The World of Art of Kim Man-Su
Unique Colors & Compositions Integrated with the Korean Temperament
Shin Hang-Seop (art critic)
The world is becoming smaller. We are now living in the time when the world is being integrated into a single concept of 'global village' through the Internet. Accordingly, the pursuit of universal values is being considered ideal in every area. It is to realize the values with which anyone can sympathize and that are beneficial to everyone. The ideal of art is in realizing the universal values that transcend not only nations and races but also thoughts and ideologies. The trend in the field of art, however, is that nationalistic colors are being emphasized rather at the arrival of the global age. Such trend is more apparent in the case of art oriented toward individual formative world. This is perhaps from the influences of the new understanding and interest on the traditional cultures. I wonder if such phenomenon results from the realization that the force for responding to the global age is in traditional culture.
The artworks by Kim Man-Su start from such understanding of the reality. At the moment when he decided to becoming a painter, he dreamed of high ideals. He cherished a desire of adorning the world into a paradise by realizing his own creative formative world that cannot be compared with that of others. He, accordingly, made great efforts to come up with formative ｅxpressions for displaying his potential talents, while awakening his aesthetic sensibility. Through such labor pain of creation, Kim Man-Su finally realized that understanding the aesthetic sensibility and its essence that are deeply ingrained in the blood and consciousness of Korean people is the way. He, accordingly, reflected upon traditional art and had an encounter with folk painting as the result.
Since the Chosun era, the folk painting has been used as everyday life paintings for decorating the lives of common people. It embodies the hope and prayer for the family's peace & well-being, happiness & wealth, health & longevity and warding off of evil spirits. The folk painting with a higher priority on function than appreciation as life art is a unique painting style that shows the joys and sorrows in the lives of common people in symbolic ways. Realistic dreams and ideals are contained within the ｅxpression method and contents of folk paintings full of jest, satire and symbol. Most of all, their unrestricted style beauty that goes beyond the norm of traditional paintings such as intense primary color images in addition to variety of materials is a unique ｅxpression area of folk paintings.
The artwork patterns of primary colors with intense impression shown in his artworks are based on none other than the folk painting style beauty. The unrestrained style beauty of folk paintings that are being considered as the paintings that embody the Korean style the most is not entirely unrelated to the modern aesthetics. As can be seen in his artworks, his formative characteristics that transcend time and space respond rather more sensitively to the aesthetic sensibility of modern people. It is especially so because they contain unrestrained composition and rich contents in addition to uninhibited beauty of form that can give out feeling of intimacy to anyone.
With regards to the subject materials that appear in his artworks, they are the objects that can be commonly found in traditional folk paintings such as cloud, mountain, waterfall, house, tree, phoenix, bird, butterfly, puppy, flower, fruit, ceramic ware, book, brush and characters as well as the sun and the moon. Through the combination and arrangement of these subject matters, they create rich stories and things to see. Kim Man-Su creates unique formative spaces that transcend time and space by combining these subject matters. Furthermore, these subject matters are placed in unrealistic space. His unique composition of forming harmony through the gathering of unrelated subject matters of different sizes is a proposal of a new style.
His artworks are clearly different from folk paintings in their method of handling the background. He introduces intense color images such as complementary color contrasts on the canvas vertically divided in addition to painting the background with a single color such as blue or red. He, then, arranges various subject matters with different sizes on top of the background. Kim Man-Su has come up with his own unique method of arranging the subject matters that transcends time and space, namely, a composition method of arranging the nature images such as the moon, cloud and mountain and the still-life subject matters such as book, ceramic ware and fruit within the same space. The method of painting the background using a single color is a modern formative interpretation that is clearly distinguished from the traditional folk paintings.
In addition, he is standardizing various subject matters into simple and clear images. Namely, he is standardizing not only the sun, the moon, cloud, mountain, waterfall or house but also thick book stack or ceramic ware into rough sketch or icon images to arrange them at the right places. Such standardization of subject matters is one of the methods for formative variation commonly used in modern painting. The purpose is to establish individual style beauty through the method of arranging the standardized subject matters in different ways according to the artwork. Such standardized subject matters are being expressed in primary colors that are more brilliant than that in reality, which is an extremely unrealistic setting.
