2023-12-24 01:48:20
[arte] The first neighborhood outside the gates of Han Isu
-Seoul Red Cross Hospital, death of Lee Jung-seop
Painter Lee Jung-seop died at the Seoul Red Cross Hospital. While Kim Soo-young was hit by a bus in Gusu-dong, Mapo and came to the Red Cross Hospital barely alive, Lee Jung-seop is officially admitted to receive treatment. Lee Jung-seop’s illness dates back to a year before his death.
In 1955, he held a solo exhibition at Midopa Department Store in Myeong-dong, Seoul. I prepared for the exhibition while staying at the house of my friend Jeong Jeong-yeol, who lives in Seochon. He planned to sell his work and go to see his wife and two sons in Japan. Although half of the 45 pieces were sold, there were many customers on credit. The money he received also disappeared into Lee Jung-seop’s hands as money for his friend’s drinks.
After the Midopa Gallery exhibition, I was unable to secure travel expenses to go to Japan even at the Daegu exhibition. Lee Jung-seop’s disappointment reached its peak and he even showed symptoms of anorexia and self-abuse. Did he try to forget the hardships of reality by destroying himself? His liver began to fail. The organs of the body that had endured well even in difficult situations gradually began to break down.
Park Go-seok and his friends, who had been like brothers since the time of refuge, brought him to Seoul. After receiving careful treatment at the Capital Military Hospital (now the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), where President Park Chung-hee passed away, and at St. Peter’s Neuropsychiatric Hospital run by Dr. Yoo Seok-jin, his condition improved significantly.
In the winter of 1955, the day before Christmas, when heavy snow fell and Bukhansan Mountain was painted white, painter Park Go-seok brought him near his house in Jeongneung. In Jeongneung, Hanmook, a painter who had developed a friendship with him in Busan a month before Lee Jung-seop came in, was staying as a boarder, and the room next door became empty, so Lee Jung-seop became a family member with him under the same roof. It is a place where the cold wind of Bukhansan Mountain bites, the upper stream of Jeongneungcheon Stream where a stream flows under the ice, and a house on Cheongsujang Hill that has now been turned into the Bukhansan Mountain Visitor Information Center. When Lee Jung-seop came in, Jeongneung became a town where the warm affection of artists bloomed.
“Since living with Muk and Jung-seop, quite a few friends with whom they have a strong affection and warm spirit have gathered in Jeongneung Valley. Many friends, including Koo Sang, Chi Geun-ho, Kim I-seok, Ki-ryun Lee, Hwang Yeom-su, Oh Young-jin, and Kim Byeong-gi, as well as Kim Chung-seon, Lee Young-jin, and Kim Young-hwan, “Many juniors bit their tails.” (Park Go-seok)
Friends, seniors, and junior artists who cared regarding Jungseop gathered at Jeongneung in the mountain valley. When his health recovered to some extent, Lee Jung-seop followed his friends to a coffee shop in Myeong-dong. It is the spring of 1956. Myeong-dong is once once more revitalized thanks to Lee Jung-seop. He hung out with many writers and painters in Myeongdong.
My health has improved to the point where I even get into fist fights with strangers. She got veneer plywood from Jinseop Lee and painted on it. Hanging out with her best friend Kim Hwan-ki, dandy boy Park In-hwan, and Myeong-dong Count Lee Bong-gu, she burned the last of her artistic spirit. At that time, Myeong-dong was the most beautiful place for humans. In France, this is called ‘Belle Epoque’.
Belle Epoque refers to the period from 1871, when the war between France and Prussia ended, to 1914, when World War I broke out. It was a time when literature, painting, philosophy, music, and all other art genres bloomed brilliantly. All of the artistic trends we enjoy today emerged during this period. However, with the outbreak of World War I, beauty came to an end. After World War II, the terrifying barbaric era of human subservience ended. I didn’t know it at the time, but in hindsight, I realized that it was ‘the era when humans were the most beautiful.’ That’s why that period is called ‘Belle Époque’ (French: Belle Époque, beautiful times). Myeongdong Street, 1956, Photo by Lim Eung-sik There was a time like that in our cultural history. It was the spring of 1956, when Lee Jung-seop was going to and from Myeong-dong. Actor Choi Bul-am’s mother ran a makgeolli restaurant in Eunseong, across from the current UNESCO building. Park In-hwan wrote a poem on a note, Lee Jin-seop composed a song, and singer Na Ae-sim sang a song on the spot.
