[KS] Kim and Washington
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann at koreaweb.ws
Fri Oct 8 13:12:09 EDT 2010
Dear George, dear List:
George, your posting below greatly confuses me ... as it is
completely irrelevant to the discussion we had, and because I did
never in any way discuss the image you mention AT ALL.
1.
In my first response to your posting of the two then unidentified
images that you posted I was referring to Edward Hicks (1870-1849)
and I re-posted your image and 4 others by Hicks in that response ...
image in the List Archives here:
http://koreaweb.ws/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/attachments/20101003/7ba0d23c/attachment-0001.jpg
I referred to yet another Hicks version at the Chrysler Museum,
simply because the ONLINE version was nicely large, so one would be
able to actually discuss it:
http://www.chrysler.org/education/unit1/unit1_images/hicks_washington.77.1271.jpg
To repeat and summarize, in that first response I made my point by
arguing that it makes little sense (from an art historical point of
view) to compare paintings 150 or so years apart, and to base such a
comparison of such a general subject matter as "leaders on horses"
(all the details did differ, e.g. no battle scene in the Kim & Kim
painting, no family in the Washington battle scene, etc.). I pointed
out that the ONLY similarity, execpt for the "leader on horse" theme,
might be the treatment of colors and backgrounds between Kim & Kim
painting and the Hicks painting, but also pointed out a little about
the history of how the North Korean artists ended up with that.
2.
In my second mail I agreed with you that I had wrongly assumed your
posted (more famous) painting was one of the many Hicks
reinterpretations. It was by Sully himself, indeed. And I did EXPLAIN
why I ended up with that mixup.
I did at no point discuss the painting in my 2nd posting -- that was
a quote from the website given in that posting, and was ONLY put
there as an explanation of the mentioned confusion of attribution to
Hicks. I understand this is confusing, but please re-read more
carefully and you see what I mean.
3. The issue as regards to attribution to Hicks / Sully / Bingham
does in no way whatsoever make a difference for the general
statements as regards to comparing 150 or 170 years apart paintings
from Korea and the U.S.
So far as a further clarification.
Best regards,
Frank
>Dear Frank,
>
>The painting you posted, "Washington Crossing the Delaware," is by George
>Caleb Bingham, not Sully, and belongs to the collection of the Chrysler
>Museum in Norfolk, Virginia--not Boston's MFA.
>
>Bingham's piece is quite different than Sully's ("The Passage of the
>Delaware)". In the latter, the juxtaposition of the horse and rider against
>the landscape below as well as the waving hand of the "father's" nearby
>companion are salient aspects of its formal similarity to the Korean piece
>and are not shared by Bingham's portrayal.
>
>George
--
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws
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