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Korean Genre Art

By Don Southerton, Korea Expert Witness Editor and Chief Blogger

I’ve long been a fan of Korean genre art.  Surfacing in the late 18th century, the art form showcases popular culture. A common theme was the role of women, a topic seldom depicted in Court art.  This Chosun Ilbo article points out the changing role of women in Korea’s past. The above picture is by one of my favorite artists, Shin Yun-bok.

Korean genre paintings of the 18th and early 19th centuries show a profound change in the role played by women in the Chosun Dynasty. The director of the Myongji University Museum, Lee Tae-ho, took a fresh look at some 60 genre paintings produced between the 18th century and early 19th century by Kim Hong-do, Shin Yun-bok, Yun Du-seo and others, and concluded that they pick up on how women in that era took on a more independent and powerful role. “Paintings produced after the 18th century often feature women focusing on entertainment rather than their traditional role as mother or wife,” Lee says. “That change can be compared to a kind of cultural DNA which runs through to today’s women in Korea, who play a more active and aggressive role.”

◆ Women Take to the Streets
Against the widespread perception that women in the late Chosun era were confined in the framework of Sung Confucianism, genre paintings show women taking part in an ever greater variety of social events. The Gisagyecheop, an album of paintings depicting a party in honor of retired high ranking scholar-officials produced between 1719 and 1720, is the first series of court paintings that features ordinary people watching the event. Depicting the party with King Sukjong, who was 60, and the 10 retired high ranking officials, the paintings show 15 women among the 88 onlookers gathered around Gwanghwamun. Paintings of King Jeongjo’s Visit to Hwaseong in 1795, some 70 years later, show the king paying a visit to the grave of his father Crown Prince Sado, and Lee spotted no fewer than 137 women among the 358 people who look on as the king crosses the Han River.

◆ Fun Over Chores
In most genre paintings, women in clothes that identify them as noblewomen are seen flirting or even posing for erotic pictures. But in those painted by scholar Yun Do-seo and his son Yun Deok-hi, they are shown reading or doing chores. An unattributed erotic painting of the time even depicts a noblewoman having sex with a Buddhist monk.