This study is about the cultural policy related to fine art under the U. S. Military Government in Korea(USAMGIK), from September 8, 1945, to August 15, 1948. Drawing on the previous studies of Korean art history in the 'Liberation Period', this study especially concentrates on intention, attitude and activities of the USAMGIK. Particularly the historical documents, stored at the National Archives at the College Park, Maryland, U.S.A., were valuable to do research on the cultural policy of USAMGIK. The cultural policy was subordinated to the political objectives of occupation that can be summarized to building a stronghold of anti-communism in South Korea. Under the U.S. Military government control, cultural matters were assigned to the Cultural Section, the Bureau of Education, which later turns into the Bureau of Culture, the Department of Education. The Bureau of Culture dealt with matters of the ancient Korean art treasures and of the Korean contemporary art. USAMGIK reopened the Korean National Museum which had been closed by the Japanese since the World War II period. After that, U.S. Department of State sent arts & monuments specialists to South Korea for investigating ancient Korean art and culture. Although some of the destructed art treasures were restored during the occupation, th ere were many negative cases including intentional destruction of historic sites or loot of art treasures by U.S. army. In contrast to their interest in the Korean antiquities, USAMGIK payed little attention to promoting the Korean contemporary artists and their arts. USAMGIK distrusted and suppressed the artists of leftism, while they kept good relations with the pro-American artists and the right-wing artists. In conclusion, the visual-cultural policy of USAMGK was mainly planned and carried out in order to preserve the national interest of the United States. This period produced long-term effects on the fine art and visual culture of South Korea, in terms of institution, policy, and reorganization of art community based on anti-cummunism.

'문화 전쟁(Culture Wars)'은 1980년대 말부터 1990년대 초 미국에서 보수주의자와 진보주의자 사이에 벌어진 문화적 논쟁을 일컫는다. 이 용어는 제임스 헌터(James Hunter)의 책 "문화 전쟁: 미국을 정의하려는 노력(Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America)"의 출간으로 대중화되었고, 당시 공화당 대통령 후보였던 패트릭 부캐넌(Patrick Buchanan)에 의해 급부상하게 된다. 그는 "이 나라에는 지금 종교 전쟁, 즉 냉전만큼 중요한 '문화 전쟁'이 일어나고 있고, 이것은 미국의 영혼을 위한 전쟁이다." 라고 부르짖으며 급변하는 문화 정체성의 위기 속에서 미국적인 전통을 지키고자 하였다. 이 문화 전쟁은 여러 다양한 논쟁을 함의하고 있었는데, 교목제도의 폐지, 교육기관에서의 다문화주의(multiculturalism) 커리큘럼 도입, 동성애자의 군복무, 낙태, 총기 소지 등의 허용 문제로 당시 미국의 교육계, 문화계뿐만 아니라 정치계, 입법부에서도 첨예한 대립 구도를 형성하였다. 미술계에서 가장 치열했던 문화 전쟁은 안드레 세라노(Andres Serrano)의 작품전과 ${\ll}$로버트 메플소프: 완벽한 순간(Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Moment)전${\gg}$이 공공기금인 국립예술진흥기금(National Endowments for the Arts, NEA)의 지원을 받아 개최되는 것이 타당한 것이냐에 대한 논쟁에서 표출되었다. 이 두 전시를 기점으로 그 뒤로도 여러 미술 전시회와 음악회, 연극 등을 둘러싼 NEA 기금 지원과 관련한 분쟁은 한동안 계속된다. 이 글은 이러한 미술계 문화 전쟁의 발전 과정과 몇몇 논점에 초점을 맞추되, 세라노나 메플소프의 작품 자체를 분석하고 비평하는 글이 아님을 밝혀 둔다. 본 연구는 분쟁의 전개에 대한 상세한 기술적, 연대기적 조사보다는 그 발단과 전개 과정에서 몇 가지 핵심적인 사항들을 기술하고, 이 사항들이 암시하는 정치적, 미학적, 미술사적 시각의 충돌에 대해 지적하는 글이 될 것이다. 더 나아가 당시 이러한 논쟁이 미국 미술계에 의미하던 것, 미국 문화 전체에 의미하던 것은 과연 무엇인가에 대한 비평적 질문으로 글을 맺고자 한다.

