Imagine flying over a mountain range comprised of impossibly tall and exquisitely slender cliffs of granite, void of any sign of life or vegetation. Looking down inspires feelings of vertigo as the long, gargantuan fingers of stone rise from the earth and reach into the heavens. Searching the barren landscape reveals empty paths winding around the fan-like arrangement of cliffs, punctuated by a trio of empty pavilions nestled between the jagged peaks. Such a scene was portrayed by contemporary Korean artist Park Dae Sung, who is among the few granted permission to travel into North Korea to view the wondrous Diamond Mountains. However, it wasn’t until years later that he translated this inspiring landscape though his own monumental brushstrokes, nearly 8 feet tall, of ink on paper in the eponymous painting described above. The impulse came, somewhat ironically, after travelling to the bustling city of New York, where the artist described feeling overwhelmed by the towering skyscrapers looming overhead and translated that experience into his portrayal of the iconic mountains. However disparate these two experiences may seem, the ancient cliffs and the modern city, the artist has seamlessly woven them together in one of eight paintings on view in the current exhibition, titled Park Dae Sung: Virtuous Ink and Contemporary Brush, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Born in 1945, Park Dae Sung’s life began at the very crossroads of the Korean War. An infant during the final days of Korea’s occupation by Japan, Park was not exempt from the turmoil that soon followed. By age 5, both of his parents had been killed by Communist soldiers and the young boy lost part of his left arm as the country descended into war. In the years following, the self-taught artist steadfastly learned in the most traditional of manners, by means of copying the masters of calligraphy and painting that came before him and today considers his greatest mentor to have been the historic calligrapher Kim Saeng (711-791). Akin to the masters of earlier generations, the years of copious training and copying do not culminate in a simplistic reproduction of earlier styles but a freedom to improvise and develop new techniques to suit the artist’s personal vision.
The current exhibition is anchored by the mesmerizing Snow at Bulguk Temple (1996), presenting a panoramic view of the historic temple that reaches over 12 feet tall and 35 feet wide. It is perhaps the most traditionally rendered of the paintings on view, but for its majestic scale, and one among a series of works that helped cement the artist’s national reputation in the late 1990s in Korea. The viewer stands separated from the sacred architecture by scattered pine trees and left to contemplate the ascent in this sacred space across a series of bridged staircases. The bright colors of the actual temple are translated through brushstrokes of black on white paper, tempered with only the subtlest washes of shaded hues. These muted tones suggest the transitory hours of twilight, perhaps a metaphor pitting our own ephemeral experience against the steadfast presence of the centuries-old temple.
From there, the paintings selected by curator Virginia Moon demonstrate the artist’s proclivity toward invention in the following decades, as he continued pushing this most traditional of media into distinctly contemporary idioms. Another portrayal of the Diamond Mountains, titled Sound of Water (2006), offers a close-up view of bridged pavilion spanning over a river set in front of a tall waterfall conveyed by the unpainted white of the paper. Over this, Park conveys the surrounding terrain with thick, black calligraphic brushstrokes, the rough texture created with diluted washes of ink then dragged over the surface. The process, both planned and spontaneous, builds up as the ink muddies, modulates and forms the rough textures of the natural environment. The overall effect, much greater than the sum of its parts and dissection of techniques, recalls a historic description of the landscape painter Fan Kuan of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), best-known today for his masterpiece, Travelers Among Mountains and Streams (early 11thcentury). The vivid experience of Fan Kuan’s paintings was described, long ago, as follows: “And such were his cliffs and gorges that it instantly makes one feel as if walking along a path in the shade of the mountains and however great the heat, it makes one shiver with cold, and ask for a blanket.”
Similarly, the collection of eight singular works by Park offers a series of visceral experiences that transport the viewer from the mundane to the extraordinary. We bear witness to the power of two great bulls in head-long collision, the serenity of the natural landscape, and the nuanced juxtaposition of Western naturalism against traditional calligraphy and ink painting. The range of influences from East-to-West and past-to-present, in his work reveals an artist who unreservedly engages with the vast wealth of resources at his disposal and invites us to revel in these explorations.
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