The Korean War (1950-1953) was a civil war between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). It was a result of the political division of Korean peninsula by the end of the World War II. The Korean peninsula had been ruled by the Japanese Empire from 1910. Following Japan’s surrender in 1945, the Korean peninsula was separated into two states along the 38th parallel with U.S. military force occupying the southern half and Soviet military force occupying the northern half. This separation split the country both geographically and politically. In result, it did not only root the outbreak of the Korean War but also varied their memory of the war. This research aims not to discover the truth behind the outbreak of the Korean War, instead, to explore the North and the South’s contrastive memory and representation towards the war in the medium of art.

 

Art has always been seen as a form of expression, which is usually used to express an artist or patron’s ideas. It carries a certain degree of influences and therefore it was often employed by both leaders and citizens as a political tool. This research aims to explore the educational nature of arts which was utilized by both states to serve their own purposes. Art produced in North Korea during and after the civil war will be consistently compared to those from the South. By examining works of art produced respectively in the South and North helps in realizing the way both states place themselves into the position of victim and sufferer of the war. In addition to paintings produced in both states, war monuments established by the South and North governments will also be a significant part of the research. This is because war monuments are a form of memorial art which usually serve as a symbolic sign to unify a population’s collective memories of an event. For this reason, by examining war monuments directly established by both states will be correspondingly examining the message they attempt to implement through the medium of art, in this particular case, their victim position within the Korean War. Notably, I will also discuss works displayed in the ‘Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum’ of the North and ‘War Memorial of Korea’ of the South. Furthermore, this research will not only investigate the artists’ sentiments during war period, but also their opinion upon the aftermath and legacy caused by the piercing war. Beside the direct influences they received from the war, their struggle and grief were also partly originated from their victim mentality shaped by their states. These aftermaths include the issue of division, foreign intervention, struggle to consolidate a national identity, and the struggle to extricate from the past.