A monotone abstract painting on hemp canvas painted audaciously from the top downward, using a thick wide brush with ample paint poured onto it. It’s a simple painting with one or two columnar or rectangular shapes, though at times there may appear about five columns. Perhaps it’s better to describe it by saying it was ‘colored’ rather than ‘painted’. However, while the building up of form, color, and composition isn’t very obvious and the method of application of paint to the support seems simple, it would be a mistake to assume the painting took little time to complete. Completion could take several days or even months, since controlling the depth and diffusion of color and the spread of turpentine requires the work of a delicate hand and a trained eye.

 

If someone were to look at the painting of Yun Hyong-keun - one of the most prominent figures in monochrome painting - and call it “minimal”, the statement would be considered too ordinary to receive much attention. Even though Korean monochrome painting involves intensive handiwork that is often carried out by the artist personally, at one time this style was termed “Korean minimalism”. And this reflects the generalized tendency to equate monochromatic painting with minimalism. However, there is a discord between Western minimalism, which saw art as non-individualistic, anonymous objects as it dismantled the boundaries between art and industry, and Korean monochrome paintings that sought to reveal universal attributes naturally by minimizing the artist’s intervention. Hence, the assessment that monochrome paintings are “minimal” is only valid in so far as it pertains to the development of concepts by reverting shapes such as points and lines back to basic elements, or to the formal aspect of minimizing expression and manipulation.

 

The earthy hue resulting from the mixture of Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue, painted on the brownish raw canvas with no gesso, supplied the title of the painting and is also the trademark of the artist’s monochrome paintings. It has been said that, after having struggled through life’s hardships for a long time, the artist acquired deep enlightenment while looking at a decomposing tree that was turning into dirt, and it was out of this experience that his dark brown monochromes were born. Such stories are important clues in understanding his work. Perhaps because the experience of awakening to the gruesome truth that no one can bypass the harshness of nature’s ways is expressed with the heavy tone of a cello, some people are met with complete silence while looking at the painting, while others feel fear akin to standing on the verge of a deep, dark abyss. Still others confess to experiencing a sense of religious and spiritual sublimity.

 

My own first encounter with Yun’s monochrome painting is also related to the idea of “extinction”. The dark brown monotones painted on hemp canvas evoked, from the far corners of my memory, my grandfather’s death, and more specifically people wearing hemp mourning clothes. The mental image of an elderly man who climbed to the top of the roof, waving the deceased’s clothes in the air while shouting inaudible words, and the recollection of melodies sung by people bearing a funeral bier cannot be aptly described with words like “sadness” or “loss”. The sound directed towards another world that had already departed from this one felt empty, yet still solemn and loose. Yun’s Umber-Blue embraces sentiments of the agrarian society of our parents’ and grandparents’ generations with its autumn trees, thatched-roofed houses, yards stacked with sheaves of rice, and straw bags while at the same time transcending associations with that time to allow deep echoes and divine spirituality. Perhaps this double relevance can be attributed to the fact that the painting lies at the border between this world and the next. What is clear is that the cultural sensibility tied to hemp cloth connects our perceptions to Yun’s Umber-Blue through the structure of a meme.

 

At the same time, the artist has said his painting “came from Chusa Kim Jeong-hui’s writing”, emphasizing its influence on his work. Since the mid-nineteenth century, many have admired Chusa’s penmanship and art, and his writing was indeed unrivaled in stroke, construction, and grammar. Those trying to emulate him have formed different cliques and their work has taken different appearances depending on which route they took to climb Chusa’s pinnacle. Where does Yun fall within all of this variety of response to Chusa’s work?

 

Calligraphy is a spatially organized art composed of points and lines. It goes beyond the simple transfer of meaning of words and letters and represents a sophisticated area of culture for those places that use Chinese characters. Consistency of ink produced by ink stick and thickness of strokes, balance of proportion between letters, and construction of space reveal a writer’s individuality and creativity, and the fact that one cannot reach a high level by mastering the techniques alone is what makes calligraphy very difficult. The so-called “character fragrance and spirit of the book” must be revealed naturally. These concepts refer to a person’s character and dignity that have been solidified through one’s training and study, which is to say that one’s character, which has been polished to become noble through study, is revealed through one’s refined and elegant writing.

 

Chusa’s writing has a fragrance and spirit which are concentrated yet simple and poetic. It embodies the level of Zen that can only be enjoyed by those who have emptied their ego. Simple beauty that is achieved by Yun’s use of simple form and background reflects his attempt to reach this level of Zen. Yun’s vertically thick strokes that look like tree trunks are reminiscent of the technique in which the pointed brush tip has moved through the center of every stroke with strength. In the East, calligraphy and painting are considered identical in origin, and the foundation for painting originates from calligraphy. Yun maintained writing as the basis of painting, and he also maintained the pointed end of the brush, which is the foundation of penmanship; both are elements of minimalism in Yun’s painting. Maintenance of the pointed brush tip in making strokes is the foundation of writing, and one can only pursue varied brushstrokes after mastering this skill, which is why Chusa himself heavily emphasized this point.

 

Dark brown, long, rectangular columns are painted in the picture, on the canvas but what is revealed is the empty blank space between the columns. Such a method is similar to the ink-and-wash painting technique in which the artist paints the areas outside the moon to show the moon; or to express a tree leaf covered in snow, the artist paints the area surrounding the leaf with ink. The arrangement of and strong contrast between painted area and blank space resonates with Chusa’s own style, which carefully managed the blank space between letters.

 

Ironically, it was Donald Judd from the West who discovered structural aesthetics in Yun’s monochrome painting. Judd visited Yun’s studio in early 1990's when he was in Korea for his exhibition. Right there and then, he proposed a solo exhibition to Yun at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. Judd worked as a construction engineer in Korea for a year during the American occupation period right after Korea gained independence. It has been said he became fascinated by Jongmyo architecture and five colors of the East during this time. Unlike in most cases where a westerner would consume a foreign country’s folklore and low culture from the stance of a conqueror, that Judd took interest in a symbol system and architecture rooted in East Asian culture attests to his exceptional erudition and insight. His essay book published in 1993 discusses the theories of Yin and Yang and Feng Shui, and his library is said to contain thirteen thousand books about Eastern Art. It can be assumed that the time he spent in Korea during his youth had much influence on his perspective on art. Jongmyo architecture is characterized by extreme restriction and a beauty of brevity guided by Confucian ideals. It represents a space for ancestral rituals that houses ancestral tablets of kings and queens. As dynasties built their history, the architecture went through stages of reconstruction through which rooms became horizontally elongated like an organic form, and inside the building sat horizontal rows of tall ancestral tablets of kings and queens. In just the way that I summoned up a cultural memory about extinction from Yun’s dark brown painting, perhaps his painting resembling the surface of a rusty iron plate had conjured up, in Judd’s mind, an image of Jongmyo architecture and the arrangement and composition of tablets inside the shrine. In reality, the structure, form, and mood of color of the long rectangular tablets installed in a long rectangular room do indeed bear close similarity to Yun’s dark brown abstract painting.

 

The similarity between Judd’s “Specific Objects” and Yun’s dark brown painting goes beyond the simple one of uniform rectangular arrangement to one of structural expression of philosophical questions of life and death, humanity and nature, time and space, and moment and eternity. The Chusa - Yun - Judd’s puzzle, which transcends time and region and suggests an implicit dialogue among the artists beyond the dimension of impression at the dimension of intellect, presents an extremely fresh and interesting case.