Lee Jung-seop, Na Hye-seok — Korea's first female Western-style painter and an original New Woman (1896.4.28–1948.12.10). Living in Joseon and passing fully through the winding years of the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War, she shared in the misfortunes and the rise and fall of Korean history. She was a New Woman who was born into a wealthy family, received a modern education, and even traveled around the world at that time, yet she could not change the deep-rooted ways of thinking of Joseon, and she is said to have always felt stifled. Even now, the Joseon ideas that Na Hye-seok criticized remain and contribute to discrimination between men and women and to holding back women's advancement into society.
This piece was even written in 1934, yet it is no different at all from the situations in which Korean women today experience conflict between work life and family life. About 90 years have passed, but it seems that the ideas inside our heads are hard to change. Hye-seok ended up drifting from temple to temple before dying as a destitute wanderer. The diagnosis: malnutrition, aphasia, stroke..
Looking at the life of each painter and introducing their representative works or the works tied to their anecdotes, this book is well suited for approaching Korean painters easily and taking an interest in them. I enjoyed Volume 1 as well, but Volume 2 had much that was read with a heavy, aching heart. The Korean painters of that time went through so many ill-fated events.. Was it not said that art shines even amid hardship.. The painters who left great works even in such circumstances seem truly remarkable.
Time flew by. ★ 4.5/5