Hwatong Concert took place at the traditional theater of Seoul Namsan Gugakdang on February 13 and 14. The concert combined old Korean folk paintings with Korean traditional music and dance under the theme of springtime and love.

Winter freezes the earth with its harsh winds and icy temperatures, but spring inevitably arrives to soften the ground with seasonable balminess. Through the thawed soil life struggles to start anew. Spring buds blossom into beautiful flowers, calling to butterflies and bees. Just as the butterflies and bees hover around the flowers gently swaying in the spring breezes, men and women also dance around each other to start new loves in the season of rejuvenation. Love seems to permeate the air in springtime. Suitable to the season, Hwatong Concert chose spring love of youths as its theme. Here’s cultural production company Yeo Min여민’s CEO Kim Young-ok to tell us more about the concert.

The name Hwatong is a combination of two Chinese characters – “hwa” for painting and “tong” for communicating. The concert aims to combine old Korean paintings and traditional music to communicate the joy of love. We wanted to show young Koreans what love is all about and how our ancestors portrayed love in their paintings. The show was designed to make people find out more about the sentiments of those who lived before us. And since spring is a perfect time for love, we scheduled the concert in springtime.

The host told the audience about the love story depicted in a painting. Audience members identified themselves with the characters in the drawing and music soon accompanied their musing, lest they should return prematurely from the land of imagination to reality. On one fine spring day in Korea, Hwatong Concert tempted people with all the delightful sentiments associated with love.

Art critic Sohn Cheol-joo hosted the concert, divided into three sections – affection, longing, and love, which are three main elements of love.

The first segment dealt mostly with virtuous tales about love, while the second part centered on longing, the sense of loss and desire associated with love. Longing is a natural emotion a person feels when the loved one is not near. If the feeling persists even when the loved one is next to you, that’s called love sickness. In this section we show old paintings showing characters suffering from love sickness. In the last segment we show youthful love, how young people fall in love and relish in it at the height of their feelings.

In the first section about affection, the concert began by wishing good fortune for all audience members and talking about the paintings of blessings and sound advice.

Now the concert progressed in earnest, discussing the love between a man and a woman. Writer Lee Ok of the late Joseon period spoke of this kind of love as thus.

In observing the workings of the universe, nothing is greater than observing man.
In observing man, nothing is more complex than observing people’s affection.
In observing affection, nothing is truer than observing the love between a man and a woman.

Writer Lee Ok wrote that love between a man and a woman is the truest feeling there is. In the first painting, titled “A Student and a Maiden,” the audience saw a young maiden with a longing heart for a student.

“A Student and a Maiden” is a folk painting done by a nameless painter. It showed a maiden hidden behind a door and stealing a glance at the student reading a book. She holds tightly onto the doorknob as if afraid of being discovered by her secret crush. Totally unaware of the maiden’s feelings, the student just focuses on reading, and the maiden looks on forlornly with longing eyes. Her despair over the unrequited love is conveyed to today’s audience hundreds of years later. But even a simple, one-sided crush can lead to a meaningful, love-filled relationship. That was the case with a jolly man who appears on the renowned Joseon-era painter Shin Yun-bok’s painting Chunsaekmanwon, which means a garden filled with vernal beauty. Here’s the concert’s host, Sohn Cheol-joo to explain more.

Now let’s take a look at Shin Yun-bok’s painting, which depicts the subtle approach employed by a man. His behavior is different from ladies’ usual timidity about showing their true feelings. This man in the painting suggestively tugs at the woman’s basket. It’s not an aggressive or overt action, but a stealthy gesture. Look at the face of the man. He apparently had a drink and looks a bit drunk. But what’s interesting is the woman’s expression. She’s actually smiling. No other woman in Shin’s other paintings is portrayed as lustful as this woman.

The woman in the painting apparently did not mind the man’s furtive advance. It isn’t that hard to imagine what came next – their love must have blossomed like flowers in the springtime.

On a warm spring day a retired courtesan sits on the balcony and laments about her life and lost loves. It is a scene out of Shin Yun-bok’s painting “A Woman at the Lotus Pavilion.”

