#01. <So-nyun-jeon-hong> The boy plucks the red flowers
<<Hyewon jeonshincheop>>, a.k.a <<Hyewon Pungsokdocheop>> was produced by Shin Yun-bok (Pen-name is Hyewon), a painter of the late Joseon Dynasty, consists of a total of 30 genre paintings. Shin Yun-bok is a painter with a free spirit and left few records of him. His work only began to be recognized 100 years after his death.
His pictorial description of people, landscape, especially women are stellar. His series contain a critical view of the social status in the late Joseon Dynasty.
I'm currently working on a project to reinterpret his phenomenal series. Reinterpretation is a series of genre painting set in modern Korea, and it will be intriguing to find the same and different points between the two works.
A finished reinterpret piece
소년전홍 (少年剪紅) - The original work of <So-nyun-jeon-hong>
The work "<So-nyun-jeon-hong>: The boy plucks the red flowers" shows a young nobleman pulling the wrist of a servant maid on a beautiful spring day when red flowers bloom. The woman is posing that she doesn't want to go, with her hips pulled back. The young man is standing like a crab, holds a long gombangdae which is a tobacco pipe in one hand, and tries to take the woman inside. The most eye-catching thing in this scene is the large stone on the left. Many researchers interpret the strange stone as a "symbol of the male" and there is no doubt based on its size and shape as well as the flowing down textures. Shin Yun-bok's works have such symbolic backgrounds and natural objects everywhere, which accelerate the interest of his paintings.
The reinterpretation work of <So-nyun-jeon-hong> took a place at the War Memorial of Korea. Located in the front yard of the place, The firm-looking of The Korean War Sculpture which stretches long and high, that could be an excellent symbol of "Love and War." The sculpture is said to express the image of bronze swords and life trees as well as to commemorate the warriors from 21 countries who fought in the Korean War.
Of course, although the scene that seems like a quarrel between lovers is not as intense as the Korean War, the setting of "a couple who came out on a date of the War Memorial of Korea" was appropriate as the background of the painting because the relationship between men and women is a repetition of "love and war."
The couple without masks.
The woman wears a three-layered mask and the man wears a bird beak type.
COVID-19 has changed our lives. Our face covered with masks has begun to get used to it, and even though the duty of outdoor masks has finally been terminated, there will be an experience of sudden awkwardness to take off the mask outdoors.
The popular masks of KF-94 in Korea are largely divided into three-layered and bird beak types. In the scene, the man and woman wear each type, showing different preferences they have even in close relationship.
Air pollution and invisible COVID-19 are flying around the space surrounding them. Sadly, The warm spring day when the flowers bloomed at the original work has turned into a place where you can't breathe without a mask.
BW version.
The lovers.