were reorganized from the perspective of Western European arts. As a result, the genre of Japanese-style paintings (nihonga in Japanese) was created. The category of Eastern paintings (touyouga in Japanese and dongyanghwa in Korean) was created in Japan as a superordinate concept to connect the reorganized Japanese paintings with East Asian arts. In both Japan and Korea, there are paintings and calligraphic works that derived from old Chinese schools of art. This creates the tacit understanding that mutual “traditional paintings” belong to known realms. The existence of the alien category of Western art often highlights the recognition that Japanese, Chinese and Korean traditional paintings are quite homogeneous and similar. The framework for Eastern paintings represents an uncritical combination of non-Western elements seen in those three types of cultures, which share similarities. Despite their heterogeneous factors, Eastern paintings worked as a device to de-emphasize specific differences among them. The traditional paintings of each country have their own distinctions formed by history and cultures. For example, their forms and contents sometimes changed just as Japanese paintings were created in the Meiji period (1868–1912), but art history studies in our country have given little consideration to those cultural differences. In the modern period, Japanese people in art circles singlehandedly evaluated Korean art and compiled its history. Korean art circles expressed their uncomfortable feelings about those evaluations using Japanese “criteria” after Korea had been liberated from Japanese colonial rule and established their own unique art history. Historically, Japanese intellectuals were appreciative of Chinese paintings and calligraphic works and were also familiar with Chinese art theories from ancient times. These historical facts caused Japanese intellectuals to believe that they completely understood Chinese and Korean art. However, Japanese and Korean paintings and calligraphic works are evaluated from quite a different perspective. In addition, Chinese and Korean people sought to recognize art in terms of the “literati” when they introduced Western art forms in modern times. The Chinese and Korean concepts of the literati are quite different from that of Japan. The Chinese and Korean concepts of the literati are based on the scholar-bureaucrats system (shi-da-fuinChinese) and Confucianism. The concepts do not involve the Japanese implications of old intellectuals enjoying their secluded lives but refer to civil leaders and politicians. Therefore, the essence of Korean paintings lies not in their beauty but in the characters and ideas of the people who painted them. It is significant to recognize these clear differences in art studies between Japan and Korea.