Shin Yun-bok’s “A Woman at the Lotus Pavilion” is about severe longings. The courtesan has long passed her prime and now idles the time by sitting on the pavilion’s balcony, with a long cigarette holder in one hand and a musical instrument in another. She doesn’t look very happy. In front of her is a pond with pink lotus flowers abloom. The courtesan looks at the lotus flowers, reminiscing about her days of youth and beauty, but realizes that those times are no more and her lovers are all gone. Her love affairs were all badly timed. A pair of royal foxglove trees is known to grow old together, but the courtesan has no one to grow old with. Her love cannot be realized, bringing her only longing and regret.

Jemangmaega was played as if to comfort the woman at the lotus pavilion longing for her past lovers.

Love is not all sweetness – that realistic advice seems to have been what our ancestors tried to tell us with their paintings. Here’s the concert’s host, Sohn Cheol-joo, to tell us more.

Joseon-era paintings about the love between a man and a woman depict scenes straight out of our ordinary lives. Their love is like the bittersweet taste of mugwort, not like the sweetness of chocolates and candies exchanged on Valentine’s Day of the West. Korean painters knew that love cannot be all sweet. They expressed love’s bittersweet aspect in their works with satire and wit. Joseon painters also knew how to control their impulsive sentiments and expressed love through very natural and subtle behaviors.

The mood in the theater turned rather somber and sorrowful following the paintings of one-sided love and the pain of longing. Right at the moment the audience came to attention with the presentation of “The Portrait of a Beauty,” painted by an unknown artist and currently kept in Tokyo National Museum.

Look at how silky her hair is. She appears smiling in the painting and look how appealing her smile is. That is enough to turn on a couple of guys on the spot. And she’s holding a flower in her hand, which makes her look more attractive. Her top is really tight and we can see the white underskirt between the folds of her skirt. I think this woman in the painting is the most attractive one among all the beautiful women in Joseon-era portraits.

The entire canvas is filled up with a lone woman. Her coiffed hair is silky black, with a ribbon on one side. She doesn’t have a big smile on her face, just a demure one with the ends of her lips curved slightly upward, making her look a bit haughty yet inviting. Her top is closed, but is so tight that it looks ready to split at the seams. Her eyebrows are crescent-shaped and she gathers up her skirt with one hand to make it look fuller. Pansori “Song of Love” was played to highlight her beauty.

But she has a flower in her hand and the story behind is written in a poem composed by the 16th-century slave Eo Mu-jeok. Here’s the concert’s host Sohn Cheol-joo to recite that poem.

When I wake up from sleep and step out the door, the long hair and single-layered top are too thin to stave off the cold air. My affection can be suppressed, but my worries over the late-arriving spring cannot. So I pick a flower and look at it. The last passage is about how late the spring is. She has picked a flower to hurry up the coming of the spring.

On the screen “The Portrait of a Beauty” was soon replaced by a painting of the bees and butterflies flocking to the poppy flowers. The painting was performed in a dance, with the elegantly dressed dancers mimicking the bees and butterflies in search of flowers.

In the third and last portion of Hwatong Concert love was no longer an emotion to be hidden or shown timidly. It was time for spring love!

The painting representing carnal love was Shin Yun-bok’s “Sonyeonjeonhong,” which means a boy picks a red flower. The concert master Sohn Cheol-joo explains the painting.

You can see that the man has a top knot and holds a cigarette holder, but has no beard. That indicates the man hasn’t been married for long. But then why does the man grabbing the woman’s arms so roughly? It’s very likely that the man’s wife is out and the woman is probably a housemaid. The master of the house is playing around with the maid while his wife is out. But the maid doesn’t look like she’s put off by the man’s blatant advances.

But, as said above, love is bittersweet. In Shin Yun-bok’s “A Painting of Lovers under the Moon” two lovers stand under the moon, obviously reluctant to part.

Look at the crescent moon. The man is trying to say goodbye and comfort the woman at the same time. The painting is about a couple parting and the sorrow of leaving each other.

Their feelings for each other were played out with Korean flutes.

Throughout the two-hour concert, the audience must have remembered their loves, both past and present. It’s springtime, the season of budding love.

- It was fun enjoying Korean traditional music and dance with old paintings. I enjoyed this concert featuring Korean culture.
- I wish I could meet someone whom I can love wholeheartedly.
- The combination of the paintings, music, and the stories went really well. I enjoyed them all, and was completely into the concert.