From the late 1920s to the 1930s, Korea's fine art community focused on traditional viewpoints as their main topic. The traditional viewpoints were discussed mainly by Korean students studying in Japan, especially oil painters. Such discussions on tradition can be divided into two separate halves, namely the pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War (1937) periods. Before the war, the modernists among Korea's fine art community tried to gain a fuller understanding of contemporary Western modern art, namely, expressionism, futurism, surrealism, and so forth, on the basis of Orientalism, and borrow from these schools' in order to create their own works. Furthermore, proponents of Joseon's avant-garde fine arts and artists of the pro-fine art school triggered debate on the traditional viewpoints. After the Sino-Japanese War, these artists continued to embrace Western modern art on the basis of Orientalism. However, since Western modern fine art was regressing into Oriental fine art during this period, Korean artists did not need to research Western modern fine art, but sought to study Joseon's classics and create Joseon's own avant- garde fine art in a movement led by the Munjang group. This research reviews the traditional view espoused by the Munjang group, which represented the avant-garde fine art movement of the post-war period. Advocating Joseon's own current of avant-garde fine art through the Munjang literary magazine, Gil Jin - seop, Kim Yong-jun and others accepted the Japanese fine art community's methodology for the restoration of classicism, but refused Orientalism as an ideology, and attempted to renew their perception of Joseon tradition. The advocation of the restoration of classicism by Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun appears to be similar to that of the Yasuda Yojuro-style restoration of classicism. However, Gil Jin-seop and Kim Yong-jun did not seek their sources of classicism from the Three-Kingdoms and Unified Silla periods, which Japan had promoted as a symbol of unity among the Joseon people; instead they sought classicism from the Joseon fine art which the Japanese had criticized as a hotbed of decadence. It was the Joseon period that the Munjang group chose as classicism when Japan was upholding Fascism as a contemporary extremism, and when Hangeul (Korean writing system) was banned from schools. The group highly evaluated literature written in the style of women, especially women's writings on the royal court, as represented by Hanjungnok (A Story of Sorrowful Days). In the area of fine art, the group renewed the evaluation of not only literary paintings, but also of the authentic landscape paintings refused by, and the values of the Chusa school criticized as decadent by, the colonial bureaucratic artists, there by making great progress in promoting the traditional viewpoint. Kim Yong-jun embraced a painting philosophy based on the painting techniques of Sasaeng (sketching), because he paid keen attention to the tradition of literary paintings, authentic landscape paintings and genre paintings. The literary painting theory of the 20th century, which was highly developed, could naturally shed both the colonial historical viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as heteronomical, and the traditional viewpoint which regarded Joseon fine art as decadent. As such, the Munjang group was able to embrace the Joseon period as the source of classicism amid the prevalent colonial historical viewpoint, presumably as it had accumulated first-hand experience in appreciating curios of paintings and calligraphic works, instead of taking a logical approach. Kim Yong-jun, in his fine art theory, defined artistic forms as the expression of mind, and noted that such an artistic mind could be attained by the appreciation of nature and life. This is because, for the Munjang group, the experience of appreciating nature and life begins with the appreciation of curios of paintings and calligraphic works. Furthermore, for the members of the Munjang group, who were purists who valued artistic style, the concept of individuality presumably was an engine that protected them from falling into the then totalitarian world view represented by the Nishita philosophy. Such a 20th century literary painting theory espoused by the Munjang group concurred with the contemporary traditional viewpoint spearheaded by Oh Se-chang in the 1910s. This theory had a great influence on South and North Korea's fine art theories and circles through the Fine Art College of Seoul National University and Pyongyang Fine Art School in the wake of Korea's liberation. In this sense, the significance of the theory should be re-evaluated.

