[ISEA2019] Paper: Intae Hwang & Alenda Y. Chang — Reinterpreting Korean ‘True-View’ Landscape Painting Using Graphics Analysis Techniques: The Case of Jeong Seon’s Dosando

Abstract

Keywords: Jeong Seon, Korean landscape painting, virtual reality, immersive virtual environments, anamorphosis, fisheye view, Panorama effect.

Jeong Seon (1676-1759, 뇊꫕) was one of the most innovative painters in the history of Korean painting. Unlike the conventional art style of the early Joseon period, his attempts to directly observe nature and capture them in his paintings created a new art movement known as ‘true-view’ (jingyeong 덹陲). Despite the name, Jeong Seon’s style was not the only result of realistic observation but also a considerable modification of subjects of paintings. This study begins with reconstructing one of his landscape paintings, Dosando (Painting of Dosan Confucian Academy,
also known as Dosanseowondo) in immersive virtual space to verify his distinctive implementation of observation skills. Using multiple virtual cameras, our application introduces users to how the painter incorporated natural scenery from many vantage points, not just one, sometimes creating more revealing, but physically impossible compositions. The goal of this project is to reveal Jeong Seon’s subtle blending of real topographies and anamorphic distortions which normally is used in modern computer graphics for movies and game making.

  • Intae Hwang is a researcher, product designer, and sculptor. He holds an MFA in sculpture, an MFA in Art and Technology, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Media Arts and Technology Graduate program at UCSB, USA. His main research is analyzing perspective methodology of 18th-century Korean landscape painter Jeong Seon using technologies in computer graphics. He also works as a game developer for the Wireframe Studio in the Department of Film and Media Studies.
  • Alenda Chang (PhD UC Berkeley) is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Her writing has been featured in Ant Spider Bee, Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, Qui Parle, the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, and Ecozon@, and her first book Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games (forthcoming Fall 2019, University of Minnesota Press), develops ecological frameworks for understanding and designing digital games. Chang is also the co-founder of the digital media studio Wireframe, which supports collaborative and cutting-edge research and teaching in new media with an emphasis on global human rights, social justice, and the environment.

Full text (PDF) p. 139-145