Many noble man and kings' portraits during Chosun dynasty were drawn for the reflection, political and educational purpose, and they pursued the independent whole body painting based on the detailed truth. Portraits during Chosun dynasty were drawn ba...
Many noble man and kings' portraits during Chosun dynasty were drawn for the reflection, political and educational purpose, and they pursued the independent whole body painting based on the detailed truth. Portraits during Chosun dynasty were drawn based on the life and death, and they tried to show high level art such as the internal expression. Thus portraits during Chosun dynasty may be said to be the art of whole body painting which is the mutual complement of the real painting and the desired painting.
Portraits clearly show the intention of demonstrating internal expression as well as the truth exploration. Its artistic value is high so it does the roll of the sybol of the portaraits during Chosun dynasty. Yun Du Seo's <Ja hwa sang> is known as the masterpiece of the whole body drawing and Kans Se hwang has also left some portrait pieces with magnificent touch.
In late Chosun dynastry the escape from Juja theory, which had caused the social malady because of the academic discussion and formalism, was evident and they were moving their attention to practical science based on the bibliographical study. The world view and the collapse of Myung dynasty in China, many literary artists in Chosun were influenced with proctical science and they began drawing the portraits including self-portraits with the practice of new technique such as shadow technique. The use of new technique is evident in the self-portraits of Yun Du Seo and Kang Se Hwang. They both used the technique of shadow and cubic effect.
Yun du Seo and Kang Se Hwang, as noble artists, tried to demonstrate the internal sexual expression and the true appearance of themselves, and the relationship with the reality. Thus its formation became the essential concept as whole body concept, and to express the God they used the concept of formation. During the process they used the new technique from Western world such as shading, and they were able to draw valuable paintings which demonstrated the whold body concept. This characteristic is evident in the self-portraits of Kim Si Seub and Lee Gwang Jwa, which may not be said to be self-portraits.
To artists it is the destined work to realize themselves and recognize the art world based on the subjective and independent value of their work. In psychology their purpose is the realization of themselves so artistic creation may also be regarded as the recognition of themselves.
Thus these two self-portraits should be appreciated with the understanding of their meaning of themselves and the spirit of whole body painting of Yun Du Seo and Kang Se Hwang's paintings.