'Painter of Light' Lee Dai-won Dreams of Korean Painting

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An exhibition looking back at the 70-year artistic career of the late artist Lee Dai-won, famous for his orchard paintings, is currently underway. It sheds light on his fierce exploration to reconstruct Korean-style painting based on our traditions.

Reporter Lee Ju-sang has the story.

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[Lee Dai-won: Nothing Makes You Sad / Through November 8 / National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Deoksugung]

Bright dots of color pile up to unfold a spring orchard landscape featuring rows of pink blossoming trees.

Unlike the pointillism of French Impressionism, where colors blend into one another, each dot of color retains its own light.

Lines of pink, green, and yellow cross the canvas, creating a sense of movement as if swaying in the wind.

Densely structured dots, lines, and planes of color form stone walls and grassy fields.

[Bae Won-jung / Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art: The farm goes beyond a landscape to be looked at, transforming into a space of landscape where one can stroll. In our East Asian tradition, there is 'wayu' (lying down and wandering through landscapes). It is about entering that landscape.]

Behind the image of the happy painter of 'farm' paintings, artist Lee Dai-won continuously attempted to integrate Oriental painting with traditional crafts.

He directly learned brushwork and strokes of Oriental painting from masters like Sojeong Byeon Gwan-sik and Simsan No Su-hyeon, and even translated traditional Korean craft items into oil paintings.

In particular, he pictorially perfected the effect of mother-of-pearl lacquerware, which condenses light on its surface.

[Bae Won-jung / Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art: His colors were the result of newly configuring the dots and lines of mother-of-pearl work, embroidery, and traditional painting through oil paint.]

Rather than following Western art trends, he reinterpreted the colors and light of traditional Korean crafts along with the brush techniques of Oriental painting, thereby building the foundation for modern and contemporary Korean art.

[Kim Sung-hee / Director, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art: His aspect as an artist who established a new pictorial language through fierce formal exploration and contemplation of the identity of Korean art will be newly illuminated.]

Gathering about 120 oil paintings ranging from early works in the 1930s to large-scale masterpieces from his later years, the exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of Lee Dai-won's 70-year artistic journey.

(Video Editing: Kim Jong-mi, VJ: Oh Se-gwan)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.