The Korea Colloquium Series presents “Changing Notions of ‘Feminie Spaces’ in Chosŏn Dynasty Korea: the Case of Sin Saimdang (1504-1551),” a lecture by Burglind Jungmann, University of California, Los Angeles.
Sin Saimdang (1504-1551) is undoubtedly the most famous female artist in Korean history, but why and how do we remember her? Even though we do not know what Saimdang looked like, we find her image on the 50 000 Won banknote. Facts about her life are scattered and none of the remaining works attributed to her, including painting, calligraphy and embroidery, can be confirmed as authentic. Yet, the material is overwhelming: about a hundred paintings are ascribed to Saimdang. Since the sixteenth century the literature and visual material has grown, with every century contributing its own ideas about the personality of the painter and about her works. Her ‘heroization’ as a model wife and mother, even as ‘mother of the nation’ in South Korea, added more layers to obscuring her artistic personality, continuing a process that started right after her death and is still ongoing. By discussing texts written about the artist from the 16th through 20th centuries and analyzing paintings that are ascribed to her this lecture will investigate the reception of Saimdang’s role as woman and artist as a case study of how historical narratives are constructed, discarded, and reconstructed. It will address two main questions: What were the cultural and social circumstances that allowed her to be recognized and to flourish in a male-dominated world, and what were the historical conditions under which she was remembered until the present day?