The propaganda paintings in oil colors or in forms of posters made from 1949 to 1966 have gone through some changes experiencing the influence of the Soviet Union Art and discussion of nationalization, while putting political messages of the time in the picture planes. The propaganda paintings which have been through this process became an effective means of encouraging the illiterate people in political ideologies, production, and learning. Alike other propaganda paintings in different mediums, the ones which were painted in oil colors and in the form of posters have been produced fundamentally based on Mao Zedong's intensification of the literary art on the talks on literature at Yenan. Yet, the oil paintings and posters were greatly influenced by the socialist realism and propaganda paintings of the Soviet Union, compared to other propaganda paintings in different mediums. Accordingly, they were preponderantly dealt in the discussions of nationalization of the late '50s. To devide in periods, the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1949 as a diverging point, the propaganda paintings made before and after 1949 have differences in subject matters and styles. In the former period, propaganda paintings focused on the political lines of the Communists and enlightenment of the people, but in the latter period, the period of Cultural Revolution, the most important theme was worshiping Mao Zedong. This was caused by reflection of the social atmosphere, and it is shown that the propaganda painters had reacted sensitively to the alteration of politics and the society. On the side of formalities, the oil paintings and posters made before the Cultural Revolution were under a state of unfolding several discussions including nationalization while accepting the Soviet Union styles and contents, and the paintings made afterwards show more of unique characteristics of China. In 1956, the discussion about nationalization which had effected the whole world of art, had strongly influenced the propaganda paintings in oil colors more than anything. There were two major changes in the process of making propaganda paintings in oil colors. One was to portray lives of the Chinese people truthfully, and the other was to absorb the Chinese traditional styles of expression. After this period, the oil painters usually kept these rules in creating their works, and as a result, the subject matters, characters, and backgrounds have been greatly Sinicized. For techniques came the flat colored surface of the new year prints and the traditional Chinese technique of outlining were used for expressing human figures. While the propaganda paintings in oil colors achieved high quality and depth, the posters had a very direct representation of subject matters and the techniques were unskilled compared to the oil paintings. However, after the establishment of People's Republic of China, the posters were used more than any other mediums for propagation of national policy and participation of the political movements, because it was highly effective in delivering the policies and political lines clearly to the Chinese people who were mostly illiterate. The poster painters borrowed techniques and styles from the Soviet Union through books and exhibitions on Soviet Union posters, and this relation of influences constantly appears in the posters made at the time. In this way, like the oil paintings, the posters which have been made with a direct influence of the Soviet Union had developed a new, sinicised process during the course of nationalization. The propaganda paintings in oil colors or in forms of posters, which had undergone the discussion of nationalization, had put roots deep down in the lives of the Chinese people, and this had become another foundation for the amplification of influences of political propaganda paintings in the following period of Cultural Revolution.

The term 'modern', in broader sense, refers to the concepts like modernity, modernization, modernism and the like, which came from Westernization impling the recognition of indigenous culture as being inferior to Western culture by comparison along with the expanded influences of the Empire of Japan. These concepts, however, rather than evolving from Western standards, came into being as a form of civilization led by Japan which had already tasted the fruits of modernization by 1920s. Since 1920s, the policy of, so-called, reconstructing Asian countries by Japan came to create eastern way of modernism, as a new East Asian trend mainly revealed in China which was against colonization after Japan's invasion and conquest of Manchuria. Therefore, Eastern' modern' unlike Western one could be understood in the widespread terminology, 'Modern(摩登)' in Shanghai, reflecting consciousness like 'Fashion' or 'Trend' in female images on a variety of visual media. By 1930s it was the most notable that 'modern' was accepted as something similar with 'Fashion', or 'Trend' in sociocultural contexts. These atmosphere had led commercial arts to enable to communicate with the public in a great deal of supports and success in Shanghai which was widely regarded as the citadel for the inflow of Western culture, among which transformations in female images were remarkable as a representative form of culture. It is also remarkable that 'historical modernity' transforming from the feudal age to modern society was considered a synchronic modernity, and nationalism was regarded as a sort of being modern, while involved in the newly-changed female images as a fashion mode. Changes in fashion including hair style in Shanghai by 1930s, as a way of expressions showing what was modern through commercial artistic productions, were easily noticed in visual media as an outlet of modern women's inner desire revealing their pursuit for new mode of life in metropolitan cities. As a characteristic of the time creating a new code of visual female images, it is notable that there existed another form of 'modern' satisfying socio-cultural needs of the general public seeking for being 'modern'.

