Oh Chi-ho(1906-1982) has been the focus of attention as one of the most Impressionistic artists in modern and contemporary Korean art history. He studied Impressionism from 1926 through 1931 at Tokyo University of the Arts and adhered to Impressionism until 1982. Namhyangjip, a piece completed in 1939 has been considered Oh’s magnum opus displaying his crowning achievement of Korean-style Impressionism after establishing his own distinctive idioms before the liberation of Korea from Japanese colonial rule. In this work, we may associate Joseon’s aesthetic sense and a nature brimming with cheerful, lively energy, echoing Joseon’s lucid nature which Oh suggested right after Korea’s liberation.
Upon closer examination of his signature, iconographical characteristics, expressive techniques and related anecdotes, we discovered previous chronological dating is problematic and the year it was produced was actually around 1970, considerably later than we expected. Before the liberation, Oh portrayed Korea’s nature with bright light and splendid color, embracing themes, compositions, and brushwork from French Impressionism. However, his art in this period has hardly been thought of as completely established in his own style, save for Namhyangjip. This work was supposedly reproduced between 1968 and 1972 before he presented it to Korean Modern Art: 60 Years of Korean Art, considering the present condition of this work, especially its canvas back and front, and that its black-and-white plate was discovered in 1968. There is also a higher probability that this work was initially painted in 1947, not in 1939, if we review his life and works produced in the late 1940s and the theories he made public.
Namhyangjip is Oh’s showpiece and a work showing the process of accepting Impressionism in Korea in the 1930’s. This is why this work has recently been registered as a Registered Cultural Property. The gap of 10 years may be considered not so wide, but the period before and after Korea’s emancipation from Japanese colonial rule may mark a significant watershed in art history and may be a cause of the differences in our interpretations of some works. If we position Oh’s Namhyangjip as representing Korean Impressionism in modern and contemporary Korean art history, we need to reexamine the period of establishment of Oh’s, or Korean Impressionism.