민화가 장천용(張天鏞)과 작가정신 = Folk Artist Jang Cheon-yong and His Artistic Spirit

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As an artist Jang Cheon-yong maintained a unique lifestyle and a deep passion for Korean folk painting Minhwa, Minhwa tended to be called model painting but his life and works clearly show that it would not be the right term to describe his art. The term reflects, in fact, an attitude toward Minhwa which emerged during the modern period. There are enough surviving records to suggest that his paintings were imbued with a strong personality. The works present a fine example of the artistic spirit embodied in Minhwa of the Joseon period. He neither complied with authority nor adopted stale subject matter. He believed that the bold expression of his artistic feeling as it was should be the true spirit of Minhwa. Jang Cheon-yong worked actively in Hwanghae-do between the late 18th and early 19th century. He was born into a low-class family and briefly worked at a local government office. He was a talented man and something of an all-rounder, being a good painter, pipe player, and singer. He was also an eccentric whose life deviated somewhat from the established norm, and was excessively self-assertive. He had the courage to stand up to power, enjoyed wandering around beautiful mountains such as Myohyangsan and Geumgangsan, and never painted for anyone he found detestable. The paintings of Jang Cheon-yong were as strange as his lifestyle. They are characterized by grotesque expressions portraying traditional artistic conventions which would be transmitted to the white porcelain works made in Haeju between the late 19th and early 20th century. The artistic expressiveness of these ceramic works would later be developed into a local tradition now referred to as the Haeju Style. While much of the artist``s eccentric lifestyle may have been affected by his own personal disposition, it may just as equally have been affected by some of the changes that took place in Korean society during his lifetime and the growth of self-esteem. While he is now often compared with such great court painters as Kim Myeong-guk and Choe Buk, Jang Cheon-yong would never have been able to attain the fame he enjoys today if the social changes that led the great Silhak scholar Jeong Yak-yong (1762-1836) to pay attention to the unconventional art and lifestyle of this unknown artist had never occurred. Thanks to the social changes that occurred in Korea during the 18th and 19th centuries and the highly refined aesthetic taste of a great intellectual of this period, we art lovers of the 21st century have a valuable source of information about this great folk artist and his uniquely expressive artistic style.