Foreigners who arrived in Korea after the age of enlightenment were Japanese, Chinese and 'Westerners' who were Europeans and Americans. The westerners were diplomats who visited Korea for colonization or for increasing their economical profits by trading after the spread of imperialism, and tourists curious of back countries, artists, explores and missionaries to perform their roles for their religious beliefs. They contacted with Korean cultural and educational people as missionaries and instructors during Japanese colonial period. In 1945, the allied forces occupied Korea under the name of takeover of Japanese colony after Japan's surrender and the relation between foreigners and Korean cultured men enter upon a new phase. For 3 years, American soldiers enforced lots of systems in Korea and many pro-American people were educated. This relationship lasted even after the establishment of the government of Korean Republic and especially, diplomats called as pro-Korean group came again after Korean War. Among them, there were lots of foreigners interested in cultures and arts. In particular, government officials under American Forces who were influential on political circles or diplomats widened their insights toward Korean cultural assets and collected them a lot. Those who were in Korea from the period of independence to 1950s wrote their impressions about Korean cultural assets on newspapers or journals after visiting contemporary Korean exhibitions. Among them, A. J. McTaggart, Richard Hertz and the Hendersons were dominant. They thought the artists had great interests in compromising and uniting the Orient and the West based on their knowledge of Korean cultural assets and they advised. However, it was different from Korean artist's point of view that the foreigners thought Korean art adhered oriental features and contained western contents. From foreigners' point of view, it is hard to understand the attitude Korean artists chose to keep their self-respect through experiencing the Korean war. It is difficult to distinguish their thought about Korean art based on their exotic taste from the Korean artists' local and peninsular features under Japanese imperialism. We can see their thought about Korean art and their viewpoint toward the third world, after staying in Korea for a short period and being a member of the first world. The basic thing was that they could see the potentialities through the worldwide, beautiful Korean cultural assets and they thought it was important to start with traditions. It is an evidence showing Korean artists' pride in regard to the art culture through experiencing the infringement of their country. By writing about illuminating Korean art from the third party's view, foreigners represented their thoughts through it that their economical, military superiority goes with their cultural superiority. The Korean artist's thought of emphasizing Korean history and traditions, reexamining and using it as an original creation may have been inspired by westerners' writings. 'The establishment of national art' that Korean artists gave emphasis then, didn't only affect one of the reactions toward external impact, 'the adhesion of tradition'. In the process of introducing Korean contemporary art and national treasure in America, different view caused by role differences-foreigner as selector and Korean as assistant-showed the fact evidently that the standard of beauty differed between them. By emphasizing that the basis to classify Korean cultural assets is different from the neighborhood China and Japan, they tried to reflect their understanding that the feature of Korean art is on speciality other than universality. And this make us understand that even when Korean artists profess modernism, they stress that the roots are on Korean and oriental tradition. It was obviously a different thought from foreigners' view on Korean art that Korean artists' conception of modernism and traditional roots are inherent in Korean history. In 1950s, after the independence, Korea had different ideas from foreigners that abstract was to be learned from the west. Korea was enduring tough times with their artists' self-respect which made them think that they can learn the method, but the spirit of abstract is in the orient.

In Korea, nation and nationalism are undeniable justice, absolute virtue and moreover system of desire. From the late Chosun Dynasty when the Korean Peninsula had to survive from the critical situation of being the arena of competition, and through the colonial period under Japanese imperialism, nationalism became stronger as a logic of survival. The policy of seclusion under closed and exclusive nationalism that didn't recognize the world situation well enough, eventually gave more pain to the nation. Nationalism in colonial Korea which was as reformed nationalism and on the other hand, as intransigent, resisting nationalism. Since the purpose of this writing is not for clarifying the argument raised on Korean nationalism, there is no use mentioning how it went with the change of time. But we have to focus on the fact that the word 'nation' which appeared under the influence of popular revolution and capitalism meaning 'a group of people', was translated and understood as a racial concept for strengthening the unity of 'single-race nation with five thousand years' history. First of all, there is nationalism used to fortify the system. 'The Charter of National Education' and 'The Pledge of Allegiance' were ornaments to intensify the ruling ideology and dictatorship to militarize entire South Korea for 'settling Korean democracy' professed nationalism. Also, another ruling ideology armed with 'self-reliance' put North Korea into the state of hypnosis called nationalism. Nationalism, claiming 'nation' outwardly, but in reality, being an illuminating, instructing ideology isolating each other was indeed a body with two faces. This made 'nation' in Korea mysterious and objective through work such as. The statue commemorating patriotic forefathers' and picture of national records' in South Korea art. Nationalism used to strengthening the system encountered the magical 'single-race' and made 'ghost' being an extreme exclusion to other nations. We can find pedigreed pureness not allowing any mixed breeds from the attitude accepting western art -via Japan or directly- and making it vague by using the word Korean and Asia. There's nationalism as a resistant ideology to solidify the system on the other side. It came out as a way of survival among the Great Power and grew with the task of national liberation to became as a powerful force facing against the dictatorship dominating South Korea after the liberation. This discussion of nationalism as a resistance ideology was active in 1980s. In 1980, democracy movement against the dictatorship of 5th Republic originated from military power which came out suppressing the democratic movement in Gwangju, spread out from the intellects and the students to the labors, farmers and the civilians. It is well known that the 'Nation-People(Minjoong)'s Art Movement could come out under this social condition. Our attitude toward nationalism is still dual in this opening part of 21st century. On one hand, they are opposing to the ultra-nationalism but are not able to separate it from nationalism, and on the other, they have much confusion using it. In fact, in a single-race nation like Korea, the situation of being nationalism and jus sanguinis together can cause dual nationalism. Though nationalism is included in the globalization order, it is evidence that it's effective in Korea where there are still modern fetters like division and separation. In particular, in the world where Japan makes East Asia Coalition but exposed in front of nationalism, and China not being free from Sinocentrism, and American nationalism taking the world order, and Russia fortifying nationalism suppressing the minority race after the dissolution of socialism, Korean nationalism is at the point to find an alternative plan superior to the ruling and resisting ideology.

