근대 한국 ‘예술’ 개념의 전개 양상

Abstract

In pre-modern East Asia, the Chinese character 'art' was synonymous with technology. In modern times, 'art' has come to be used as a translation of art, meaning the product of human aesthetic creation. In Korea, 'art', meaning 'technology', was used until approximately 1910, when the modern concept of art was accepted and circulated through Korean students who studied in Japan. Having acquired a modern meaning, 'art' did not stop at the dictionary meaning, but emanated its own meaning in different contexts at different times. In the 1910s, 'art' was understood as a virtue for life, based on literary and academic positions. In the 1920s, its intrinsic qualities were affirmed, while at the same time it was linked to a sense of purpose to achieve social achievements such as social reform. Since the 1930s, art discourse has been shaped by and in relation to terms closely related to art as a genre, such as culture, literature, film, and music. The understanding of the nature of art remained, but it and the new genre of cinema constituted a logic of cooperation with colonial rule within the historical context of the colonial system. Thus, the concept of 'art' simultaneously demonstrated a shift in meaning from technology to aesthetic creation at the turn of the modern era and a change in context that was coupled with a new social orientation based on that shift in meaning.