Special attention is given to the body symbolism and somatic discipline of North Korean calligraphy, which underlie its political efficacy as inscriptional and hermeneutic practice. Drawing on the North Korean calligraphy textbooks, art periodicals, and visual archive, this article contextualizes the dichotomy of the idiosyncratic style of the male leaders and the feminized, ubiquitous Ch’ŏngbong style, connected with the figure of Kim Jong Suk. With the characteristic strokes which change in broadness and speed, on a usually white sheet of paper, its general appearance reminds of other. For example, might be written in one stroke (squiggly) instead of five segments, something like this. Although, in terms of writing a 'cursive' hangul, everyone kind of does their own thing. All stroke orders follow this guideline: top -> bottom. ![]() Unlike Western calligraphy, which is written with a rigid instrument, traditional Korean calligraphy is created with a soft and flexible brush. There is a standard way of handwriting hangul. In addition, calligraphy constitutes a disciplinary apparatus that coordinates performances of political intimacy, bodily training, and political interpretation within the space of everyday life. Korean calligraphy is an art of writing Hangul and Hanja. Cultivating penmanship identical to that of his father and expanding the hagiographic project around the revolutionary calligraphy of his parents, Kim Il Sung (Kim Ilsŏng, 1912–94) and Kim Jong Suk (Kim Chŏngsuk, 1917–49), Kim Jong Il worked out an image of charismatic familial embodiment by means of the script. Under the curation of Kim Jong Il (Kim Chŏngil, 1941–2011), calligraphy was mobilized as a mechanism for the articulation of organistic national unity centered on the ruling Kim family and captured through the idea of the “social and political living body” ( sahoe chŏngch’i chŏk saengmyŏngch’e), which mediated the familial transition of power. A ubiquitous part of everyday life, North Korean calligraphy is an easily overlooked and yet integral element of the country’s mass mobilization art.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |