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The purpose of this study is to reevaluate the relationship between Park Saeng-gwang (1904-1985), a well-known master of Korean painting, and Japanese painting. Park Saeng- gwang, who received a modern education during the Japanese colonial era, came to Japan in 1920 to study painting. After his studies in Kyoto, he relocated to Tokyo, where he actively engaged in various avant-garde Japanese art groups pursuing new forms of Japanese painting until 1945. Upon returning to his homeland, Park Saeng-gwang spent around 30 years of unfavorable time in relative obscurity due to the prevailing trend against colored pictures after liberation. However, in 1974, he returned to Japan once again and, for approximately three years until 1977, he was engaged in positive activities such as exhibiting his works in exhibitions held by Nihon Bijutsuin and holding personal exhibitions.
After concluding his second stay in Japan and returning to Korea in 1977, Park Saeng-gwang reached his peak in the 1980s by creating significant works that focused on the ethnic themes such as folk painting motifs and shamans. Previous research on Park Saeng-gwang has primarily concentrated on his representative works from 1977 to 1985. While the state of mind he reached in his later years had an epoch-making significance that made us reconsider the meaning of Korean painting, it is essential to consider what significance his first period in Japan, during his youth, and his second period in Japan in his seventies hold for his ground as a painter. While the first period in Japan was a crucial time for Park Saeng-gwang to establish his position as a painter, his artistic style underwent a significant transformation after his second stay in Japan. To analyze the unique body of work created by Park Saeng-gwang, who absorbed both Japanese and Korean painting, innovating while preserving tradition each of its own, a deeper analysis of his experiences in Japanese painting is thought to be needed.
Research on Park Saeng-gwang's second period in Japan in the 1970s is relatively scarce, but it is believed to be a turning point in his artistic style transformation that followed. Notably, during this time, Park Saeng-gwang contributed articles to the journal ‘Shinwa’ published by ‘Japan and Korea Shinwa-kai’ on nine occasions between 1976 and 1977. While these articles were brief, they provide fascinating insights as he reflected on his life. By tracing his thoughts during his stay in Japan in the 1970s based on the content of these articles, it allows for a reconsideration of what Japanese painting meant to him and his relationship with Japanese painters.