[KS] from Namdaemun or from Tongdaemun?

[Owen Miller]

I know the photo on the left quite well and have used it in lectures
illustrating the commercial history of Chongno. I've always understood it
to be a view from Tongdaemun looking west along Chongno. To the right of
both pictures you can see an area of trees which must be
Ch'angdOkkung/Chongmyo etc. The shape of the road - relatively straight -
also gives us a clue that this is Chongno (the road from Namdaemun curves
around from running northeast to run north). The mountains that you can see
are, I believe, Pugaksan on the right, while I think the pyramid shaped
mountain on the left is Ansan, above what is now the campus of Yonsei.
Inwangsan, directly behind Kyongbokkung is out of sight to the right of
both of these pictures.
There is a somewhat similar line of mountains shown in this recent picture
I found via a quick google, although annoyingly there is no information to
confirm where it is taken from (somewhere in eastern central Seoul on a
hill).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/choweee/2368062587/in/set-72157603960084631

Best wishes,
Owen

On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 10:02 AM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreanstudies.com>
wrote:

> Picture puzzle:
>
> In order to identify the perspective shown in a 1904 graphic (done in
> paris after a photo) I am trying to figure out from where these early
> two photos were taken.
> -> http://koreanstudies.com/articles1/place.jpg
>  (will later be removed again)
>
> According to Samuel Hawley who posted it, the photo on the LEFT is by
> George Foulk. So I suppose it must have been taken between 1885 and
> 1887. Hawley states in the caption: "central avenue in Seoul leading
> west from *Tongdaemun*, the Great East Gate."
> (http://www.samuelhawley.com/hermitkingdom1.html)
>
> The photo on the RIGHT must, I think, also be from the late 1880s, but
> certainly from before 1897, as there are no streetcars and no electric
> powerlines to be seen yet. You find this photo reproduced in various
> Korean and Japanese Internet blogs (there mostly with the date "1880s"
> given). In all those posts the location the photo was shot from is
> given as *Namdaemun*.
>
> The mountains in the background tell us that we are looking into the
> same direction -- well, almost.
> The distance from the viewer to those mountains, though, appears not to
> be the same. However, if I cut the photo on the left (by Foulk), so the
> photos show us more or less the same area, then that first impression
> proofs to be wrong:
> --> http://koreanstudies.com/articles1/place2.jpg
>
> My simple question is:
> Does anyone know for sure if these two photos were taken from Namdaemun
> Gate OR from Tongdaemun Gate, and towards what direction? There are
> plenty of notes on various Internet blogs, but as it goes people just
> copy information, also wrong information. Maybe you would know by
> identifying those mountains?
> This, by the way, is a view from Namdaemun towards Myŏngdong Cathedral
> in construction (the big building in the background, middle of the
> picture, with its tower not yet raised).
> --> http://koreanstudies.com/articles1/place3.jpg
>
>
> Best,
> Frank
>
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreanstudies.com
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