The emergence of tropical images

The tropical indigenous fern and banana plant, with their vibrant green hues, stand out against the reddish objects and floors positioned prominently in the foreground of Yi’s painting Room in Summer (Figure 2). A red garden croton plant in the centre further accentuates the colourful ambience. All these plants, potted and placed indoors, originate from tropical regions that were quite unfamiliar to Koreans at the time. Another painting by Yi, Interior (Figure 3), conveys his exoticism and sense of a tropical atmosphere even more strongly. In the foreground, there’s an aspidistra, a tropical plant, potted in a red container and set atop an antique-style side table. The entire room exudes a Western-style ambience, complete with potted palm trees and a view of the garden through a window. The figure at the centre of the painting, dressed in what appear to be slippers and with most of their body exposed, suggests a representation of a summer day or tropical weather. The chair in the centre, with its reclining position and woven material, seems to be crafted from rattan. According to Jordan Sand, rattan chairs often ‘evoke[d] tropics to modern Westerners’ because they encountered such items when ‘living in or traveling through colonies in South and Southeast Asia’.Footnote ⁵ A large window with a clear view of the outside adds to the overall sensation of being on a tropical holiday, echoed by a miniature sailboat placed on the windowsill. In spite of the presence of various Western-style interior elements, like embroidered cushions and upholstered chairs, the tropical essence of these scenes is unmistakable.

Figure 2.

Yi In-sŏng, Room in Summer, watercolour on canvas, 71 x 89.5 cm, 1934.

Source: Private collection.

Figure 3.

Yi In-sŏng, Interior, watercolour on canvas, 91 x 117 cm, 1935.

Source: Private collection.

By the 1930s, tropical images were not new in colonial Korea. Alongside Japan’s colonization of Taiwan, which had a subtropical climate, tropical images had already begun to emerge in the Japanese empire. According to Penny Sparke, in her study of nineteenth-century middle-class homes in the West, potted palm trees were frequently used to inject ‘otherness’ and exoticism. These tropical plants, whose popularity is rooted in Western colonization, were not merely decorative choices but were integrated into interior decor, in part, as ‘memories of empire and of an un-tamed world in which nature had held sway’.Footnote ⁶ In the Japanese empire, undoubtedly, the interest in palm trees and tropical plants most likely surged due to Japan’s expansion into the South Sea region, often perceived as a wild, primitive territory. After the former German Micronesia, known as Nanyō Guntō (South Sea Islands), came under Japanese rule, stories and images of the region, one of Japan’s earliest tropical colonies, appeared frequently in the media. The term ‘Nanyō’ refers to ‘a geographical concept as nebulous as the ambitions directed toward it’, and the establishment of Nanyō-chō (the South Seas Agency) in 1922 led to an influx of Japanese settlers into the region.Footnote ⁷ From the late 1930s to the 1940s, some Japanese artists and writers, including Nakajima Atsushi, aspired to become the next Pierre Loti or Paul Gauguin of the South Seas.Footnote ⁸ According to Maki Kaneko, along with the expansion of Japan’s war campaign into Southeast Asia from around 1941, ‘“Southward (nanpō)” art became a new category of Japanese visual propaganda.’Footnote ⁹ A number of artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers were sent to the region, and the South Seas Art Association (Nan’yō Bijutsu Kyōkai), established by artists who had been to Micronesia, organized regular exhibitions. In doing so, a wealth of images depicting the ‘Southward’ regions circulated throughout Japan and its colonized territories, largely consisting of fantastical illustrations of local customs and landscapes.Footnote ¹⁰ In colonial Korea, Japan’s heightened interest in the South Sea region was echoed by the increased public visibility of images, including tropical plants and fruits, that evoked the region. Therefore, interiors with palm trees and the integration of tropical images in the colony cannot be dissociated from the expansion of the Japanese empire into the South Seas.

The introduction of the term ‘Namyang’ or ‘Nanyō’ in Korea can be traced back as early as 1900. The foreign news section of the Hwangsŏng newspaper provided a brief introduction to the region that covered its climate, customs, and culture:

This article, which also provided a brief history, shaped the image of an underdeveloped society. Kim Sŭng-ik also demonstrated that visual representations of the South Sea people began appearing as early as the 1910s in high school textbooks featuring the region and its inhabitants.Footnote ¹³ While the surge in media coverage in Korea related to the South Seas began in the late 1930s, coinciding with Japan’s increased military activities in the region, it is accurate to state that the South Sea phenomenon had already begun in Korea in the 1920s. Up until the 1920s, the Southern region, as described in Yŏm’s writing, was perceived as a mysterious and uncharted land, steeped in primitive customs. By the 1930s, its image had transformed into one of a land of plenty and boundless opportunities. In this period, a wide range of regional information was focused on trade news, travelogues, and ethnographic accounts of the South Sea Islands, most of which highlighted their exotic and primitive customs.Footnote ¹⁴

Katayama Tan, a Japanese artist residing in Korea, was one of the few artists who submitted works based on the Southern region to the Chosŏn Art Exhibition. He also organized a solo show called ‘The South Sea Landscape Exhibition’, sponsored by Keijō nippō, following his trip to the region. In the works he submitted to the Chosŏn Art Exhibition, he depicted lush Southern scenery with palm trees and tropical plants, as well as indigenous women with dark skin wearing exotic attire. Katayama also contributed a series of travelogue articles about the islands to Keijō nippō with the title ‘From the South Seas (Nanyō kara)’.Footnote ¹⁵ These articles were accompanied by various illustrations (Figure 4), which covered not only tropical landscapes with palm trees but also detailed housing styles and people. This series of short essays, along with wood engravings he captured, provided readers with visual information about the region, including topics such as customs and the natural environment.

