‘Musok,’ 4400-Year-Old Shamanism in Korea

   If the Western world has tarot cards, Korea has Musok. Occasionally, the debate over the origin of Korean culture and identity is suggested centering on some neighboring countries. However, one cultural aspect showing Korean identity is Musok, or Korean Shamanism. It is different from China’s Taoism or Japan’s Shintoism. Its origins began In the Gojoseon era, 4000 years ago, and it is still a familiar part of our lives today. One must make appointments a year in advance for famous shamans, and mobile apps for reading one’s fortune and divination are popularized in Korea. In this way, Koreans are living with or enjoying Musok. Since ancient times, Koreans have received spiritual comfort during rough times and have shared joy on good days through Musok. The late Park Saeng-kwang, a painter known for applying Korean themes, produced works on Musok culture for the last five years of his life. He defined Musok as the root of Korean culture. Kyobo Art Space is holding an exhibition on Park’s Musok paintings to show what this means. Its objective is to reflect on the present through the works made 40 years ago, which sincerely portray what is Korean. The Argus hopes that as HUFSans experience this exhibition indirectly, they discover the value of Korean traditional Shamanic culture.

▣ On the way to the exhibition

   Entering the basement of the Kyobo Building in Gwanghwamun, the Kyobo Book Center is crowded with books. Among the signs designating the book genres, the reporter followed the arrow for Kyobo Art Space and reached a small exhibition hall. At the entrance of the exhibition, the intensely colored posters of the Musok exhibition of Park Saeng-kwang were attached. It was small enough to see all the exhibition halls at a glance, but Park’s colorful paintings pleased the visitors’ eyes.

   Before entering the exhibition, The Argus interviewed Park So-hyun, a staff member of the exhibition. She said, “Visitors to the Kyobo Book Center stop by here. Usually, exhibitions held at Kyobo Art Space attract visitors in their 20s to 30s, but this Shamanic exhibition has had many visitors in their 50s as well. I can feel the energy in the paintings during my working hours. When I first viewed the artworks of Park, I felt that these paintings had not only strong themes, but also very intense colors.” What is the energy of the paintings that she felt? How did artist Park come to paint such intense paintings? Let’s look at Park’s life and his style of drawing. 

▣ Life and artwork of  Park Saeng-kwang (1904~1985)

The life of Park is divided into four periods. The first period was when he studied painting in Japan from 1920 to 1950. The second period was until 1974, when he mainly drew abstract paintings. During the third period in the mid to late 1970s, he switched back to drawing still lives. He also drew plain and decorative paintings tending toward the style of Japanese paintings. The fourth period, called Park’s zenith, is when he pursued and drew in the Korean tradition from 1977 until he died. At that time, the Korean art world had a strong antiJapanese sentiment. Park’s paintings were received as a Japanese style, and therefore they were taken poorly. From the fourth period, Park made a new attempt of Korean-colored pictures to express Korean historical subjectivity. Departing from the Japanese painting trend, he expressed a wide range of Korean spiritual worlds with traditional colors, taking the subjects of Musok (Shamanism), Buddhism, folk tales, and historical materials in Korea.

- Park Saeng-kwang and Musok

   Artist Park used his unique technique to express Korean elements such as peonies, butterflies, and birds with the intense color of Dancheong. In his late 70s, he began to intensively explore the subject of Musok. As a result, he combined Korean folk culture with magical entities and recreated a traditional Korean culture Musok as a painting. For Park, the Musok culture was not just religious, but the Korean identity and one of the roots from which Korean culture emanated.

▣ Musok exhibition seen by The Argus

- Tiger 1984

   When visitors enter the exhibition, one can see the “Tiger” first. Artist Park painted the tigers, which are the representative Korean animals, on a square canvas. Using square canvas was his unique characteristic. At that time, square paintings were very rare, but Park used formative elements (a square canvas) to express his paintings well. Park’s works from the 1980s are characterized by rough and exaggerated lines. The reason is that Park, who was conscious of the detailed and flat Japanese paintings at the time, used a technique contrary to those. Through this process, Park studied the method of using Dancheong’s color with a thick outline and began to freely draw the size of the object.

- Musok 5 1982

   This picture contains elements of Musok. One noticeable characteristic was the hands put together located in the center of the picture. Above the hands, there is a painting of a god located in the Shamanistic temple of Jeju Island in the 1900s. On the left, the person holding the instrument is a musician who plays music in the Gut. The woman on the right is a figure in Portrait of a Beauty, a representative Korean folk painting, in Park’s style of painting. In addition, Park painted Dancheong at the top of his work to show the Korean tradition. Various Korean patterns, such as candles and flowers, were put in the paintings, providing glee to the viewer, as if searching for hidden details.

- Mask 1983

   In the 1980s, Park left several paintings of masks while continuing his series of Musok because in Korean Shamanism, masks have been treated as a product of human will to communicate with a god. In particular, the blue color covering most of the painting expressed the human world full of sadness. Along with this, the elements expressing the complex destiny and story of humans are filled with pictures. It feels like the person wearing a mask is approaching viewers while hiding his emotions in the complex and sorrowful world. Masks have the meaning of concealing one’s true face and emotions in Korean culture, and Park expressed this meaning through his paintings well.

- Wooden Fish 1981

   The title, Wooden Fish, means a fish made of wood. Park, who was interested in Dancheong, enlarged the Dancheong and expressed it as if it had been seen in the form of a fish. The most notable part of this painting is the phrase “four thousand three hundred and fourteen years” placed in front of the artist’s signature. According to Park, this phrase is the period from the time Dangun, the progenitor of Korea began to rule this land until the time Park drew this painting. “No nation left history. No ethnic art left tradition. All ethnic arts are above their national traditions,” Park said, explaining the phrase. Park deemed Korean culture as important enough to inscribe Korea’s long history and traditions in his paintings.

- Window and Musok 1982

   In the 1980s Park was constructing the Musok series. According to the explanation of the exhibition, when viewing the paintings of Musok, Musok itself should be the focus rather than seeing the individual elements in the painting. This explanation is well applied to “Window and Musok,” which is Park’s representative work. In order to express the subject of Shamanism, of which one shaman is the center, Park focused on the figure who appeared to be a shaman. Also, the window was painted very large, and it shows how Park thought of the shaman. Park viewed the window as a channel through which human beings could go inside and outside at any time. In other words, he regarded Musok as a window that connected this world and the next, or man and god.

   After viewing the exhibition, an interview with a visitor Kim Gwang-guk was conducted. Kim said, “I came inside because the distinctive colors caught my eye. I had never heard of artist Park Saeng-kwang, but I think he drew a lot of unique pictures. Through this exhibition, I came to think that Musok is a very special and impressive part of Korean culture. Musok and shamans often appear in movies and dramas, but I have never seen them as a picture.”

   As such, Korean Shamanism has become a unique tradition that often appears in movies and dramas, not a specific religion, because everyone, who cannot know the future, has a desire to know his or her future through Shamanism, and a desire to live a better life through Shamanism. Even people in their twenties are curious about their future life after graduation, and they are looking to Shamanism with uncertainty about the future, wanting to know if they will be successfully employed. Shamanism as a religion that can be relied on is important, but it is necessary to reconsider Sha ma n ism a s a cu lt u ra l tradition that has inherited the culture of Korean people for a very long time. The Argus hopes that readers will discover the historical value of Musok through Park Saeng-kwang’s Musok exhibition.

yeajinchoi@hufs.ac.kr