운보 김기창의 『예수의 생애』 속 양반 예수에 반영된 18세기 조선의 남성중심주의와 엘리트주의: 마이클 박산달의 시대의 눈 이론의 관점에서

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In 1978, Unbo Kim Ki-chʻang (1914-2001), one of the most famous contemporary Korean painters, published the first Christian painting series of the sacred subject in Korean style. Jesus, in the paintings, is described as a Confucian scholar and yangban, which means that Jesus seems like a highly educated nobleman. Given the images of the yangban Jesus in the pictures, it is obvious that they are telling us that Jesus is an apt figure not only as a religious leader, but also as a socio-political one. The high-quality gat and durumagi, instead of carpenter’s clothes, make Jesus a perfect Korean leadership, whose origin was limited within the upper class during the period of the Chosŏn dynasty. Unbo created Korean Jesus and tried to deliver the legitimacy of the high-class Jesus by succumbing to the Korean Confucian hierarchy and elitism in his artworks.<BR> This paper focuses on the historical background of The Life of Jesus, designed and worked for about a year(1952-1953), and the way of Unbo’s usage of his artistic talent in order to analyze the significance of the yangban Jesus. Unbo experienced the darkest period of modern Korean history, the Japanese colonial era(1910-1945) and the Korean War(1950-1953), and lost his ability to hear and speak when he was seven. These obstacles spurred him to overcome them through his artistic gift and led him to draw a heroic leader who was able to defeat the chaotic upheavals of his country. As a result, his pictures of sacred subjects present the elite Jesus, whose authoritarian and patriarchal image could be accepted as a socio-political leader in the Korean Confucian society. This argument is clearly supported by the fact that the Confucian scholars in the late Chosŏn dynasty criticized and denied that Jesus is the son of God because of his status, which was a carpenter and sinner. Jesus, who was not reached to the hierarchical system of Chosŏn, eventually put on the image of an intellectual upper-classman at the tip of Unbo’s brush.