impart mantras, lament injustice, and inspire action. Ahn received a classical education, and as a young man witnessing the whittling away of Korea’s sovereignty, he devoted himself to studying geopolitics and history and sought to educate others by establishing schools. In 1907 he moved to the Vladivostok region (then Manchuria) to join fellow Korean independence activists. A昀琀er hearing that Itō Hirobumi (伊藤 博文, 1841–1909), a Japanese politician who served as the 昀椀rst resident- general of Korea, would be passing through Manchuria, Ahn and others devised a plan to assassinate Itō; as a pledge to the plan, the activists each cut o昀昀 the last joint of their ring 昀椀nger. Ahn intercepted and fatally shot Itō at the Harbin Railway Station before being caught by the authorities. During his nearly six- month imprisonment before execution, Ahn wrote his autobiography and made calligraphic works that were much admired (昀椀g. 44). On these works, he imprinted his self- mutilated le昀琀 hand, a visual mark of his pledge and a poignant nod to the connection of a calligrapher’s hand, heart, and mind. Lee Ufan channels the energetic precision of cal- ligraphic strokes in his abstract paintings.�� The act of using a brush until the pigment it holds diminishes gradually to barely leave a mark is a calligraphic conven- tion that Lee deliberately evokes in the 1979 painting From Line (昀椀g. 45). Here, the closely spaced linear rows that start at the top edge and 昀椀ll the entire length of the canvas make the viewer aware of the large dimensions of the work. The lack of a border creates a sense of fullness, even though each line fades and dissolves. Before moving to Japan in 1956, Lee studied ink painting with Suh Se Ok. Lee’s ability to produce a series of straight lines of equal width demonstrates his rigorous calligraphic discipline. Against the lineages of black calligraphy and ink painting, Lee chose to employ a blue pigment, derived from cobalt and cadmium.�� Individuals like Lee recognized the numerous opposi- tional categories by which pre- and postwar artists and their works were being de昀椀ned, such as traditional versus modern, ink versus oil, and representation versus abstraction. Lee grapples with these binaries by bringing together unlikely combinations of materials, objects, and concepts. From Line is evidence of this practice, as the painted line is both solid and porous and the visual 昀椀eld is full and empty. Lee’s embrace of the both- and paradigm is also present in the work’s title—“from” is as important as “line,” since it indicates a start, a process, and signals open- endedness and is not a de昀椀nitive statement. Like Lee Ufan, Yun Hyong- keun steered away from Fig. 44. Ahn Junggeun (안중근 安重根, 1879–1910). black in his paintings, because he understood that it had One Takes Pain and Worries for the Safety and become a signi昀椀er of ink. He employed burnt umber and Danger of the Country (국가안위노심초사), 1909. Ink ultramarine, which are foregrounded in the titles of his on silk, 585/8 × 15 in. (149 × 38.2 cm). Ahn Junggeun Memorial Museum, Seoul, Treasure no. 569-21 works. Though it does not appear blue, Umber Blue, from 41