Landscape

In this scroll, calligrapher Sun Wuk Kim transcribes a poem by Yi Sang (1910–1937), one of the most gifted, challenging, and enigmatic of Korea's modern poets. As if reflecting the surreal and elusive nature of the poem, Kim sets it against a hauntingly evocative background of ink washes. The hangeul (Korean script) characters are squashed and linked tightly one after another, forming what resembles a series of codes.

Sun Wuk Kim learned the art of calligraphy and seal carving beginning in 1964 from eminent calligraphy master Cheolnong Yi Gi-woo, who carved the seals of two former presidents of Korea. The penname Hanong, or "Cultivator of the Lotus," was bestowed upon him by his master. While accomplished in and knowledgeable about the historic repertories of Chinese and Korean scripts, Kim has been an explorer of new modes of expression that resonate the aesthetics and other aspects of life in the twentieth century. He has dedicated his life to the challenge of modernizing the art of calligraphy.

Crow's-Eye View
No. 14 in a series
By Yi Sang
In front of an old castle is a field of grass and on the field of grass I have taken off and laid down a hat. While on the top of the castle I tied a rather heavy stone to my memory and whirled it as far as my strength and the distance allowed. A sad weeping sound of history turning back the whale ship. Suddenly I saw down at the bottom of the castle by my hat one homeless man standing like a statue. The homeless man was in fact above me down at the castle's bottom. Can it be perhaps a ghost of the unified history. The hat's depth laid down facing the space calls out to the desperate sky. Unexpectedly the homeless man bends the shuddering body and throws over a stone into my hat. I have already fainted. A map of the heart moving into the skull is visible. A chill hand is touching my forehead. On my forehead a branding of the chill hand's mark lingered for some time inerasable.
(Translated by Sae-byok Jung)