‘As time goes by’. In the 1980s, singer Park In-hee’s voice rang out on the streets, ‘I forgot that person’s name now…’ A song that begins with ‘. It was a time when writers who scribbled in coffee shops turned them into poems and songs. It was a time when Lee Jung-seop’s paintings on veneer plywood or silver foil were scattered all over the cafe, and even Korea’s best actress Kim Ji-mi served coffee at the ‘Figaro’ cafe. Around this time, Park In-hwan, who lived in a shack near Jungnang Bridge, drank alcohol all night long and died of alcoholism. There was Lee Jung-seop in a time when even death shined beautifully, a time when people were naked and poor but were happy to be together.
Our Belle Epoque, which was so shining, was briefly cured of Lee Jung-seop’s illness. In the early summer of 1956, he was admitted to the free patient room at Cheongnyangni Brain Hospital. As the symptoms of jaundice worsened due to liver disease, this was a measure taken following discussion between Park Go-seok and his friends. Meanwhile, Gusang, who was in Daegu, heard the news belatedly and came running.
“There were people crying, people beating, people banging on the wall, all kinds of mental patients all tangled together, and he turned into a skeleton.” (conception)
In July 1956, Koo Sang and Cha Geun-ho admitted a patient with anorexia and jaundice to the Seoul Red Cross Hospital in Seodaemun because they did not want to send him to a mental hospital. Leaving Cheongnyangni Brain Hospital, Lee Jung-seop greeted each patient in each room. As he was leaving the front reception area, he returned the Bible the hospital had given him and asked for the price of the slippers he had brought on credit. Lee Jung-seop, The River of No Return, 1956. Lee Jung-seop’s last work before being hospitalized is ‘The River of No Return’.
“Didn’t your brother paint a picture even while he was bedridden? A picture of a woman walking this way with something on her head and white eyes, and an older man staring out the door in the distance with the window open on the railing. It was clearly a picture of his older brother missing the family he left behind in Dongdo. . And my older brother put the words ‘River of No Return’ under the picture in gentle handwriting, and (omitted) wasn’t he already looking down a path from which he would never return? At that time, I cursed at my brother, who was putting the picture on the bed, and took the topic away. Then, I took the picture away and put it on my bookshelf. “Now that painting has become my brother’s only masterpiece.” (Jo Yeong-am, Weekly Hope, River of No Return)
Despite his friends’ care, Lee Jung-seop’s anorexia relapsed and his liver became damaged. At 11:45 pm on September 6, 1956, Lee Jung-seop passed away at the Seoul Red Cross Hospital without anyone watching. The hospital classified him as an unrelated person who died of hepatitis and placed him in the ‘House of Eternal Life’. On the morning of the third day, Sunday, September 9, novelist Kim I-seok, a senior at Pyongyang’s public Jongno Elementary School, came to visit and learned of his death.
I contacted Koo Sang, Park Go-seok, and Cha Geun-ho. On September 10, Kim Gwang-gyun ran to the newspaper to report the death, and added 50,000 won to the 40,000 won condolence fee out of the 180,000 won funeral expenses. As expected from the Red Cross Hospital, the 90,000 won was reduced in consideration of the poor artist’s pocketbook. This was only possible at the Red Cross Hospital, which does not seek profit.
He was cremated at the Seoul City Funeral Home in Hongje-dong, and the bone powder was moved to Manguri Cemetery, serial number 103535. On September 6, 1957, the one-year anniversary of Park Go-seok taking the bone powder and scattering it in the Cheongsujang Valley in Jeongneung, where he lived happily with his friends for the last time, his friend Gusang put some of the bone powder in a jar and a year later gave it to his Japanese wife, Nam Deok (Yamamoto). Masako).
Kim Soo-young and Lee Jung-seop, who died in this hospital, what was their relationship like when they were alive? In his book, Park Go-seok recorded Kim Su-young’s visit when he lived in Jeongneung:
“One time, I walked up the mountain from Mapo to my house in Jeongneung with two chickens. “I came here following having a big fight with her wife and wanted to drink soju with her friends to vent.”
What did Kim Soo-young, who came with two limp chickens, talk regarding while drinking with Lee Jung-seop, Park Go-seok, and Han Muk on the banks of the Jeongneung Stream? Perhaps Kim Soo-young was venting the anger of the times. Lee Jung-seop would have silently drawn the faces of children in Japan on the ground. Park Go-seok, a quiet man who loved mountains, must have been looking at the edge of Bukhansan Mountain. It was a time when literature and art met and shed light. It was a very beautiful Belle Epoque era, and the Seoul Red Cross Hospital also played a part in it. This is a hospital that poor artists are thankful for.
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