This study is to research the epistemology of the calligraphic viewpoints of Chusa Kim Jeonghee (1786~1856), a calligrapher born late in Joseon dynasty, to see his artistic and aesthetic senses shown on the characters written by him in his Korean an...
This study is to research the epistemology of the calligraphic viewpoints of Chusa Kim Jeonghee (1786~1856), a calligrapher born late in Joseon dynasty, to see his artistic and aesthetic senses shown on the characters written by him in his Korean and Chinese mails, and then to analyze the formative aesthetic structure and artistic and aesthetic features of such mails.
His mails show clearly when they were written and their own aesthetic features that he sought in his times together with the changes of his calligraphic styles. “The less intended, the greater the piece is created”, said So Sik (蘇軾). Like So Sik said, Chusa's characters in his mails do not show any artificial nature but they reflect such essential features of calligraphy as improvisation, emotion, readability, artistic sense and etc, so that they are appropriate enough to be researched on their periodical and aesthetic aspects at the same time. Such essential features of calligraphy are seen also on such artistic masterpieces as ChoWolCheop by Wang Hee Ji (王羲之), JaengJwaWiCheop by Ahn Jin Gyeong (顔眞卿), MuEeGuGokDoBal by Toigye and etc. I, thereby, put the objective of this study on the effort to find out the artistic value of Chusa's characters by selecting 40 pieces from both Chinese and Korean mails respectively he had written for entire of his life.
For this study, I analyzed basically the Chapter III, an Epistemological Study on Chusa's Calligraphic Viewpoints, under which, I analyzed, first, his basic cognition of calligraphy in both aspects of him seeking solution from reality and of him valuing the old and searching out toward the origin, and, second, his cognition for practice in the aspects of art-critics/identification and art-learning/technique through his theory of letter-wiring, which I applied as logics to searching out the calligraphic values of the characters written by him in his mails.
In the Chapter IV, an Analysis of Formative Aesthetic Structure of the Characters Written by Chusa in his Mails, I analyzed first his calligraphic rules of 14 Chinese and 12 Korean mails among the 40 mails of his selected for this study, which indicated that such calligraphic rules shown on every mail analyzed were similar to each other with regularity and showed liquidity and harmonization in letter allocation. I analyzed second the formation of 192 Chinese characters of 48 styles and 144 characters of 36 styles, which indicated that the calligraphic styles of every character were as same as those of the structure of the authentic formation rules of HaengCho calligraphic rule, and that the calligraphic style used before he was banished tended to be Cho calligraphic style [hard-dragging] for contacting each other consecutively more than the other styles and the styles after banishment tended to be Hang calligraphic style [dragging] for breaking each other more than the other styles. The results of comparison of most of his calligraphic styles with those of Jo Song Seol [in Chusa's mails to his father] and those of Wang Hee Ji [in Chusa's mails to his mother] indicated that all his calligraphic styles were as same as those of Jo Song Seol and Wang Hee Ji in basic structure but calligraphic moods were a little bit different. Third, the formative aesthetic relation between Chinese and Korean mails written by him showed that both Chinese and Korean mails were similar each other in their written rules, and the letter forms were analyzed to be different each other while there was large relation in the calligraphic forms of basic dots and strokes shown on the formations between Chinese and Korean mails.
In the Chapter V, the Artistic and Aesthetic Features of the Characters Written by Chusa in his Mails, I analyzed such features in the aspect of regular formative static beauty into the principle of rough shaping for variety-diversity and the principle of balance for unity-harmony, which indicated that the characters written by him were expressed to meet a variety of letter-writing factors based on the principles of rough shaping and balance. Second, I analyzed the features of the characters written by him in his mails in the aspect of dynamic motional beauty <of the characters written by him> into dynamic balance principle and spectacle transformation principle. This analysis result indicated that dynamic and transforming expressions changed year by year in the characters written by him in both Chinese and Korean letters of his. Third, I analyzed his paying attention to empty style ugliness <shown in his sentences> into the aesthetic features of happy blending of feeling and setting and the aesthetic features of ugliness based wise beauty. This analysis result indicated that the characters written in his mails had the features of empty style ugliness based beauty. It also indicated that such ugliness based wise beauty features were blended with comparison factors of dotting and stroking; that such features used ink-bar using rule for both surplus and shortness; and that the calligraphic rules of Jeon-Ye-Hae-Haeng-Cho were expressed altogether in the characters written in his mails.
Such artistic beauty of the sentences-characters written in his Chinese and Korean mails analyzed above indicated that the expression features changed per period of his based on a regular aesthetic principle. In general, the characters written in his Chinese mails were entirely divided into two calligraphic beauties before and after the mail written when he was 47. Especially the mail written when he was 71 showed the typical features of Chusa Calligraphic Style. The expressions of the characters written in small size in his mails were analyzed to meet the features of 'Chusa Calligraphic Style' so-called a calligraphic style for big size characters, so that such characters written in his mails were verified to be highly valuable calligraphic style. As the characters written in Chusa's Chinese [Korean] mails had been highly recognized and applied as great calligraphic pieces in various mails written by famous Chinese calligraphers for a long time, I would like to suggest that we should run to excavation of the characters written in his mails and apply such characters to creation and education of authentic calligraphic pieces.