[KS] Re: Colonial-era Japanese writer on `HAN' ??

[Frank Hoffmann]

> ... it could be Yanagi Muneyoshi, a Japanese connoisseur
> of Korean art, in the colonial period. I cannot say that the
> "formulation of the notion" can be drown from his writing, but
> his ideas on Korean art does shows some parallel to the notion
> of "ch'Onghan".

Yes, sure.
Yanagi Muneyoshi was more than just a connoisseur, or if one puts it in
such terms, he was a grant scale connoisseur -- he needed several train
waggons to transport Korean art objects to Pusan, and from there to Japan.
Most space was needed for what what he regarded as "folklore objects." On
the other hand, Yanagi was not only the founding father of the Japanese
craft movement, but also established a Korean Folklore Art Museum (Chosen
Minzoku Bijutsukan) in Seoul as early as 1921. The ideas that closely
resemble the Korean (now with a ?) concept of _han_ can be found in his
essay "Letter to a Korean Friend" (published in _Kaejo_, 6/1920), and it
reappears in his 1922 book _Chosen to sono geijutsu_ [Korea and its art].
In here he states that he appreciates Korean art for its simplicity and
spontaneity, which is especially well expressed in the strong linear
elements of folk art and in pottery products. Yanagi argued that these
characteristics are the result of Korea's unfortunate geopolitical
situation, which is seen as the main cause of the country's tragical
history, which again led to sorrow, melancholy and fatalism as the main
elements of Korean national character. As for art, he coined the phrase
"hiai no bi" (Kor. "piae-ui mi" -- "beauty of sorrow") but also used the
term "history of sorrow." Until the late 1960s this concept of Korean
aesthetics was well accepted by most Korean art historians -- well, there
only were a few anyway. In the 70s, and more so in the 80s and 90s, when
collaboration became a major issue in the discussions about colonial Korea,
the old pie was warmed up and now often had the smell of a stink-bomb.
Yanagi and older Korean historians and art historians were usually
criticized as inventors or at least propagandists of colonial aesthetics
... there is without doubt some truth to this, but most 1980s and 1990s
pieces I have seen treated these texts more or less like contemporary works
-- and controversial concepts like "folklore" (invented exactly when?), and
Yanagi's understanding of it and his Western models were not taken into
consideration.

There is a recent Korean book of Yanagi Muneyoshi's Korea related essays --
some of which already appeared in Korean language in Korean magazines and
newspapers during the colonial period:
Yanagi Muneyoshi [in han'gul]. _Choson-ul saenggakhanda_, Seoul: Hakkojae,
1996 (427 pp., W12,000)

By the way, since Vincent Brandt's article was just mentioned on this list,
his daughter Lisbeth Brandt wrote her Ph.D. thesis on Yanagi Muneyoshi and
the folk-craft movement:
Brandt, Lisbeth Kim. "The folk-craft movement in early Showa Japan,
1925-1945." Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 1996. (I haven't seen it --
not available from UMI, readers need the author's agreement, I believe.)
         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frank Hoffmann * 1961 Columbia Pike #42 * Arlington, VA 22204 * USA
E-MAIL:  hoffmann at fas.harvard.edu
W W W :  http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hoffmann/




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