Figure 4.

Illustration from Katayama Tan’s ‘From the South Seas (Nanyō kara)’.

Source: Keijō nippō, 5 September 1928, p. 5.

Informed by these media, as shown in Katayama’s painting too, the South Sea region was often viewed as a ‘distant paradise’ or a place of ‘primitive culture’ in colonial Korea. For example, a newspaper article featured an image of a beach with a massive palm tree hanging over the South Sea shore,Footnote ¹⁶ equating summery scenes and tropical trees with the region. The image of towering palm trees and green surroundings was extended to the point of that it was viewed as a pure, primitive, Eden-esque place. The emphasis on tropical paradise often served up an image of Southern islands inhabited by primitive people. Another article from Sindonga magazine detailed the exotic customs of the South Sea region, including practices such as nudity and cannibalism. The article, titled ‘Uncivilized nation’s erratic customs—Santa Catarina Island in the South Pacific’, explains how women in Santa Catarina Island, especially unmarried women, were naked most of the time and only covered themselves with one or two strings.Footnote ¹⁷ These ethnography-oriented stories, focused on the customs of the aboriginals, frequently painted the Southern islanders as uncivilized people who lived amid untamed nature. This facilitated the belief that Korea was more civilized than these regions. As Kwŏn Myŏng-a noted, ‘the stress on the uncivilized aspects and native’s customs was an attempt to place colonial Korea over the peoples of the uncivilized Southern regions’.Footnote ¹⁸

Diverse tropical images present in Yi’s works affirm the popularity of the South Sea region and subjects related to the tropics. Yi’s abovementioned painting, On an Autumn Day, which received a special prize in the Western-style section at the 13th Chosŏn Art Exhibition in 1934, is often associated with the South Sea region due to its depiction of brown-skinned women in revealing attire. The painting features a late summer scene specific to Taegu’s unique climate, while its background suggests a contrasting autumn scene in the city’s suburbs. The winding, exotic foliage not only represents Korea’s Southern region but also imagines an unknown realm—a ‘primitive, romanticized, and exotic land’.Footnote ¹⁹ A large plant in the centre with a rake-like shape extends outwards, along with a partially unclothed woman, creating a tropical atmosphere. This contrasts with the autumn atmosphere suggested by the title and implies that Yi envisioned his hometown as a primitive tropical land. Furthermore, elements such as the rattan basket the woman holds on her arm and the ethnic-patterned scarf, again reminiscent of Gauguin’s style, further suggest his fascination with the region (Figure 1).

A photograph of Yi’s studio (Figure 5), featuring Western-style furniture and an Oriental-style carpet, also attests to his interests in the tropical. On the wall hangs a large painting portraying a South Asian-looking woman with her breast and torso exposed, which can be linked to the woman in On an Autumn Day. A closer examination of his studio reveals a Middle-Eastern carpet under the artist’s chair, and on the wall, an exotic-patterned rug believed to have originated from ancient Indonesia. This rug was most likely rare and hard to find, as it appears on the cover of a pamphlet for his art research institute, with its name written on it (see further below). Yi also possessed an extensive collection of postcards, one of which featured an image of a South Sea woman titled A Woman from the South (Nanyō no onna) painted by Kobayashi Manko.Footnote ²⁰ These tropical motifs in his paintings can be associated with Yi’s interest in the region. Although we cannot affirm that these images refer to the South Sea region specifically, it seems obvious that his interest in diverse exotic images was a source of inspiration. As well as Yi, other contemporary artists who submitted works to the Art Exhibition also portray tropical-related subject matter. For instance, both Ota Masako’s A Part of Conservatory and Amano Kiyoshi’s The Conservatory in the Afternoon boast scenes filled with huge palm trees and tropical ferns, most likely based on observations at the Ch’anggyŏngwŏn Botanical Garden.Footnote ²¹

Figure 5.

A photograph of Yi’s studio, which was located on the third floor of Namsan Hospital. It was taken in 1936, and includes Yi’s students. Source: From Artist Yi In-sŏng [CD-ROM] (Seoul: Yi In-sŏngginyŏm saŏph’oe, 2000).

By the 1930s, products imported from the South Sea region were part of daily life in colonial Korea. For instance, in Moran Hill in Pyŏngyang, a monkey brought from the South Seas was on display.Footnote ²² An article by An Sŏk-chu, part of the ‘Sketch of May’ series, begins with a description of diverse tropical fruits from the South, including bananas, melons, oranges, and pineapples. This contrasts with other items such as mirrors, watches, and cigarettes, which were produced in Korea. Alongside the illustration of a dark-skinned boy in a cartoon, the mention of tropical fruits and jazz music in An’s article illustrates how people in the colonized city incorporated the image of the region as a part of the extended empire.Footnote ²³ The display of imported goods represented a transition from mere fantasy and rumours about the region to their integration into daily reality.Footnote ²⁴

Bourgeois taste in the culture house (Munhwa chut’aek)

