The muted colors and heavily textured surface of the 1965 painting Tree and Two Women by Park Soo- keun are in stark contrast to those in Ferry Boat, and yet both images are infused with sentiment conveyed through elemental forms (昀椀g. 40). Park came from a humble background and vowed to become an artist a昀琀er seeing a work by the self- taught French painter Jean- François Millet (1814–1875). In the 1940s, while he was in Pyeongyang, Park developed his signature style, which is o昀琀en described as stonelike because of its gray and brown palette and mottled surface, inspired by granite Buddhist sculptures and pagodas, and by wall paintings in the recently excavated Goguryeo tombs (37 BCE–668 CE). Early on in his career, Park made a living drawing portraits of American soldiers stationed in Seoul. In his own work, he portrayed everyday people, primarily women and children, re昀氀ecting the indelible impact of Millet. Though postwar Korea was 昀椀rmly a Confucian society, the deaths of so many, especially men, meant widows and daughters shouldered the weight of recovery and reconstruction. In depicting women, o昀琀en caring for children or at work, Park recognizes their indispensability and seemingly empathizes with their burdens of survival. Painted in his rough style, the women take on a monumental perma- nence inspired by Buddhist monuments, a connection that may also be an artistic response to the swi昀琀 changes overtaking postwar Korea. The 1970s and 1980s in South Korea saw rapid industrialization and urbanization concomitant with Fig. 40. Park Soo- keun (박수근 朴壽根, 1914–1965). Tree and Two increasing authoritarianism, which gave rise to a grass- Women (나무와 두 여인), 1965. Oil on canvas, 511/8 × 35 in. (130 × 89 cm). roots democratization movement known as Minjung, Leeum Museum of Art, Seoul discussed earlier.�� Artists like Lee Jong- gu, who were a part of the Minjung art movement, adopted realism roofed house set against hills and a light blue sky. The as a deliberately politicized aesthetic language that sky blends into the blue of the Roh Tae- woo presidential- challenged the quiet abstraction of earlier artists, such as campaign poster, and the hills are met with torn edges of Kim Whanki and Lee Ufan (discussed later). Lee Jong- gu newspaper spreads. The posters and newspapers look to highlighted the harsh realities faced by Korean farmers be on a wall. What is this backdrop? Is it a wall that had a and laborers in his hyperrealistic paintings. His attention painting of a 昀椀eld that was then pasted over with posters? to detail is evident in the weathered, tanned faces and Are the men in front of this wall? Where does the ground rough, veiny hands of the men in Earth- at- Oziri (Oziri meet the wall? Lee makes the image more surreal with People) (昀椀g. 41). Squatting and gazing directly at us, the the cutouts of 昀氀oating cabbages and a pack of Camel men are not brie昀氀y resting but anticipating de昀椀ance. cigarettes. He cheekily uses a Marlboro cigarette carton What they are waiting for is hard to determine. If the wall to stand in for a house. of campaign posters and newspapers is an indicator, Questioning reality was central to the practice of perhaps they are waiting for substantial, and real, socio- hyperrealistic painting, which in Korea became tethered political change. The collage of pasted papers in the to social critique and was less associated with commer- background creates a sense of trompe l’oeil, making it cialism in contrast to the practice in America. Through his di昀케cult to discern the multiple levels of reality in the painting style, juxtaposition of incongruous elements, composition. Which is more real: the posters promising and choice and use of materials, Lee reveals the banality change or the men awaiting a di昀昀erent kind of reality? of “seeing is believing.” Earth- at- Oziri (Oziri People) is Upon closer inspection, it is apparent that the men infused with skepticism, evident in the torn posters of are situated in a bizarre setting. Their brown shadows le昀琀- and right-wing politicians with their campaign morph into a receding tract of farmland with a red- promises. He extends the skepticism to global politics, 37