Contemporary South Korean Calligraphy And The Predicament

This paper is concerned with the current situation of South Korean calligraphy and its predicament that is actually a very sensitive,rarely mentioned,but real crisis in particular.From the history and development of South Korean calligraphy,we could clearly see that the entire Korean cultural history was influenced by Chinese culture,and that was why calligraphy based on Chinese characters could be inherited and developed well in South Korea.During the course of the historical development of South Korea,in parallel with the development of the Chinese culture,an independent Korean phonetic alphabet was created in 1446 in South Korea,and after many years of hard development,it slowly established its own system.Especially after the World War II,when liberating from the Japanese government's long-term oppression and control,in order to establish Korean cultural system and strengthen the national self-respect,South Korean government carried out an official policy to abolish Chinese characters and allow only Korean characters in 1945.Although this initiative had played an important role in promoting the establishment of national image and popularization of South Korean culture at the time,the abolishment of Chinese characters had not only brought a fatal blow to the development of calligraphy based on Chinese characters,but also,from a far-reaching point of view,brought a lot of negative impact on the development and heritage of the traditional humanistic spirits as characters were in line with the entire country's humanities and histories,which was what the government had not estimated at that time.The calligraphy art based on Chinese characters has inherited difficultly in the past.Because of the lack of Chinese character education,the calligraphy based on Chinese characters has lost the basic public foundation and humanistic soil,and is even harder to find sources and motive forces for further development.Today,the crisis of "Korean character only" policy carried out by South Korean government 70 years ago has been clearly reflected,we can see that calligraphers' survival and their development have been facing difficulties,more than thirty years' gradual establishment of calligraphy education system in universities has led to a lack of students due to no extensive Chinese character education,calligraphy education in universities has been gradually disintegrated,and many other difficulties are in front of us.On the other hand,the development of Korean-based calligraphy art is barely satisfactory.Because of the phonetic alphabet,relatively monotonous strokes,stiff text and other short boards,Korean characters can not be comparable with the original rich and smooth Chinese calligraphy in art manifestations.Therefore,the development of South Korean calligraphy has been neglected for a long time in South Korea.All of these reasons have reflected problems and difficulties that current development of South Korean calligraphy has encountered.The research of this paper is based on such a foundation,looking into the current situation of the development of contemporary South Korean calligraphy and encountering the problems by referring to relevant materials,researching,visiting and exchanging,and also analysis of the causes of predicament with a frank attitude.The author hope that on the basis of the study,countermeasures and ways of breaking through the difficulties could be thought about,either from the adherence and expansion of traditional Chinese calligraphy,the combination and innovation of calligraphy and art,or the breakthrough and breakout of calligraphy.According to the reality of contemporary South Korean calligraphy,the author would like to discover and present South Korean artists,calligraphers and designers' efforts,methods and results from several different levels,trying to understand the situation of contemporary South Korean calligraphy,to think about the possibility of future development,and to explore the development of calligraphy in line with the characteristics of the times and current South Korea.