월북미술가의 북한에서 작품 및 활동 연구- 사회주의적 사실주의를 따른 작품의 주제별 연구를 중심으로

Abstract

South-North Korean artists are Korean artists who have migrated from South Korea to NorthKorea during the second half of the 1940s and the Korean War. Many of these artists havecontributed to North Korean art as both artists and educators. In the Republic of Korea(SouthKorea), studying South-North Korean artists was prohibited until 1988. Once the ban was liftedand the political antagonism between the two Koreas abated, lively research on South-NorthKorean artists and North Korean art followed, from many angles. This study looks intoSouth-North Korean artists, whose contributions to North Korean art were considerable, by periodand theme. During the Cold War, Socialist Realism was a fundamental, guiding principle ofart-making in Socialist nations such as the Soviet Union, People’s Republic of China and theDemocratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korean art is based on the Socialist route pergovernment guidelines. Therefore, North Korean artists, including South-North Korean artists, arenotable for art of subject matter and techniques based on Socialist Realism. Art by South-NorthKorean artists can be grouped by period and contents, as influenced by the government’s policies. In the first period, guided by Chosun Art History, South-North Korean artists would either depictsoldiers or sites of Kim Il-Sung’s battles against the Japanese army, or work with the theme ofNorth Korea’s Socialist economic development. In the second period artists’s main theme was thepeople’s happiness under the Socialist system. The third period can be characterized by aSocialist Realism in which productive farmers and urban laborers could be seen hard at work. Thisstudy investigates such South-North Korean art by theme. I have identified the following threebroad categories: art about the Socialist system, art depicting rural and urban laborers, andlandscapes or genre paintings expressing Socialist thought; and I have also identifiedsubcategories. This theme-based research on South-North Korean artists’ practices will contributeto our systematic understanding of South-North Korean artists and North Korean art.