신사임당의 서화작품 발문으로 살펴 본 조선 사대부들의 담론 및 한계점 연구

Abstract

Shin Saimdang, having lived in the 16th century in the Joseon Dynasty, was a woman writer and artist who not only practiced well the female virtues as a daughter, a wife and a mother, but also cultivated her artistic talents for paintings and calligraphic works for herself. In addition, for the past five centuries, she has been one of the rare figures in the Joseon Dynasty who became discussed by all and has been caught up in controversy in modern society. What made this woman in the women’s quarters, who had to live a passive life in the male-dominated society of the Joseon Dynasty, stand on the center stage of history for five consecutive centuries? The driving force likely originated from the fact that she was an outstanding “painter” on her own and the “mother of Yulgok, the great scholar.” This study aims to examine the epilogues left in the paintings and the calligraphic works of Saimdang, which help us to understand how the discourses on her were formed, evaluated and magnified in each period. Like the evaluation records left in Yulgok’s Records on the Deceased Mother, in the 16th century she was praised as “painter Shin” who had gifts for paintings of grapes and the landscape, succeeding the painting style of An Gyeon, a painter in the early Joseon Dynasty. However, from the middle of the 17th century onwards, the recognition of her underwent a rapid change, with Song Si-yeol at the center of it. He recognized her as an eminent mother of Yulgok, the leader of the Seo-in faction, and equated her as Mrs. Hu, the mother of Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi in the Song Dynasty of China. In addition, since he showed a negative view on her landscape paintings, the epilogues on them disappeared after that. In other words, because of him, the landscape paintings, which had made her a conspicuous painter, disappeared, replaced with those of birds and insects. Succeeding his opinion, the noblemen who led the discourse in the 18th century, reemphasized her as a woman with Confucian female virtues, reaching a conclusion that it is natural she is a “mother of Yulgok.” More concretely comparing to the verses in《Shijing》 among the Confucian scriptures, they emphasized her female virtues. From the viewpoint of the epilogues in the 19th century, she was evaluated as the epitome of motherhood. This was mostly promoted by the clan of Pyeongsan Shin. Covered by that clan, the artistic merits of her works paled into insignificance. As for the common features of the epilogues for her works, except for the 16th century, from the epilogue of Song Si-yeol on, her works were evaluated from the viewpoint of the position of the “mother of Yulgok,” not that of the performances of her works themselves. The noblemen themselves were also exclusively selected from the Seo-in and Noron faction which respected Yulgok as the leader of the scholars at that time. Her paintings and calligraphic works were served as one of the auxiliary substances to consolidate her position of “mother of Yulgok.” However, although in the epilogues of her works there are some limitation that made her not be “painterShin,” but be “mother of Yulgok,” it cannot be denied that her works could keep themselves in existence, since she was a “mother of Yulgok.”