畫師, 名士 그리고 人文主義者 ― 鄭板橋의 삶

Abstract

Banqiao Zheng(鄭板橋) is one of Eight Eccentric Masters of Yangzhou(揚州八怪), a painter who has a talent in painting on orchids and bamboo, and is known for his odd appearance. As a result, many studies on him so far have focused mainly on his paintings or on individual subjects. As a result, it was not easy to look at the entire character, Banqiao Zheng. This article is an attempt to understand the character and life of Banqiao Zheng. Banqiao Zheng was highly regarded in calligraphy at the time and now, but ironically, he did not pay much attention to calligraphy. Also, he did not give high praise for the act of painting. And he talked about senior painters who excelled in previous generations, but rather pointed out that they lacked in actual participation, so they were only painters. Through this, we can infer that Banqiao Zheng should have the intention of notables, not as a calligrapher and a painter, so that he himself tried to maintain the participatory intention considering calligraphy and painting secondary. At the same time, what he aimed for was the life of a celebrated scholar. In this context, what draws attention is that he was enthusiastic to criticize the brilliant men. He was attacked a lot, but he did not hesitate to criticize their behavior. Such his behavior is not easy to understand without considering his usual intention to the celebrated scholar. Isn't his indiscriminate criticism of the brilliant men the participatory intention, which is cultivated by the intellectuals' own sense of responsibility? This, on the one hand, makes us understand the reason why he had challenged the civil service examination in spite of his proficiency in painting and had the aspirations of a farmer after leaving office. What we should not miss here is that he has made ruthless criticisms of those who are dissatisfied, but that does not mean that he lived so rough and wild. Rather, he did not have a differential view of the relationship between adult and child, master and servant, man and animal in life. He sought to embrace the warmly difficult people and showed himself as a humanist who understood their situation. Most importantly, many values ​​in his life and his thoughts are still meaningful problem consciousness today. Looking at him as a humanist who thinks of people first and then crosses the borders and treats others, we can say that the best pictures he has ever left for us are the warm things he has shown in life.