The Alleged Double Life of Kim Hongdo
Grab a random Korean person on the street, and chances are they will know Kim Hongdo, be able to identify him as a Joseon dynasty painter. Most will be able to name, right off the bat, a few paintings that can be attributed to him. Kim is incredibly famous, and, in the realm of visual depictions of the daily lives of the people of Joseon, incredibly influential.
Although I lack the firsthand experience to attest to this second prediction fully, I imagine a similar response of familiarity among Japanese people when it comes to ukiyo-e — the iconic woodblock prints that continue to dominate the world’s perception of Japanese art. Even though I wasn’t aware of the term ukiyo-e a few months ago, I found myself letting out a sound of recognition when I looked up the relevant images on the Internet and saw works like this:
But the conspiracy theory that links Kim and ukiyo-e is perhaps lesser known. There is speculation that Kim led a double life as one of the most famous ukiyo-e painters — Toshusai Sharaku, who was famous for his prints of kabuki actors like this:
Sharaku appeared quite literally out of nowhere and produced woodblock prints only for a period of ten months. His works are charged with realism and energy, showing a refusal to gloss over unflattering details, which was understood by his contemporaries to be unusual and even undesirable. His ephemeral career and obscure identity have led researchers to speculate about his true identity for years, with one of the candidates being Kim Hongdo himself.
Lending some credence to the Kim-Sharaku theory is that Kim traveled to Japan for a period of time to draw a map of Tsushima Island, which provides explanation for the brief nature of Sharaku’s career. Another link to support the unlikely connection between the two artists is that they have both depicted their subjects as having six toes. The nature of some of their most famous works — showing the lives of commoners with unmitigated candor — may also be a common thread.
However, considering there are more than fifty candidates for the true identity of Sharaku, I think it would be best to leave the Kim-Sharaku theory as just that — a theory. While interesting, the records in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, an incredible historical resource, state that Kim was in Korea holding a local government position during Sharaku’s career. (It actually details the opinion that his incompetence at local government deserves punishment — I guess he was not as good at politics as he was at art.) His stint on Tsushima Island was actually some time before Sharaku’s active period.
But examining this theory has been a very fulfilling cultural experience — one that straddles the cultures of both Korea and Japan, countries that are geographically close yet very different, whose conflicts throughout the last few centuries percolate into the politics of today. This theory has been given attention by some Korean media outlets, and a movie based on the speculation, starring prominent actor Hwang Jeong Min, was planned, attesting to this theory’s value as a cultural resource.
I’ll end this article with a work by Kim Hongdo — see for yourself if they could have been done by the same person.