"When it comes to art, nationalism is a goodticket to ride with", says the title of a report in the Indian Express (Mumbai, 29 Oct 2000). The newspaper report goes on to say that since Indian art was kept "ethnic" by colonialism, national liberation meant opening up to the world on India's own terms. Advocacy, at the tail end of the 20th century, would contrast dramatically with the call by Rabindranath Tagore, the founder of the academy at Santiniketan in 1901, to guard against the fetish of nationalism. "The colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism," Tagore pronounced, "nor thefierce self-idolatry of nation-worship, is the goal of human history" (Nationalism, 1917). This contrast is significant on two counts. First is the positive aspect of "nation" as a frame in art production or circulation, at the current point of globalization when massive expansion of cultural consumers may be realized through prevailing communication networks and technology. The organization of the information market, most vividly demonstrated through the recent FIFA World Cup when one out of every five living human beings on earth watched the finals, is predicated on nations as categories. An extension of the Indian Express argument would be that tagging of artworks along the category of nation would help ensure greatest reception, and would in turn open up the reified category of "art," so as to consider new impetus from aesthetic traditions from all parts of the world many of which hereto fore regarded as "ethnic," so as to liberate art from any hegemony of "international standards." Secondly, the critique of nationalism points to a transnational civic sphere, be it Tagore's notion of people-not-nation, or the much mo re recent "transnational constellation" of Jurgen Habermas (2001), a vision for the European Union w here civil sphere beyond confines of nation opens up new possibilities, and may serve as a model for a liberated sphere on global scale. There are other levels of collectivity which art may address, for instance the Indonesian example of local communities headed by Ketua Rukun Tetangga, the neighbourhood headmen, in which community matters of culture and the arts are organically woven into the communal fabric. Art and collectivity at the national-transnational level yield a contrasting situation of, on the idealized end, the dual inputs of local culture and tradition through "nation" as necessary frame, and the concurrent development of a transnational, culturally and aesthetically vibrant civic sphere that will ensure a cosmopolitanism that is not a "colourless vagueness." In art historical studies, this is seen, for instance, in the recent discussion on "cosmopolitan modernisms." Conversely, we may see a dual tyranny of a nationalism that is a closure (sometimes stated as "ethno-nationalism" which is disputable), and an internationalism that is evolved through restrictive understanding of historical development within privileged expressions. In art historical terms, where there is a lack of investigation into the reality of multiple modernisms, the possibility of a democratic cosmopolitanism in art is severely curtailed. The advocacy of a liberal cosmopolitanism without a democratic foundation returns art to dominance of historical privileged category. A local community with lack of transnational inputs may sometimes place emphasis on neo-traditionalism which is also a double edged sword, as re kindling with traditions is both liberating and restrictive, which in turn interplays with the push and pull of the collective matrix.

As it is known, during the Second World War Greece has fought on the side of the allies and the end of the war found the country on the winners' side. However, the struggle for authority right after 1945 was merciless and extremely difficult, as well as dangerous for the course of the country to the future. The political powers were divided between the legal authorities that were represented by the king and formed the exiled government on the one hand and the part of the resistance teams and the rebels of the left that had a soviet friendly direction on the other. Thus, the start of a civil war was just a matter of time. It fin ally started in 1947 and lasted for more than two years. The consequences were disastrous for the country's economy and decisive for the future course of Greece. The national army prevailed with the help of, mostly, the English. Royal parliamentary democracy was established with a clear political turn to the west, as a completion and adaptation of the Agreement of the Great Powers at Yalta. Art had a 'similar' route. Dipolar, contradictory: conservative choices on the one side, and a will for pioneering inspiration and perspective on the other side. The 'dominate' trend was first evident in sculpture and mainly in the public monuments. Their construction aimed mostly at the public propaganda and at the promotion of the sovereign ideology. On the one side we have the public sculptures composed of faces of contemporary heroes or leading figures of the civic war and the national resistance. On the other side we have monumental statues mainly that appeal to a 'public' outside of the country's borders and mostly of the north borders, where there are countries with a communistic regime, like Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania. Their subject is derived from the heroic events of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and ancient historical figures like Alexander the Great as the Greek army leader, his father, Philippos II and Aristotle, who was of a north-Greek origin. The political message is twofold: on the one side the 'inner enemy' the communists that were defeated and the promotion of the new liberal social system and on the other side the north neighbours, which not only represent the East Block, but they also conspire the history and the culture of the Greeks. This is the way how the 'Cold War' was resulted in a full and totalitarian expression in art.