뉴스레터

Editor's Note: As part of the Northeast Asian History Foundation's annual invitation program for competent researchers from overseas, eight such researchers have visited Korea this year, and some of them are still staying and conducting their research. Dr. Ariane Perrin has been conducting her research in Korea since her arrival in October this year, and she gave an interview with Research Fellow Keum, Kyung-sook at the NAHF, talking about her research activities and the fascinating story of ancient Korean history.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook What was your PhD topic and what was your motivation to choose the topic?

A. Ariane PERRIN When it came time to select a topic for my PhD dissertation at SOAS ("Pathway to the Afterlife: The Cosmological Elements in the Koguryo Painted Tombs, 4th-7th Centuries AD"), I hesitated between the funerary art of the Paekche kingdom and that of Koguryo. I chose Koguryo since I was very interested in knowing more about the archaeology and history of this ancient kingdom that produced a unique form of funerary art and architecture. I was aware of its historical significance in the global history of northeast Asian funerary culture and history. I found the tombs of this region mysterious. Who were buried in these tombs? From which society did they come from? What was their concept of the Afterlife?

I also knew that my knowledge of the Chinese language would be helpful to access Chinese publications on the Koguryo tombs and sites located in China. The cosmological elements being one of the salient and recurring features of the iconographical program of the wall paintings, I chose to analyze the images of the sun, the moon, the four guardian animals of the cardinal directions and the two constellations of the Northern and Southern Dipper, in relation to their spatial layout inside the tomb.

My research started after I had the opportunity to conduct fieldwork in northeast China at the site of the early Koguryo capital in Ji’an, Jilin province, and also in North Korea. I still remember vividly the first time I saw the paintings. I entered the Kangso Great tomb just as there was a power outage. It was completely dark. A few minutes after the light came back and I saw the image of the Green Dragon emerging right before my eyes. The dragon figure is large, about 1,50 meters in length and the brushstrokes were so powerful that one had the sensation that the dragon was undulating and moving.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook In addition to the Three Kingdom period, what are your other research interests?

A. Ariane PERRIN In addition to the funerary systems of the Three Kingdom period, I also became interested in the wooden-chamber tombs that are found concentrated in the Pyongyang region, dating to circa first century BC to the third century AD. They are ascribed to the Lelang commandery. I discovered that such wooden structures were more ancient and they evolved over time. The analysis of the mortuary furnishings also reveal different sets of objects, some of which were locally produced and others imported from China, such as the lacquered objects carrying an inscription with the date of manufacture and the name of the workshop. I am also doing comparative studies with the contemporary wooden-chamber tombs of the Western Han period that are located in China. I discovered different burial structures and funerary practices.

During the time of my two-year tenure at the Philadelphia Museum of Art as a Mellon Curatorial Fellow, where I surveyed and researched the Korean art collection, I became interested in the Buddhist paintings of the Choson period, in particular the Nectar Ritual paintings (甘露幀畵) and their complex iconography. This has led me to focus my attention on other types of Korean ritual paintings, the sadangdo(祠堂圖), connected to Confucian ancestor worship, and the musindo(巫神圖) or musokhwa(巫俗畵), the paintings of Shamanist spirits.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook Would you please tell us more about the courses you are teaching?

A. Ariane PERRIN I teach a course devoted to the History of Korean art, from the Neolithic cultures until the beginning of the 20thcentury at University Paris Diderot-Paris7. Irevise the content of my lectures each year depending on current events. This year France and Korea are celebrating the 130th anniversary of the establishment of diplomaticties between the two countries. In France, there are currently many Korea-related academic, cultural and artistic events taking place. Inparticular, the Guimet museum is currently holding three different exhibitions on Korean art(paintings, textile design and contemporary art). The Cernuschi museum is also presenting an exhibition on Korean contemporary artists who live or formerly lived in France. It is quite rare that such exhibitions take place, so this year I am including more lectures on modern and contemporary Korean art, from both Koreas.

The topics of the lectures are very diverse. They include the Birth of the discipline of archaeology and art history, the Heritage of the colonial period, Manufacturing techniques (ceramic, sculpture, painting), Tomb architecture and pictorial art, Confucian ancestor worship and ritual shrine paintings, Western artistic influence on Choson art, the Birth of Korean modern art, the Politics of archaeology and contemporary issues, Korean museums and the display of culture, etc. I also try to lecture on less well known topics in western academia, such as the Archaeology of the Kaya entities and their relationship with Japan, or the Shamanist paintings and amulets (pujok) of the 19th-20thcenturies.

In addition to these courses, I will be giving a series of lectures and seminars for the Korea module of the East Asian Art program of the Victoria and Albert Museum, « Arts of Korea », next spring 2016 in London, and will be welcoming a group of British students in Paris to visit together the Korean art collection at the Guimet museum.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook Would you please explain a little bit about your blog?