Yi’s painting, Room in Summer (Figure 2), not only features lush potted palms and an aspidistra but also a variety of elements of modern Western-style interiors, including an expansive window overlooking the outdoors, a stylish side table, and a velvet-upholstered chair. A closer examination of the painting reveals the depiction of a novel space situated within a modern home. The intricate representation of interior decor elements, such as the lacy tablecloth and patterned embroidered cushions on the chair, characterizes a typical bourgeois modern domestic environment. These elements are all situated in what appears to be a guest room with a view of the garden. In other words, Yi’s painting showcases this new type of domestic space, oriented towards a garden with a table and chairs. Its colour palette is expressed using opaque water colours, which creates a pastel-like effect and enhances the cosy ambience of the bourgeois home.Footnote ²⁵ The arrangement of every element in the scene is neat and typical of the interiors of the middle-class families of the time, as seen in department store displays or the pages of magazines. A similar interior setting from that era can be found in many early colonial Korean novels. For instance, a scene from a novel written by Yi T’ae-jun and illustrated by artist Chŏng Hyŏn-ung vividly portrays the interiors of a Western-style, middle-class family home (Figure 6). In Chŏng’s illustration, a man and a woman are seated on rattan chairs in a room that overlooks a garden, and through a window adorned with drapery, readers can catch a glimpse of plants and flowers in the garden. The modern house that appears in both Yi’s painting and Chŏng’s illustration clearly signals a separate guest room/private study space where a table and chairs, a couple of plants, and a display cabinet were placed.

Figure 6.

Illustration from K’osŭmosŭ P’inŭn Chŏngwŏn [A Garden with Blossoming Cosmos], written by Yi T’ae-jun and illustrated by Chŏng Hyŏn-ung.

Source:  Yŏsŏng, vol. 2, no. 5, 1937, pp. 32–33.

Garden-facing rooms, in particular, were used both as a reception room and a study, often distinct from the main living room. This type of space appears in a new type of housing called a ‘culture house’, an ideal Westernized house for an urban middle-class family, centred around a family-oriented lifestyle.Footnote ²⁶ Different from houses for the traditional extended family, these model homes often had specific spaces known as the reception room/study, where the husband met his visitors or spent time alone while enjoying tea or coffee, which also showcased the family’s taste, such as exotic furniture and foreign flora.Footnote ²⁷ A Japanese interiors book provides suggestions for the reception room as follows:

These spaces were often adorned with decorative elements such as beautiful and exotic furniture, flowers, and plants. Media from that era provides various decorating suggestions for this domestic space, including recommendations for furniture, paintings, and suitable plants.Footnote ²⁹ Again, this reception/study space can be seen as a visualization of a modern ‘culture house’. This particular housing style is believed to have originated from the ‘culture village’ exhibited at Japan’s 1922 Peace Memorial Exposition. As a part of efforts to reform Japanese domestic life, the image of a new type of house emerged in the 1920s and was simultaneously introduced to Korea via various exhibitions and design competitions. There was no explicit reference to a specific social class in connection with the culture house, but it is unequivocal that the design was promoting an ‘ideal form of bourgeois home’ or a house for middle-class families.Footnote ³⁰ One of the house design competitions in colonial Korea primarily targeted households that were ‘adapting to cultural life as middle-class families’ and predominantly featured a house design centred around the living room. In contrast to traditional homes, suitable for extended family lifestyles, a family-oriented housing design, along with a reception room, can be considered the core of a ‘culture house’. In other words, the presence of a reception room, along with study spaces, are distinctive feature of culture houses while simultaneously showcasing the class of those who enjoy ‘cultural life in middle-class households’.Footnote ³¹

The culture house, as visualized through Westernized household items such as chandeliers, curtains, record players, and pianos, is typically known to have been favoured by intellectuals who had studied and experienced life abroad.Footnote ³² A writer of an article titled ‘Home Visit Report’, featured in the women’s magazine Sin Yŏsŏng (New Women), once made a visit to Professor Yun Sŏngdŏk’s house—the younger sister of the well-known singer Yun Sim-dŏk—which was located in Hongpa-dong, then famous for its array of newly built culture houses. The magazine article described her home as a mixture of Western and Japanese styles, along with Korean-style ondol (traditional Korean underfloor heating), effectively illustrating the typical culture house of urban intellectuals.Footnote ³³ Posing in front of a piano in a study equipped with a Western-style window and curtains, Yun’s house clearly showcased the domestic space of urban intellectuals. It is, therefore, evident that the culture house in Korea was often sought after by upper-middle-class urban families. A house owned by Pastor Yang Chu-sam, also featured in Sin Yŏsŏng’s ‘Home Visit Report’, confirms the popularity among urban middle-class families of decorating modern houses with exotic trees and flowers.Footnote ³⁴ In front of Yang’s house, two tropical trees are planted, and under the trees, chrysanthemums and other autumn flowers are arranged alongside the roads. As the subtitle of the article, ‘Leading a Completely Americanized Lifestyle’, suggests, his house was full of modern Westernized articles such as jade-coloured curtains, gramophones, and carpets on the floor. Furthermore, a variety of flowers arranged in the windows added to the exotic atmosphere.

As demonstrated in these reception or guest spaces, plants and flowers were essential elements defining the owner’s taste. Home gardens and potted plants, often exotic ones, along with Western and foreign items, perpetuated ideas of the owner’s wealth and cosmopolitanism. According to Penny Sparke, in the nineteenth century, thanks to ‘the tree’s inherent visual elegance and abundant capacity to contribute to the picturesque nature’, potted palms became increasingly integrated into fashionable interiors, both in wealthy country houses and more modest middle-class dwellings.Footnote ³⁵ In addition to the interiors of Westernized domestic spaces, the preference for exotic and tropical plants attests to what Yi and contemporary artists envisioned as wealth and a middle-class lifestyle. In Japan, during the First World War, a large ‘white-collar professional population’ emerged as the ‘new middle class’.Footnote ³⁶ In the late 1920s and 1930s, colonized Korea also witnessed the gradual rise of a similar middle-class population, although their wealth was not comparable to that of their Japanese counterparts.Footnote ³⁷ According to an article from Chosen oyobi Manshū, which introduced ‘the wealthy in Kyŏngsŏng (Seoul)’, a group of men worth one million won (approximately equivalent to 6 billion Korean won today) emerged in colonized Korea. The article stated that while 70,000–80,000 out of 200,000 Chosŏn people in Kyŏngsŏng were so poor that they did not even qualify to pay taxes, the number of wealthy individuals was increasing.Footnote ³⁸ In the 1930s, therefore, Korea also experienced a concomitant increase in both income and consumption.

