Spring in Jung-neung

The subjects of warm paintings by KEUM Dongwon (1927- ) are usually small things in nature such as thatch-roofed huts and nameless wild plants. As the title clearly indicates, this work shows a spring landscape in Jeongreung. Children are playing in a yard full of forsythia blossoms in Jeongreung, and in the sky a blue moon gradually becomes a full black moon. A cottage cocooned within the moon is reflective of the innocence of the artist’s mind. The cabin on the moon represents his attitude of mind towards the situation he was in at that time: he did not have a house of his own since he had recently returned to Korea from the U. S. and he thought a cottage was more than enough. The palette used for the moon, which is blue and black, is indebted to Keum’s aesthetic sensibility.