Kim Tuk Sin, a representative artist of Korean Painting, and his paintings
Kim Tuk Sin well acquainted with Kim Hong Do contributed to opening up the new path of the realistic genre painting of Korea in 18th century.
He mainly painted the working people depicting their life with the far-reaching scope and in depth, in order to vividly show the contemporary status system, economic life, social conditions and customs.
His typical paintings are Aristocrat and Peasants, Chasing a Cat and the like.
Kim Tuk Sin also painted landscape and animal paintings. Due to the limitations of the time and class, he drew paintings like Picture of Immortals which is alien to the reality.
His figure and genre paintings cover a wide range of descriptive objects, has depth in the topics and contents.
Aristocrat and Peasants shows the unfair status system of the feudal society by the posture of a peasant couple who makes a low bow to an aristocrat on the road on a summer day.
Delicate description of each person’s looks and manners such as the naive and simple man and wife, a servant smiling in his eyes and an aristocrat on the high horse highlights their characteristics.
Chasing a Cat represents a funny scene that could be seen in the courtyard of a countryside house everywhere in the country.
In the picture, a hen surprised at the screaming of the chick bitten by a cat is chasing after the cat desperately, and an old man is stretching his handholding a long pipe to hit the cat. Rushed out of the room, his wife is just waving her hand sat a loss what to do.
Such humorous portrayal on the sudden situation makes the viewers could not help laughing at.
Wisely choosing occasions in lives based on the deep experience of reality, saliently portraying personality and character, lively describing lives with delicacy, and faithfully reflecting the realities, Kim Tuk Sin made a great contribution to the development of the realistic genre painting.