While exploring the concept of ‘home (katei)’ and its related interests (‘shumi’) in modern bourgeois Japanese culture, Jordan Sand argued that ‘knowledge of how things were done in the West’ or ‘selecting new goods for the home’ often formed the basis of class identity.Footnote ³⁹ For Yi, the selection of goods and decorations in his domestic space mirrored his class identity as an urban middle-class intellectual in the colony. This is evident in the diversity of tastes evident in his work, including Western furniture styles, tropical plants, tropical-inspired upholstery, and foliage. Consequently, his paintings, which embody both affluence and cosmopolitanism, exemplify the class identity of an urban intellectual who studied in Japan. Despite his lack of formal education, Yi attended night school at the Pacific Art Society Institute in Tokyo for three to four years and married the daughter of a hospital director.Footnote ⁴⁰ Therefore, by the 1930s, he possessed not only wealth but also showcased his cosmopolitan taste. A photograph of Yi’s studio (Figure 7), as mentioned earlier, was used in a pamphlet for his own Western art research institute (Yanghwa yŏn’guso), which displays his middle-class cosmopolitan taste.

Figure 7.

A photo of Yi’s studio is featured in the pamphlet for his art research institute. Source: From Artist Yi In-sŏng [CD-ROM] (Seoul: Yi In-sŏngginyŏm saŏph’oe, 2000).

Gardening was a significant hobby for aspiring middle-class homeowners. The portrayal of exotic and foreign plants in art can be linked to the growing interest in flowers and gardening during that period. This was a time when middle-class individuals began to own Western-style homes with small gardens and show an increasing interest in gardening. The introduction of Japanese horticultural magazines, garden-related books, and numerous articles on domestic horticulture attest to the surge in private gardening. In another ‘Home Visit Report’ that explores the ‘culture house’ of Yun Chi-ch’ang, the brother of Yun Ch’i-ho and the first diplomat in England, his garden, adorned with diverse vegetation, is described as follows: ‘In the quite spacious interior, there is a piano and vases with what appear to be freshly picked white roses from the garden […] There’s a splendid backyard, and in the well-tended garden, white roses and azaleas are blooming beautifully.’Footnote ⁴¹ Furthermore, a contemporary Tonga newspaper article explained that gardening was not a luxurious or exclusive pastime but something that anyone could enjoy as a daily activity. After promoting gardening as a practice, this article continues with further details: ‘Regardless of the size of the garden, anybody can start home gardening […] You can create a flower bed in a small corner of your house and cultivate all sorts of flowers and trees there.’Footnote ⁴² This encouragement for gardening confirms the extent to which it captured the interest of the public.

Yi In-sŏng himself was deeply interested in flowers and gardening.Footnote ⁴³ He opened his own café, named Ars (‘Arusu’, located on a street in central Taegu), which he labelled a café for artists (Figure 8). In 1937, Yi moved to a much larger house with a well-designed garden, and subsequently transformed a small corner of the garden into a café, one of the first run by a Korean in Taegu. Yi sometimes displayed his works in the café and decorated the interior himself. According to his daughter Aehyang, the picture known as Garden (Figure 9) is based on Yi’s actual garden in Taegu, and depicts his ornaments and objects.Footnote ⁴⁴ One can assume that it is a Japanese-style garden because a black pine tree (Kaizuka Juniperus) and stones, known as tobiishi, are depicted in the image. In the centre of the painting is a green Chinese trumpet creeper, which contrasts with the red dress worn by the girl in the image, who draws the viewer’s attention. Standing with her back against the wall, she is Yi’s beloved daughter Aehyang. To the right of centre, palm trees—Yucca palms or Dracaena—are depicted in a large pot, accentuating the colourful and picturesque atmosphere. Another potted aloe cactus is placed in the foreground. This visualization of the garden suggests Yi’s interest in plants, flowers, and wealth, among other things.

Figure 8.

A photograph of the Ars café, showing Yi seated with his friends. Source: From Artist Yi In-sŏng [CD-ROM] (Seoul: Yi In-sŏngginyŏm saŏph’oe, 2000).

Figure 9.

Yi In-sŏng, Garden, oil on canvas, 91 x 90.7 cm, 1930s.

Source: Private collection.

At the Window (Figure 10), another of Yi’s works, portrays the interior of a café, reimagining its image. With a fascination for Silla culture, Yi is known to have displayed a Silla ridge-end tile on a wall that caught the eye upon entering the café. In the garden in front of the café stands a pagoda, and the open window with diamond-shaped panes bathes the colourful interior in light. In the right corner of the café, Yi’s daughter Aehyang can be seen engrossed in a book, her head tilted downwards. Parts of her body, along with the chair and table, are abruptly cropped, creating a sense of expanding space. Much like Room in Summer, At the Window offers a view of the outdoors through the window. One can glimpse the blue sky and a green hill in the distance, while a variety of small plants, including aloe cacti, orchids, and ferns, adorn the windowsill. In essence, these paintings suggest that the practice of observing and enjoying nature found its way into private homes.

Figure 10.

