There was no particular job as an artist in Korea. The art we thought of was mainly concurrently operated by the aristocratic class. In addition, there were skilled craftsmen who made luxury goods of the second class, but they were not called artists. At the end of the 19th century, the wave of the Western Industrial Revolution hit Korea, causing a crisis for Korean craftsmen. Rather than being corrupted, they tried to adapt to change. He introduced a machine and incorporated his skills. From the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, craftsmen constantly tried to understand the tastes of capitalists and the public.
However, Korean craft history does not seem to pay much attention to these people. Korean crafts pay attention to two main situations. The first are those who studied abroad and those who were elected in the contest. These are the people who accepted the Western abstract style early and followed the West hard. Thanks to this, he gained authority and rose to high positions such as professors and bureaucrats. The second is those who insisted on traditional methods such as lacquerware and hanji. They eventually acquired scarcity by insisting on traditional production methods. We give them the name “human cultural properties.” Unfortunately, few young artists want to continue this traditional technology.
At the end of the 19th century, craftsmen had to break from the traditional production methods of the past. Only then could Western product draw compete. Their rival was the capitalist market. So they do several experiments. It boldly abandons the traditional Buddhist patterns and paintings of the Qing Dynasty in the past and introduces a new expressionist technique. Looking at the trends of Western goods and markets, new attempts are made repeatedly made.
Work Cites
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YOUNGNA, KIM. “The Achievements and Limitations of Ko Yu-Seop, a Luminary in Korean Art History.” Archives of Asian Art 60 (2010): 79–87. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40863710.
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