[KS] A Rubens for me, a Rubens for you

[Frank Hoffmann]

Dear All: 

For those still interested in what now quickly seems to become a passé 
theme, nationalism & art in Korea:
Some on the list will recall the discussion we had last summer, under 
the thread subject "Korean Tea Ceremony and other wonders." In one of 
the postings I gave an art historical example of how even a European 
Baroque period artwork is being nationalized, not just by single 
writers but by the Korean National Museum: Peter Paul Rubens' "Man in 
Korean costume" (c. 1617).
http://koreaweb.ws/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreaweb.ws/2012-August/009715.html
(Last third of that page.)

In today's issue the _LA Times_ has a nice coverage of an ongoing 
exhibition at the Getty that directly relates to this note, and some of 
you might be interested--"Getty's Peter Paul Rubens Work Is Subject of 
Intrigue":
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-peter-paul-rubens-korea-20130331,0,3632989.story
The Getty's informative home page on the show can be found at:
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/looking_east/
You may want to click on the "Events" and "Publications" tabs there 
also; a 128 pages catalog is available, written by the curator 
Stephanie Schrader, Professor Burglind Jungmann, and others.
_Looking East: Rubens's Encounter with Asia_ (ed. Stephanie Schrader)
http://www.amazon.com/Looking-East-Rubenss-Encounter-Asia/dp/1606061313/

I was not yet able to read that catalog in its downloadable digital 
version (iBooks for iPhone) yet, as I have no such phone, but from the 
website descriptions it seems to me this could be a critical assessment 
and maybe (?) even some sort of reaction and rebuff to the 2004 South 
Korean book by Kwak Ch'a-sŏp (_Chosŏn ch'ŏngnyŏn Ant'onio K'orea, 
Rubensŭ rŭl mannada_) that had seriously (or rather, astoundingly) 
claimed the drawing would depict Antonio Corea; and the 2011 follow-up 
exhibit at the Korean National Museum claimed the same. Rubens was here 
shown in a show named "The Secrets of Portraits" (Ch'osanghwaŭi pimil) 
among 200 Korean portraits of the Chosŏn period!



Best,
Frank


--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws