일제강점기 ‘전위미술론’ 의 전통관 연구 — ‘문장(文章)’그룹을 중심으로
A Study on Avant-Garde Fine Art during the period of JapaneseColonial Rule of Korea, centering on‘Munjang’(a literarymagazine).
From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Korea’s fine art community focused on traditionalviewpoints as their main topic. The traditional viewpoints were discussed mainly byKorean students studying in Japan, especially oil painters. Such discussions on tradition canbe divided into two separate halves, namely the pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War (1937)periods. Before the war, the modernists among Korea’s fine art community tried to gain afuller understanding of contemporary Western modern art, namely, expressionism,futurism, surrealism, and so forth, on the basis of Orientalism, and borrow from theseschools’in order to create their own works. Furthermore, proponents of Joseon’s avant-garde fine arts and artists of the pro-fine art school triggered debate on the traditionalviewpoints. After the Sino-Japanese War, these artists continued to embrace Westernmodern art on the basis of Orientalism. However, since Western modern fine art wasregressing into Oriental fine art during this period, Korean artists did not need to researchWestern modern fine art, but sought to study Joseon’s classics and create Joseon’s ownavant-garde fine art in a movement led by the Munjang group. This research reviews thetraditional view espoused by the Munjang group, which represented the avant-garde fineart movement of the post-war period . Advocating Joseon’s own current of avant-garde fine art through the Munjang literarymagazine, Gil Jin-seop, Kim Yong-jun and others accepted the Japanese fine artcommunity’s methodology for the restoration of classicism, but refused Orientalism as anideology, and attempted to renew their perception of Joseon tradition. The advocation ofthe restoration of classicism by Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun appears to be similar to thatof the Yasuda Yojuro-style restoration of classicism. However, Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun did not seek their sources of classicism from the Three-Kingdoms and Unified Sillaperiods, which Japan had promoted as a symbol of unity among the Joseon people;instead they sought classicism from the Joseon fine art which the Japanese had criticized asa hotbed of decadence. It was the Joseon period that the Munjang group chose as classicism when Japanwas upholding Fascism as a contemporary extremism, and when Hangeul (Korean writing system) was banned from schools. The group highly evaluated literature written in the styleof women, especially women’s writings on the royal court, as represented by Hanjungnok(A Story of Sorrowful Days). In the area of fine art, the group renewed the evaluation of notonly literary paintings, but also of the authentic landscape paintings refused by, and thevalues of the Chusa school criticized as decadent by, the colonial bureaucratic artists,thereby making great progress in promoting the traditional viewpoint. Kim Yong-junembraced a painting philosophy based on the painting techniques of Sasaeng (sketching),because he paid keen attention to the tradition of literary paintings, authentic landscapepaintings and genre paintings. The literary painting theory of the 20th century, which washighly developed, could naturally shed both the colonial historical viewpoint whichregarded Joseon fine art as heteronomical, and the traditional viewpoint which regardedJoseon fine art as decadent. As such, the Munjang group was able to embrace the Joseon period as the source ofclassicism amid the prevalent colonial historical viewpoint, presumably as it hadaccumulated first-hand experience in appreciating curios of paintings and calligraphicworks, instead of taking a logical approach. Kim Yong-jun, in his fine art theory, definedartistic forms as the expression of mind, and noted that such an artistic mind could beattained by the appreciation of nature and life. This is because, for the Munjang group, theexperience of appreciating nature and life begins with the appreciation of curios ofpaintings and calligraphic works. Furthermore, for the members of the Munjang group, who were purists who valuedartistic style, the concept of individuality presumably was an engine that protected themfrom falling into the then totalitarian world view represented by the Nishita philosophy. Such a 20th century literary painting theory espoused by the Munjang groupconcurred with the contemporary traditional viewpoint spearheaded by Oh Se-chang in the1910s. This theory had a great influence on South and North Korea’s fine art theories andcircles through the Fine Art College of Seoul National University and Pyongyang Fine ArtSchool in the wake of Korea’s liberation. In this sense, the significance of the theoryshould be re-evaluated.
한국미술이론학회는 미술이론의 고유한 역할과 방향을 모색하고자 창립되었다. 미술창작과 해석에 필요한 제반이론을 생산하고 다양한 미술현장의 활동을 검증하고 비판하며 연구하는 학회로서 미술의 이론과 실제사이의 분리현상을 극복하는데 기여하고자 한다. 현재 미술관련 학회들의 성격이 대부분 이론영역에 치중해있고, 학과나 전공에 특화되어 있는데 반하여, 본 학회는 미술의 현장과 창작과정을 적극 반영하고 미학, 미술사 등 기존의 미술이론 영역 뿐 아니라 실기와 미술교육, 경영, 행정, 전시 등 다양한 분야를 총괄하는 학제 간 연구를 활성화시키고자 한다. 앞으로 다양한 미술이론 영역에 대한 심도 있는 연구는 물론 한국미술계의 발전과 변화에 조력할 수 있는 실천적이고 생산적인 미술이론의 형성에 본 학회는 최선을 다할 것이다.