A. Ariane PERRIN This blog is devoted to the arts of Korea(http://artsdelacoree.hypotheses.org). It was created in 2012 on the CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) platform called Hypotheses which houses academic blogs on human and social sciences. The platform has now a German and Spanish portal. The blog was primarily created for students who found it difficult to find information and resources in western languages in Korean art and archaeology. It aims more broadly at sharing information about Korean art and archaeology-related academic events (call for papers, conferences, publications, exhibitions). The posts are written in either French or English. The blog also lists the museums (outside Korea) that have a Korean art collection, with web link to the collection page where one can browse the objects. I recently attended a forum on Korean art collections in Europe where I discovered new institutions and will soon update the listing.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook What is your current research topic?

A. Ariane PERRIN My current research project entitled "Contacts, Exchanges and Networks: The Material and Funerary Cultures of the Kaya Entities and their Relationship with Japan (3rd-6th centuries AD)" looks to investigate, in light of recent archaeological excavations not only in Korea but also in China and Japan, the nature and extent of exchanges between the various polities that emerged in the Korean peninsula around the 3rd century AD during the Three Kingdoms period. This research focuses more particularly on the relationship between the Kaya entities and Japan. The Kaya entities have long been neglected in traditional historiography but new archaeological findings reveal the importance of these entities in the geopolitics of that time.

A great number of almost identical artifacts have been discovered in Kaya burials and those of the Kofun period in Japan: swords, armors, horse equipments, iron ingots and pottery. Metal ornaments and horse trappings have also revealed the close links between these polities and the northern groups, such as the Murong Xianbei. They can be found along a trail that extends from northern China in Xianbei territory, to Kaya and Silla burials in Korea, and Japan.

A number of bronze and iron artifacts associated with warfare (weapons, helmets, armors, including armors for horses) have been retrieved in several of these tombs. But were these actual defensive weapons used in battles or ceremonial objects that were buried with the deceased to indicate his elevated status? What makes a so-called "elite tombs"?Howprevalentarethey?

The Painting of the Blue Dragon on the Kangso Great tomb

Q. Keum Kyung-sook Would you please explain about your UNESCO missions?

A. Ariane PERRIN After a fieldwork in northeast China where I was able to visit for the first time a painted Koguryo tomb (Wukuifen cluster), I had the rare opportunity to join two UNESCO missions to North Korea (2000, 2001).We were a group of various foreign experts (wall painting conservator, heritage management, architect, curator, art historian) who visited several Koguryo sites and tombs, such as Anak n° 3, Yaksuri, Tokhungni and the Kangso cluster of tombs, in order to prepare the nomination of the Koguryo tombs for the World Heritage List.

In 1998 the DPRK ratified the UNESCO World Heritage Convention and has since then intensified their efforts with the Korean Cultural Preservation Centre(KCPC) to preserve the Koguryo tombs, by documenting them, installing environmental monitoring equipment in selected tombs, and under taking conservation work. After our missions in 2000 and 2001, UNESCO organized training for the KPC staff in environmental control, chemical analysis and painting conservation.

A conservation laboratory was established in the KCPC in Pyongyang and it undertook full-scale conservation work of the Susanni tomb. A nearby water reservoir which periodically infiltrates the tomb, is threatening the destruction of the wall paintings. The Koguryo tombs were added on the World Heritage List in July 2004.

Q. Keum Kyung-sook Is there anything you would like to suggest to our Foundation with regard to Korean history research?

A. Ariane PERRIN The main difficulty for undergraduate students in Korean studies and for scholars who also have an interest in Korean history but are not Koreanists by training, is the access to large and ever increasing body of publications in the Korean language. The Foundation has supported important research programs that were instrumental in producing much useful and needed publications on Korean history and archaeology in the English language. In addition, it allowed opportunities for colleagues to meet and exchange information through the organization of international conferences, workshops and seminars. I hope that such support can continue.

As a scholar specializing in Korean art and archaeology, I also face similar difficulties, but at a different level, with processing the ever increasing data on Korean archaeology, with its use of a specific archaeological terminology, with sometimes regional variations. It is partially in order to solve this problem, that we undertook a publication project with my co-author, Dr. Laurence Denès who initiated the project, an "Illustrated Glossary of Korean Archaeological Terms", with English and French translations and Sino-Korean characters. Many of these specialized terms cannot be found in traditional dictionaries making difficult the study of Korean archaeological and historical texts.

The Foundation publishes a monthly online journal. I would like to suggest publishing an "Illustrated Factsheet" (a one to two-page synthesis) on a subject, where the reader could find the main historical facts, with dates, events, etc. This document would include a few bibliographical references on the most important publications on the topic in Korean and English.