Accordingly, his artworks with several different formative characteristics never look complex or chaotic even though unrelated subject matters meet within the same space. The fact that the subject matters with entirely different conceptual concepts result in harmonized and unified images on the canvas is simply amazing. In short, they tell the fact that a sophisticated formative order that captivates the aesthetic sense of modern people exists. The standardization of form, primary color images and the background painted in a single color are one of the formative characteristics that leads his artworks into individual style beauty.
He ended up seeing the wider formative horizon and its possibility through the folk painting that has firmly secured its area as a Korean traditional art. In fact, his artworks remind the audiences of folk painting on surface but they can realize that his artworks strongly give out formative features as modern painting upon understanding the entire aspect of them. In other words, the first impression of his artworks is that they can be perceived as modern version of folk paintings. However, there are many elements of new formative interpretation in their technique, composition and contents when examined closely. They are establishing their own unique formative ｅxpressions through formative interpretation different from that of folk paintings.
If folk paintings have remained in the traditional value of everyday life paintings, his artworks have infinitely expanded the horizon of folk paintings by being faithful to the characteristics of artistic value. The reason why it was possible for his artworks to be immediately placed at the center of modern painting despite their having followed the folk painting style is because they are reinforcing the ideology of painting. In other words, they escaped from the traditional painting style through new formative interpretations to enter into the area of modern painting.
They are transformed into modern paintings by injecting modern aesthetics into the folk painting style characterized by concise and simple style beauty of non-standardization. They have transformed into modern painting features in detail while still possessing folk painting characteristics. The reason why his artworks suddenly became the object of interest is perhaps the contain rich visual images and contents through his technique, color combination and composition.
The overall composition of his artworks is complex while taking on the style of folk paintings. His artworks are created through the combination of different images unlike folk paintings with particular themes such as longevity, happiness & wealth, luck, etc., which can be said as proposing a new style formed through various forms and colors as they show a characteristic of modern paintings. As the formative space of modern paintings reflect the complicated lives and the world of consciousness of modern people through the complex composition of combing unrelated images, he also uses modern formative ｅxpressions. The finality of the formative world that he seeks is an utopian world that can be realized through painting.
In fact, it is not that difficult to realize the fact that the utopia with which everyone can sympathize exists upon encountering his artworks. It is because the utopia in which dream, love, hope, romance and happiness coexist, namely, the ideal world such as an Arcadia is being unfold. His artworks adorn with intense primary colors that stimulate aesthetic sensibility have strong visual absorption force. They are bolder and more candid than traditional folk paintings and cause visual pleasure upon using intense primary colors.
The audiences can taste visual pleasure and sense of freedom in emotion and mind only upon coming across his artworks. His artworks, however, do not simply stop there but show an ideal world view by escaping the time and space of reality. The ideal world that he pursues is a world of peace where every object, regardless of being alive or inanimate, unites and creates harmony with no division and dispute. This is an ｅxpression of the view of life and world based on the Oriental philosophy that considers letting nature be as it is as the ideal, which is the common value of the painting that his artworks pursue.
It can be said that the formative pattern on which the four precious things of the study center, which can be seen in his recent artworks, is a new understanding and approach on the culture of Korean classical scholar in which the beauty of character is regarded as the ideal. It is an ｅxpression of his determination to embody within his artworks the spirit of the culture of Korean classical scholar that presents sophisticated beauty of character as the highest aesthetic value. In fact, the formative beauty from restrained composition stands out in his recent artworks with the focus on the Korean tradition custom of celebrating one's completion of academic course by treating his teacher and friends. They clearly show the type of results produced when the ｅxpression style of folk paintings that have been restricted as everyday life paintings meets modern aesthetics.
Kim Man-Su is establishing his own unique formative ｅxpressions by modifying the style beauty of folk paintings that contain the joys and sorrows in the lives of Korean people. It is the result of having sought a higher artistic ideal by reinforcing the nature of painting without being locked into practicality while following the folk painting characteristics. In other words, the brilliant primary color images that directly reflect the temperate of passionate and candid Korean people cause the aesthetic inspiration hidden within, while inducing visual pleasure. The persuasiveness and absorption force of his artworks originate from here.
He is convinced that the primary colors centering on the three primary colors are the symbolic color images that most candidly reflect the aesthetic sensibility of Korean people. It can be known, accordingly, the place of origin of his brilliant primary color images dreaming of painting style utopia. Accordingly, the artworks by Kim Man-Su are newly presenting a unique formative order by dissolving the traditional culture of Korea, the Oriental ideology and the aesthetic sensibility of Korean people through primary color images.