[KS] Kim and Washington
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann at koreaweb.ws
Sun Oct 3 21:36:16 EDT 2010
Dear George (and All):
Which of the Hicks paintings is this, the one you
posted? (The George Washington one I mean?)
...See an assembly of Hicks' various versions at
the END of this message.
"Washington, Crossing the Delaware" and
"Washington Passing the Delaware" were extremely
popular themes at the time, and until the late
19th century. There are many hundreds or
thousands of paintings, engravings, etchings, and
prints with that as a subject matter. Are you
referring to the subject matter or that
particular painting? The de Young Museum with its
amazing collection of 19th century American art
(recently rebuild as an upside-down trash can, a
charming piece of postmodern architecture) is
five minutes from where my wife and I live. And
if we'd stroll over there for a Sunday afternoon
visit, we would probably bump into a couple of
those, eyes closed. The painting you posted is
one of the better known ones of those "Washington
Crossing the Delaware" ones, by painter Edward
Hicks (1870-1849), a Quaker minister and folk
painter from Pennsylvania. But which version? Not
that it is important ... well, then again, the
fact that there are numerous versions IS
important in the context you presented it to us!
The more famous ones of these paintings were then
copied into other media by less famous artists.
There was a whole industry there to reproduce
such works. See FOR EXAMPLE George S. Lang's
"Washington Passing the Delaware":
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/aa/wash/aa_wash_soldier_2_e.html
--> Washington passing the Delaware, evening previous
to the Battle of Trenton, Dec. 25th, 1776
You can buy that George S. Lang version as a reproduction at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Washington-passing-Delaware-Reprint-measured/dp/B001FYR78I
They probably have the Kim & Kim portrait as
well, if you rather go for that one, maybe even
for Kindle.
Like all 19th century American painters, his
style closely resembles British late 18th and
19th century academic painting (that of some
other painters more resembles French
painting--many of the painters of the times were
first generation immigrants anyway--such as
Hubert Vos, whose portrait of King Kojong you
will have seen). Pretty much all of the
seascapes, for example, that you see in the de
Young, look all very British (I would probably
not know they aren't without the identifying
labels).
The Hicks piece you posted--and all others by
Hicks--are interesting because they show some
American local identity (vs. their British and
French prototypes), if you want to call it that.
In spite of the European stylistic adaptations
(e.g. of Napoleon in battle depictions), this is
after all "folk art," this is done by some local
minister, not by court artist or professional
artist. Here is a nice large online image of
Hick's 1849 version at the Chrysler Museum of Art:
http://www.chrysler.org/education/unit1/hicks2.htm
Larger image:
http://www.chrysler.org/education/unit1/unit1_images/hicks_washington.77.1271.jpg
The way Hicks uses colors and many other details
(e.g. the depiction of the horse movements and
how he deals with large spaces like the sky etc.)
shows that he was not a trained academic artist.
What is so interesting is that you are comparing
THIS (that is, one of Hicks' versions of
"Washington Passing the Delaware" paintings) to
the North Korean Kim & wife & little Kim
painting. That really totally got me! There are
countless 18th and 19th century 'emperor on
horseback' paintings, with brown and white horses
from Europe and the U.S. Why this painting? There
is not even any "son" there, and certainly not
his wife (as in the Kim & Kim painting). It is
not a battle either; it is the "three generals'"
happy family outing at their very own private
revolutionary site (Paektu-san). The oil
painting's title is "Sunrise at Paektu" (painter
Ch'oe Ha-t'aek; published in Chosôn misul
nyôn'gam 1991, p. 70; your posted version cuts
about 1/4 from the right and from the left). In
the Hicks painting there is no visual union of
father and son, as in the painting by
Ch'oe--father is riding while son points. Rather,
in Hicks shows some officer or general pointing,
but he is riding another horse. There is no
family there. And in a European or American
battle depiction one would not exactly expect
that. I think the reason you feel that these two
paintings can be compared, please correct me if I
am wrong, is mostly because of the use of colors
and the simplified formal rendering of space:
American folk painting is the keyword here.
Although one and a half centuries apart from the
North Korean painting, it seems to resemble how
the North Korean painter used colors and how he
dealt with space and backgrounds (or the other
way around). It is the 'folky' part that you
point to. And as such you are basically making
Ch'oe Ha-t'aek a great compliment, as this is
exactly the effect he wanted to create here.
Looking at North Korean oil paintings from the
1945-1950 period you will find that painters
simply continued their colonial-period styles.
And there are plenty of wonderful examples there
(e.g. Yi K'wae-dae, 1913-1965) how European 19th
century academic styles lived on, with a red flag
here and there. But not in 1991, in 1991 you
won't find any of this anymore. What seems
European or American history painting isn't
really. From the mid- or late 1960s you see more
and more brush and ink painting done the new
Chosônhwa style. And the Chosônhwa style is again
loaning (in every technical aspect I can see)
from late colonial Nihonga (which was then also a
tool for propaganda). At this point I might add
the same sentence Hyung Il Pai did in her
posting: I want to state that this is only my
personal opinion and does not reflect the main
stream accounts of the development and
appreciation of Korean arts. (Not that of South
Korean scholars either). This seems like a
controversial and/or provoking observation only
if you look at this from within the same kimchi
pot. Loaning from and building upon--and reacting
to--existing earlier styles and techniques is
otherwise what art AND art history is all about,
and it does not at all indicate any sort of
devaluation of the art work to point at such
relations. In any case, to continue, Chosônhwa
painting had then a strong influence on what
happened to oil painting in North Korea. So, by
the early 1970s oil painting, the showed many of
the same traits Chosônhwa did: bright colors,
simple often monochrome treatments of backgrounds
etc., showing happy smiling people. By the late
1980s and in the 1990s we see this style
completely prevailing over all other styles: oil
painting (and other techniques, e.g. acrylic
painting) had basically adapted Chosônhwa
techniques. You now have a hard time seeing what
is brush and ink painting (Chosônhwa) and what is
an oil painting, an acrylic, or a painting done
in e.g. air brush technique--it all looks like
Chosônhwa.
In that technical sense North Koreans have
succeeded to create a new style (even though
mostly build upon Nihonga as a starting point).
What you present there in your comparison of
Edward Hicks' Washington on horseback depiction
with Ch'oe Ha-t'aek Kim family on horeseback
painting is therefore more of a coincidental
similarity. As far as the technique goes,
historically this does not relate (North Koreans
did not get that from U.S. paintings); it appears
similar because of the folk art aspect in Hicks'
painting and the adaptation of Chosônhwa
techniques and aesthetics in North Korean oil
painting--the outcome has many similarities. We
would then be left with the subject matter, but
here I see more differences than similarities.
However, there are other such North Korean battle
scenes that involve horses, and in some of them
we find more similarities, but then more to
general 19th century academic painting traditions
(of depicting battle scenes).
Just noticed I have not discussed the variety of
versions and how this relates to NK ... will do
another time.
Best regards,
Frank
--
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws
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