Tschung-Sun Kim  Michael Bujold  Young-ki You

10.18399/acta.2010.13.2.008

emptiness Purity Indifference Virtuousness Simplicity Naivety Antique-ness and Coarseness Daoism

During the last century, domestic and foreign scholars alike engaged in diverse discourses on Korean aesthetics. However, the majority of these discussions did not take place as part of specialized academic research, but rather consisted solely of authors’ renderings of their intuitive judgment or individual impressions. Furthermore, even when attempts were made to discuss theories relating to Korean aesthetics, the majority of these merely focused on the characteristics of Korean arts, and in particular craft items. As these discussions have been carried out within limited frameworks such as those of the uniqueness or identity of Korean aesthetics, these have to some extent become esoteric in nature. As a result, the theory of Korean aesthetics could not overcome the existing framework in which it emerged as a simple by-product in the study of Korean art history. In this regard, there is a need to expand the sphere of the study of Korean aesthetics by examining it from the standpoint of the wider culture known as humanitarianism. Few examinations of Korean aesthetics as part of studies of ideological and religious notions such as those found in Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, or Shamanism, or even in everyday life, have been undertaken. To this end, this study intends to conduct a reanalysis from the standpoint of Daoist philosophy, or more specifically, of the religious perspectives contained in Daoism, so as to be able to relativize and generalize Korean aesthetics.