Yi In-sŏng,  At The Window, watercolour on paper, 76 x 59 cm, 1930s.

Source: Private collection.

The tradition of gardening and appreciating plants and flowers in Korea dates back to the eighteenth century, with horticultural practices being quite popular among urban intellectuals even during the Chosŏn dynasty.Footnote ⁴⁵ However, the admiration of exotic flora and the act of imagining different worlds through foreign plants were novel practices that emerged during the colonial period. The modern home garden and the appreciation of alien flora coincided with the establishment of a modern botanical garden in Korea.Footnote ⁴⁶ Ch’anggyŏngwŏn was one of the first modern botanical gardens constructed in Kyŏngsŏng by the colonial government. As detailed in the Guide to Ch’anggyŏngwŏn published in 1940, the garden boasted almost 1,400 types of plants, ranging from tropical ornamentals to flora from the wild temperate region. This diverse array of plants provided visitors with year-round floral scenery, igniting their imaginations. Additionally, the gardens featured hundreds of tree species, brought in from all over the country and abroad, enhancing the natural woodlands and ponds. Informative labels allowed visitors to identify these plants.Footnote ⁴⁷ In the main conservatory, an architectural marvel and the largest of its kind in Asia at the time, a wide range of foliage, including tropical species, flourished.Footnote ⁴⁸ Designed by the French-educated Fukuba Hayato (福羽逸人), the conservatory showcased an exceptionally diverse collection of plants, from tropical varieties to extensively cultivated chrysanthemums and peonies, offering a fresh perspective for plant appreciation.Footnote ⁴⁹ Newspaper articles covering the botanical garden, with titles like ‘A Greenhouse Resembling the Southern Region’, underscored the presence of tropical plants in the conservatory. This article delves into how the botanical garden, with its abundant greenery, allowed visitors to feel as if they had been transported to a tropical paradise or a perpetual summer, offering a unique botanical experience.Footnote ⁵⁰ Another article told how ‘neat green foliage makes us feel as if in summer’ and how ‘various flowers and plants of fairyland created a spectacle at the garden; observing such exotic tropical flora planted in the conservatory lets visitors feel as if they have been transported to another world’.Footnote ⁵¹ Both the growing of exotic plants in the home and the appreciation of myriad international plants at Ch’anggyŏngwŏn marked the rise of a sense of seeing and imagining other worlds via floral media. The culture of enjoying plants fuelled sales of ornamental plants at Ch’anggyŏngwŏn; records show that sales of seeds and seedlings reached 4,000 in 1938 alone.Footnote ⁵² This indicates how the practice of observing and enjoying nature had been brought into private homes. To put it differently, the emergence of modern home gardens and botanical gardens created a vision for how to observe and imagine unknown, different, and exotic cultures. What should be noted here is that these perspectives on other exotic cultures emerged as a part of the culture of urban intellectuals. Just as in the cosmopolitanism of the Japanese empire, the urban bourgeoisie began to embrace exotic and different cultures from other parts of the world, which they used to adorn their beautiful culture houses. For those who had not had the opportunity to enjoy overseas travel, the stories and images of foreign customs reassured the urban middle classes in colonial Korea that they were part of the cosmopolitanism of the extended Japanese empire. As Kwŏn Myŏng-a claimed, just as the enjoyment of the untamed savagery of native customs in the South Seas enabled Koreans to believe that they were somewhat more civilized within the strategically agreed hierarchy among nations, the pleasure of observing other cultures simultaneously supported their middle-class status within the larger Japanese empire.Footnote ⁵³

While the discourse of exoticism concerning the South Sea region had its roots in urban bourgeois culture, a similar perspective was mirrored in how urban intellectuals viewed the locals in colonial Korea. However, I do not assert that the perception of South Sea people directly impacted the tropical-themed local colour paintings like those of Yi In-sŏng. Nevertheless, the gradual incorporation of tropical themes into middle-class domestic settings should be considered within the broader socio-political context in which the Korean urban bourgeoisie sought to embrace diverse and exotic cultures. Enjoying cosmopolitan themes and showcasing exotic tastes were intertwined with the expansion of the Japanese empire, and Korean intellectuals identifying themselves as second-class citizens of the empire. If gardening and horticulture involved bringing a piece of nature into domestic spaces to be appreciated, then the display of exotic objects can be interpreted as introducing a sample of another culture into the home. The imagination of the South Seas as an exotic ‘other’ emerged almost simultaneously with the observation of local ‘others’ within colonial Korea itself. There existed a group of urban artists who observed local people in a manner analogous to how ethnography explores other, often primitive, cultures.

Yi did indeed incorporate images of tropical motifs and envisioned them within a local context, especially in his own hometown. As mentioned earlier, On an Autumn Day is a well-known painting celebrated for its exotic scenery. The untamed and exotic foliage in the background, along with the depictions of local people, not only convey the hot climate of the region but also romanticize and depict the area as a primitive land. What is particularly striking about the image is the brownish skin tones of the sister and brother, and the attire of the sister, which exposes most of her upper body and chest. Korean art historian Youngna Kim, like the art critic I mentioned earlier, points out that the way the woman holds a basket and gazes at the viewer appears to be influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin, perhaps invoking Gauguin’s motifs and his perspective on Tahitians. Indeed, Yi’s possession of a postcard featuring Gauguin’s painting of Maternity (Three Women on the Seashore) allows us to infer Gauguin’s influence on Yi’s painting.Footnote ⁵⁴ More importantly, this suggests that Yi observed his subjects from a perspective akin to primitivism, similar to the ethnographic gaze. The way Yi incorporates clear and curved lines, as well as intense colour contrast achieved through the use of primary colours in this work, in particular, mirrors the expression of Gauguin’s primitivism. The reddish ground, occupying almost half of the picture and characterized as Chosŏn’s unique soil colour at the time, simultaneously signifies brightness and primitiveness, which is distinct from Japan’s greyish colourway.Footnote ⁵⁵ In other words, by adopting Gauguin’s techniques, Yi seems to emphasize the primitive nature of the local scenery, reflecting an ethnographic perspective.

