Kim Hyun Chul's Portrait Exhibition
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  In the 'Jin Kyung' period which is the golden age in our culture, people thought that inanimated landscape also has spirits inside according to the Chosun Sung confucianism. So the 'Jin Kyung' landscape(drawing the real landscape of Korean nature) set its goal to express the spirit that is hidden inside the landscape.
  Jung Sun(1676-1759), the great master of Chosun painting, drew on the sketchbook, the landscape of Mount Kum-Gang and the east coast in 'Jin Kyung' style. You can find this out by knowing he named it 《Hae Ak Jeon Shin Chup》.
  Jeon Shin is to draw the outer and also the inner part of the person in the portrait. So 'Hae Ak Jeon Shin' is the landscape expressing the nature looks and the inner part of the nature.
  The inanimated landscape even has it's soul, so when drawing the animated animals, plants and humans, expressing the soul is the key to draw great paintings. Jung Sun made great success in genre paintings, flower, insect and animal paintings with this key.
  But Jung Sun concentrated on 'Jin Kyung' landscape, letting younger artists like Choi Young Suk(1686-1761) to set up genre painting, and Byun Sang Byuk(1730-?) to show his skills in portraits and animal paintings.
  After that period, Kim Hong Do(1745-1806) and Shin Yoon Bok(1758-?) came out and finished the genre paintings and here they also depicted the inner soul of the people which is shown on the sketchbook of Shin, compacted with 30 genre paintings called 《Hae Won Jeon Shin Chup》.
  Kim Hyun Chul became a member of researchers in Kan Song Museum in late 1980's while studying fine art in Seoul National University to make the 'Jin Kyung' period as the standard of Korean art. After that, he kept on studying 'Jin Kyung' landscape and portrait methods to get something new from it. It has been more than 20 years that he started to learn about 'Jin Kyung' method.
  It seems like yesterday that he struggled to copy < Mi In Do> which is Shin Yoon Bok's masterpiece. I'm proud of Kim that he is a real artist that has a chance to open a portrait exhibition. After all, Kim developed the 'Jin Kyung' portrait style following Choi Young Suk, Byun Sang Byuk, Kim Hong Do, and Shin Yoon Bok. I hope this exhibition can bring traditional portraits into fashion that show us the soul of a person which can not be done by cameras.

  October 3, 2008
  Choi Wan Soo in Bo Hwa Gak