earticle

영어

Korean folk paintings are practical paintings which decorated the house from the aristocracy to the common people in the traditional society of Korea. The contents of Korean folk paintings vary from the visualization of popular belief to the cultivation of the Confucian human nature. This paper aims at examining the meaning and order of the Korean folk paintings which were displayed in the houses of Chosun Dynasty. The focus is given to the placement of them in the house and the treatment of the space in the paintings themselves. A house is regarded not only as a space of the family members but also as a place of gods in the traditional society. Many household gods are thought to live in the house and to govern a certain specific place respectively. Each of them is thought to protect the specific place of the household against any evil power and to take charge of the fortune of the household. That's why the house is not only a secular place of the family members but also a sacred place of the household gods. This thought is accepted by all the members of Chosun Dynasty from the popular people to the aristocracy. As gods are visualized in the paintings, the sacredness and the sacred world of the household gods are kept in the houses of the general public. The place where the paintings are located is thought to be a kind of holy space. The folk paintings are a kind of medium which connects the family members and the household gods, too. As there co-exist the sacredness and the secularity in the houses of the general public, so there co-exist the real world and the unreal world in the paintings themselves. The painters of the folk paintings made the co-existence quite clear by suggesting, repeating, reiterating and expressing the theme directly and indirectly. They accomplished this difficult task by means of using the lines, surface, forms, colors and qualitative feelings technically. As the conflicting relationship is not so strongly emphasized but harmonized in the end, the inner order of co-existence is accomplished in the paintings. The function of the folk paintings is very complex: we should consider them in the aspect of purpose, usage, demand, association, and aesthetics.