Local colour paintings and autoethnography

Many Korean scholars analyse Yi In-sŏng’s works using the local colour framework, particularly works such as On an Autumn Day (Figure 1) and A Valley in Kyŏngju (Figure 11).

Figure 11.

Yi In-sŏng,  A Valley in Kyŏngju, oil on canvas, 129 x 191 cm, 1935.

Source: Collection of Leeum, the Samsung Museum.

The portrayal of the local atmosphere, mostly rural scenes, emerged as a popular theme at the Chosǒn Art Exhibition in the 1930s.Footnote ⁵⁶ For example, Kim Ki-ch’ang’s Kaŭl (Autumn), submitted to the 14th Chosǒn Art Exhibition in 1935, depicts rural children walking amid seemingly idyllic fields of reeds. Chang U-sŏng’s Kwimok (歸牧: The Returning Shepherd Boy), which received an award in the same year, similarly showcases a boy walking with an ox against a backdrop of the romantic countryside. By the 1930s, depictions of rural children wearing traditional hanbok, appearing in tranquil peasant scenery, consistently graced the exhibition. Not only did local rural scenes take centre stage, but Korea’s unique customs were frequently to be seen at these exhibitions. The term ‘local colour (hyangt’osaek)’ refers to the representation of a specific atmosphere, customs, or scenery unique to a particular homeland. It originated in nineteenth-century Germany and is known as ‘Heimatkunst’. The concept of Heimatkunst, or ‘art of the homeland’, was gradually introduced to Japan in the early twentieth century and subsequently made its way into the Korean art world.Footnote ⁵⁷ While acknowledging its German origins, Ko Yu-sŏp, one of the first art critics in Korea, elaborates on the term:

Ko, therefore, explains that the idea is rooted in intimate relations or kinship in small towns, alluding to the specificity of localism rather than a universal character.Footnote ⁵⁹

By the 1930s, discussions about Korean locals had permeated various forms of visual art, music, film, and literature. For instance, a well-known magazine, Chogwang, published a series of special issues where diverse authors discussed their hometown memories. Yi’s works are situated within the boom in portraying the customs and culture of a local region or hometown. In the realm of visual art, depictions of local scenery and customs increased during the 1930s. However, the use of local colour as subject matter was advocated as early as the 1920s, particularly by Japanese jurors at the Chosŏn Art Exhibition.Footnote ⁶⁰ Wada Eisaku, one of the jurors, expressed his opinion on Korean colour in newspaper articles:

Much like the exhibitions he saw in Europe, Wada advocated for colonial Korea to develop its own distinct characteristics for display. As well as Wada, a number of jurors called for Korea to express its own colours at the Chosŏn Art Exhibition. In particular, their comments encouraged the production of images related to local colour. The Chosŏn Art Exhibition, as one of the crucial avenues for advancement in the art world, published jurors’ statements in newspapers, which significantly influenced artists. They frequently advised Korean artists to depict Korea’s own scenery and customs rather than copying the styles and motifs of Japanese artists. As a result, by the mid-1930s, these Korean colours became the primary theme of the entire exhibition. Art historian Park Kye-ri explored the concept of local colour at the Chosŏn Art Exhibition, focusing on two aspects. On the one hand, it was seen to emphasize Korea’s distinctive indigenous character; on the other, it involved the portrayal of romanticized and pastoral scenes from rural Korea.Footnote ⁶² The latter specialized in depicting the idyllic rural landscapes of Korea, while the former took a more nationalistic stance, even serving as a subtle form of ‘resistance’ to Japanese imperialism.Footnote ⁶³ This nationalist aspect of localism can be traced back to 1930 when artist and critic Kim Yong-jun asserted that Korean artists should neither imitate Western art nor merely express nationalist ideologies, but should instead authentically explore and depict local colour.Footnote ⁶⁴ Given Kim’s stance, Yi In-sŏng’s expression of local colour was closely tied to his quest for national identity, setting it apart from broader Western art influences. In Yi’s autobiographical article, ‘X-ray view of Korean art scene’, he declared, ‘I have no desire to study in the West as I believe it would erode my uniqueness.’Footnote ⁶⁵ In his award acceptance interview after being selected for the imperial exhibition, he also mentioned that his initial desire was to express local colour using the colour white, but he was unable to do so due to his father’s objections.Footnote ⁶⁶ This reference underscores his early concern with the nationalistic vision, as white was known as Chosŏn’s representative colour. Yi also became a member of a group called the ‘Association of Locals (Hyangt’ohoe)’ in Taegu, in the early stages of which Kim Yong-jun was actively involved, and Yi participated in its exhibitions multiple times despite living in Tokyo.Footnote ⁶⁷ His affiliation with this association, primarily comprising artists native to Taegu, suggests that Yi’s artistic practices were influenced by the city’s nationalist ideas.

