CHOI SOON-hwa (Republic of Korea) Traditional Korean painting is significantly different from Western painting. It is based on the unique lines and colors of the East. The creative spirit of Koreans found expression in original music, dance, and painting, which developed over the course of the nation's 5,000-year history. Traditional beliefs of Koreans - shamanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism - have always played a significant role in the socio-cultural development of the country. In folk Korean painting, as it were, the ideas of these religions are fused. And despite the fact that Western culture has recently become widespread in Korea, the unique national art continues to develop both in its pure form and in various harmonious variations with modern genres. The subject of this article is the" pure " genre of Korean folk painting. THE CONCEPT OF "FOLK PAINTING" In 1919, in the Japanese city of Kyoto, an exhibition of folk applied art products was opened, where the Japanese philosopher, art critic, and specialist in folk applied arts Yanagi Muneyoshi (1889-1961) first applied the term "minhwa" (folk painting) to paintings of the ossue style*. In 1937, he officially proposed to call" all paintings that originated among the people, were drawn by the people themselves and are distributed among the people", "folk painting" and gave a corresponding conceptual explanation.1 This concept was originally applied only to paintings describing local Japanese customs and mores. However, in 1959 Yanagi Muneyoshi, in an article published in the Korean magazine Literature and Art, suggested that the term should also be applied to the ethnographic paintings of Korea during the Joseon period. He wrote that "Korean paintings meet all the requirements of this genre in all aspects (automatic, unplanned, extremely individual sensitivity to supersensible beauty), and the day will certainly come when they will receive worthy recognition"2. Thus, we have revealed the value of our folklor ... Read more