Monday, July 11, 2011

famous image discussion

[KoreanStudies e-list member F.Hoffman reponds to request to identify an iconic image]

Sin Yun-bok and "Miin-do" are good keywords.
The most famous one by Sin Yun-bok is this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hyewon-Miindo.jpg
The one you find in every tourist booklet, on umbrellas, as ball pen designs, etc. The term "miin-do" seems to be a generic term, not an actual title. You also find miin-do
paintings in China and Japan, also in later periods (e.g. during the Taisho period in Japan).  That is a genre that traveled and changed throughout the centuries, was kind of "back-introduced" in a modern version to Korea in  the 1920s.

The one you have there, the one the stage image is based on, looks to me like a 19th century work based on Sin Yun-bok. Especially the way the face is done would to me indicate that it is later than Sin Yun-bok's period. The Japanese National Museum in Tokyo in whose collection it is gives the painter as "anonymous."

Painter:  anonymous, 114.2 cm x 56.5 cm, colors on paper, Collection: Tokyo National Museum (in Ueno Park), http://www.tnm.jp/?lang=en

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