However, moving beyond the framework of seeking nationalist and regional distinctiveness, the artists’ representations of local subjects can also be viewed through the lens of ethnographic inquiry. Their gaze towards the local parallels the way in which ethnographers explore native culture and primitivity. In this context, Yi’s portrayal of local landscapes can be linked to Rey Chow’s discussion of autoethnography, where artists depict their own locals from an ethnographer’s perspective. In her analysis of Chinese cinema during the 1980s and 1990s, Chow characterized specific films as ‘a new form of ethnography’,Footnote ⁶⁸ as many directors sought to ‘return to nature’ or primitiveness through ‘fieldwork’, with the ethnographer being a native of the culture they are transcribing.Footnote ⁶⁹ In a similar vein, in his painting On an Autumn Day, Yi viewed the Taegu countryside and nature through the lens of an ethnographer conducting fieldwork, despite being a native of the area. In his article ‘Search for My Hometown (I)’, published in the Tonga newspaper, he described how he briefly returned to his homeland to create a work for the imperial exhibition. He went on to explain that ‘as expected, stepping on the red soil of my hometown provides me with an innocent sense of security. I am truly grateful for the scent of red earth.’Footnote ⁷⁰ This statement underscores his reflective engagement with his hometown—not as a mere resident, but as an observer seeking artistic material, much like an ethnographer returning to a familiar yet distanced subject. By travelling back and forth between colonial Korea and Japan, Yi maintained a certain spatial and psychological distance from his homeland, allowing him to view it with fresh eyes. This pattern was not unique to Yi. For instance, Taiwanese artist Chen Chih-chi (陳植棋) frequently returned to the Tamsui district in Taiwan while studying in Japan to paint local scenery.Footnote ⁷¹ For both artists, travel and distance provided a renewed perspective on their native landscapes, enabling a mode of representation comparable to ethnographic observation.

The ethnographic gaze in colonial art was also shaped by institutional encouragement. Japanese colonial art exhibitions of the 1930s actively promoted themes of local colour, often featuring romanticized or exoticized depictions of colonized subjects and settings—such as Taiwanese aboriginals, Korean kisaeng, women carrying water jugs, Chinese women in traditional dress, and regional landscapes.Footnote ⁷² Thus, jurors for art exhibitions in the colonies may have influenced this ethnographic perspective. Many of the artists working under these conditions did so with what has been described as a ‘temporally different consciousness’—a mindset shaped by displacement and the conditions of colonial modernity.Footnote ⁷³ For example, Yi’s hometown remained rooted in the past, in contrast to his current city life. In his newspaper article ‘Painting My Hometown’, he wrote: ‘I came back to my hometown borne on a flower-scented wind. The red soil felt fathomlessly close to me […] The warm landscape of Chosŏn. I am gradually coming to appreciate the feeling of primitiveness.’Footnote ⁷⁴ After living in Japan, a bustling metropolis, his hometown felt as though it remained in an unchanging, almost primitive past. In his serialized article, ‘Search for My Hometown (III)’, written during his visits to his homeland, he reflects on the ancient castle walls overlooking Pukhan Mountain, seeking memories of days gone by.Footnote ⁷⁵ During his stays in the heart of Seoul, he imagines that ‘The walls seem to carry stories of old memories’, and thus embarks on a quest to uncover the past within the city. Statements like these further cement Yi’s ethnographic gaze on his hometown, which he viewed from a temporarily detached standpoint. During that era, many urban Korean artists, whether educated in Japan or living in cities, embarked on journeys to rural areas in search of suitable subjects, almost conducting ethnographic fieldwork. However, even though they directly observed these subjects, their approach often mirrored that of ethnographic photographs or postcard images.

To create local colour paintings promoted by Japanese jurors, many Korean artists travelled to rural areas to describe their regional colours. Take, for instance, the painter Yi Yŏng-il, who, like Yi In-sŏng, was educated in Japan. Yi Yŏng-il’s painting Sigolsonyŏ (Rural Girl),Footnote ⁷⁶ which he submitted to the Chosŏn Art Exhibition, uses fine contour lines to depict rural children. The vivid red and blue colours used to paint the skirts illustrate the influence of the nihonga genre on the painter. The painting shows three small children against a background of barren yellow land; one of the children seems to be gleaning grain from the ground. All three are dressed in traditional hanbok clothing, and one of the girls is carrying her young brother. These motifs appear to depict typical tourist images, often found on postcards portraying Korean customs, thus reinforcing his ethnographic perspective. In fact, in his award acceptance interview for a special prize at the eighth Chosŏn Art Exhibition, Yi Yŏng-il explained that ‘the painting was actually produced while observing the scenes through the window of the Kyŏngsŏng to Pusan train’.Footnote ⁷⁷ He then later completed the image in his Kyŏngsŏng studio, leading to a slightly different result. In other words, Yi Yŏng-il observed his subjects from a distance, through a train window, thus separating the viewer and the viewed through an ethnographer’s eye. Alternatively, for these urban intellectual artists, locals, rural customs, and traditions were perceived as the exotic ‘other’.

From the perspective of Japanese imperialism, the concept of local colour was connected to the changing perception of the colonies, which increasingly came to be viewed as ‘regions’ (chihō) of Japan. In other words, colonial Korea, along with Taiwan and Manchuria, ceased to be viewed as a colonial ‘other’ and instead became part of the vast empire, embraced and encouraged to be thought of as local. This shift in perception can be observed in descriptions for tourists, such as in explanations of the image of chige-kkun, a burden bearer. In earlier descriptions, A-frame carriers were often depicted as ‘a case of disarray and [being] underdeveloped’. Now, however, they were described as perpetuating a local custom and considered ‘a must-see’ for travellers.Footnote ⁷⁸ According to Takashi Fujitani, this transition signifies that Koreans were no longer viewed as ‘outside peoples (gaichi minzoku, 外地民族)’ but as one population within the Japanese empire.Footnote ⁷⁹ This means that, in the 1930s, the empire was in transition ‘from an era of territorial acquisition to one of territorial maintenance’. In accordance with these shifts, and to better manage itself, the Japanese empire sought to integrate colonized lands and peoples into the Japanese nation as a diverse cultural region within the larger multi-ethnic empire.Footnote ⁸⁰ The countryside scenery represented in Yi’s paintings is also in line with the embrace of local images as part of the multifarious Japanese empire.

