Fig. 36. Lee Yootae (이유태 李惟台, 1916–1999). A Pair of Figures—Inquiry (인물일대 [人物一對]—탐구 [探究]), 1944. Ink and color on paper, 831/2 × 601/4 in. (212 × 153 cm). National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea elderly and thus venerable status, the smooth white skin of a researcher seated in her laboratory is evidence of of the woman was a testament to her beauty and youth- the changing status of women. The emergence of the fulness. The treatment of her face, along with her long “modern girl” or “new woman” (sin yeoseong) in Korea braid indicating her unmarried status, links this painting was part of a global phenomenon of expanding spheres to the earlier Joseon genre of miindo (painting of a of opportunity for women.�� The well- equipped labora- beauty), contemporary depictions of women in colonial tory, with its glass 昀氀asks, batteries, microscopes, and Korea, and images of women in the Japanese genre of other instruments, shows Korea involved in scienti昀椀c nihonga (literally, “Japanese painting”), which emerged progress. While Lee is depicting recent social changes, he in the late 1870s and early 1880s and was characterized has not completely abandoned the past. Under the white by so昀琀 lines and pastel colors. coat, the researcher wears a hanbok (Korean dress). The sitter and her surroundings become the means Between the white lapels, a one-bo w tie and overlapping of negotiating a complex web of old and new art forms collar with white trim are just visible. within a changing and charged sociopolitical environ- Signaling the ambiguous response to modernization ment in A Pair of Figures—Inquiry, a painting by Lee and female emancipation in colonial Korea, Lee exhibited Yootae (昀椀g. 36).�� While there is similarly minimal articula- A Pair of Figures—Inquiry as a diptych, pairing it with tion of features, the female’s face is not awash in white, A Pair of Figures—Composing a Verse in Response as in the previous portrait. She has 昀氀esh-t oned skin and (昀椀g. 37), a work made the same year, in the last edition of a bit of rouge on her cheeks. Created in 1944, this image the Joseon Fine Art Exhibition (Joseon misul jeollamhoe). 34