WRITING ART HISTORIES OF KOREA

This paper introduces how the colonial intervention in Korea by Japan-another Asian nation-has changed and formed the discussion about art and art history in Korea, and shows the impact of this colonial scholarship on recent studies in Korean art history. If we look at art histories written during the Colonial Period(1910-1945) we can trace several different attitudes. The Japanese funding and organization of many important archeological excavations of the territory of Korea was used to advance legitimacy and of control over the peninsula, which was quite different from the efforts of Koreans to invent their own histories. The Japanese interest in Korean folk culture is also an important aspect of writing about Korean art and its impact and influence is still present in contemporary Korea.