[One Thousand Characters a Day] Jeong Yeoul's 'Art Museum Only for Me' <3>

Editor's NoteAlain de Botton said, "One of the surprisingly important functions of art is that it teaches us how to endure pain better." This is the healing power of art. Paintings have the power to allow viewers to project their own life stories while sublimating all joys and sorrows into beautiful light and colors. Writer Jeong Yeoul confesses, based on her own experience, "When I visit an art museum, my heart, which used to be swayed by every little thing, becomes calm, and I can see the light and shadows of life more clearly." In the third section of Only for Me: The Art Museum, titled ‘All the Landscapes Painted in the Language of Light,’ the diverse languages of light used by painters who depicted landscapes and still lifes?from Claude Monet, Georges Seurat, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, to Caravaggio?are explored in depth. Word count: 832.

Munch’s Separation depicts the overwhelming sorrow of a person that nullifies all surrounding landscapes. The two people parting feel like a massive black hole swallowing the entire surrounding scenery. The woman leaves coldly as if she does not care at all about the man’s pain, and the man left alone must endure the pain, repeatedly chewing over the irreversible wounds of separation.

Blood flows from the man’s chest. The wound of separation seems like an invisible blade piercing through his heart. The man tries to cover his chest with his hands as if to stop the bleeding, but he cannot stop the flowing blood. He appears to be trying in some way to move forward, even just a little, away from the wounds of love, but a huge plant with a dark reddish color, as dark as his blood, stands upright blocking his way. He cannot take a single step forward from the wounds of separation.

Edvard Munch, , 1896, Munch Museum

On the other hand, the woman trying to leave the frame looks infinitely free. Her dress flutters lightly as if it were the wing of an angel. For her, separation is liberation and freedom. After stabbing the blade of separation into the man’s heart, she seems to become happy and peaceful. This scene reveals Munch’s pessimistic worldview, who reportedly suffered from misogyny due to the wounds caused by painful love.

The man appears trapped in his trauma, unable to move, while the woman seems to fly away freely from past memories. This place, which was once a beautiful landscape, seems about to be stained dark red by the blood the man has shed. This work shows that sometimes human suffering can be so vast, deep, and fatal that it seems to engulf nature itself. Some sorrows even tint the surrounding environment with colors of pain and melancholy.

- Jeong Yeoul, Only for Me: The Art Museum, Woongjin Knowledge House, 19,000 KRW