These local colour painters, who were actively producing works in the 1920s and the 1930s, were the second generation of artists of the Korean enlightenment period of 1896–1910.Footnote ⁸¹ While previous generations of artists and writers were more conscious of successive national traditions, these artists, mostly born between the 1900s and 1910s, grew up with a different understanding of tradition and national identity.Footnote ⁸² They did not possess any responsibility for traditional values or any strong desire for national independence. For the new generation, local customs and Korea’s national traditions were not inherited but rather disrupted and newly constructed through colonial culture and education.

These artists, who emerged primarily in the 1920s, viewed tradition or local culture as ‘other’. That said, to these artists, tradition or local (rural) culture was seen as something that was lost and could only be reached through nostalgia. Images of Korean tradition and local culture were often rediscovered through colonialism and urbanization via postcards, exhibitions, or ethnographic images. Therefore, it appears that even Yi’s nationalist vision, or how he saw locals, might have been significantly influenced by Japanese colonialism. At the end of Yi’s article, he states that he wants to unveil A Valley in Kyǒngju (Figure 11), which he claimed was the fruit of his search for Korean colours, at the following year’s Chosŏn Art Exhibition. Significantly, however, a variety of elements in this 1935 Changdŏk-palace prize-winning painting (showing the Ch’ŏmsŏngdae Observatory in the distance and a boy holding a baby) are reminiscent of tourist postcard images.Footnote ⁸³ In particular, images of children carrying a baby on their backs were very common motifs in tourist postcards.Footnote ⁸⁴ The red ground depicted in this painting was often viewed as a symbol of Korea’s impoverished lands, symbolizing the state of the country at the time. Similarly, Park Rae-yong’s Chim-kun (a burden bearer), a genre painting (depicting local customs and figures), was submitted to the Eastern Painting division of the 15th Chosŏn Art Exhibition. It appears to have drawn inspiration from a tourist postcard image, as mentioned earlier. Similar images began to emerge in the late nineteenth century, targeting tourists, as foreigners began visiting Korea and perceived it as a place stuck in the past, thus highlighting distinct aspects of Korean culture.Footnote ⁸⁵ The overall composition of Park’s painting, which emphasizes the immense size and weight of the burden jar and obscures the main character’s face, serves to underscore the passivity of Korean labourers and the perceived primitiveness of the entire country. It is evident that both Yi and many other Korean artists who submitted their works to the Chosŏn Art Exhibition tended to depict specific images representing Korean culture and traditions. In a broader assessment of the Chosŏn Art Exhibition, Kim Hoe-san, an artist and critic, likened some of the artists to ‘tourists’, implying that artists not from the region appeared to be hastily searching for something ‘Korean’, almost as if they were sightseeing in Chosŏn.Footnote ⁸⁶ Similarly, despite Yi’s intention to portray Korea’s unique scenery, he inadvertently arranged elements in a way that aligned with how Japanese people viewed Koreans or as if he were a tourist.

The distance maintained in these images between the artists and their subjects is also analogous to that of ethnographers. While keeping a certain distance from their subjects—much as Yi Yŏng-il observed his subject from the train window—Yi In-sŏng and other urban middle-class artists would approach local subjects from an ethnographer’s perspective, viewing them as ‘others’. For instance, some of Yi’s paintings evoke ethnographic photographs of Korean women, especially images of rural Korean women with parts of their bodies exposed. This is similar to the photographs of Chosŏn women carrying children on their backs while performing household chores. It was common for tourists to observe Korean women engaged in domestic tasks, such as laundry, child-rearing, or carrying water jugs, often with parts of their bodies exposed. These images must have left a strong impression on ethnographers and foreign visitors, prompting them to record such scenes. Carlo Rosetti, an Italian diplomat residing in Korea, depicted them through staged studio photographs (Figure 12).Footnote ⁸⁷ According to Rosetti, however, such scenes could only be witnessed among the lowest social class, and became increasingly rare before disappearing entirely by 1905.Footnote ⁸⁸ Yet because of their distinctive nature, many ethnographers—both Japanese and Western—picked up on and reproduced such images of exposed bodies. More significantly, however, is that Yi, a Taegu native, depicted his hometown and its people in the same way (as seen in On an Autumn Day). Rural women’s half-nudity is depicted as an everyday practice, and their brown skin looks closer to that of South Sea islanders. Often, they are situated in proximity to nature, far removed from urban landscapes. In fact, everything about the woman in Yi’s On an Autumn Day, including her posture and gaze toward the viewer, as well as his portrayal of the scene, is comparable to the depictions of women by ethnographers. In this context, O Kwang-su, a renowned Korean art critic, described Yi’s paintings as ‘history paintings’ in that Yi did not depict what he saw in front of his eyes, but instead chose to set up specific characters and backgrounds, including children with brown skin and foliage, in accordance with his own idea of local scenery.Footnote ⁸⁹

Figure 12.

A photograph of a Korean woman.

Source: From Carlo Rossetti, Corea e Coreani: Impressioni e ricerche sull’impero del gran Han (Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche, 1904), vol. 1, p. 122.