Study on the colors of Kim Whan-ki's painting

색으로 본 김환기의 작품 세계

Kim Whan-ki is an unusual instance in Korean modern artists, who payed attention to emotional and expressive effects of colors. The color of Whan-ki's paintings have been recognized as linked with 'blue' in spite that he used colors within the category of 'Colors of Five Directions(五方色)', which are traditional oriental colors composed of red, lue, yellow, white, green and black. Kim Whan-ki unearthed upon similarity of Five Directions Colors to the three(five) primary colors which modern abstract painter like Mondrian layed down. Whan-ki switched the five directions colors to modern ones. Kim Whan-ki's dot painting in which pure and watery color is sucked in ground is modernistic adaptation from ink painting. He packs a dot with sky and earth, moon and stars, forest and tree, birds and flowers, friends at his hometown, wind, sound and so on. Putting tens of thousands of these shapes and colors into a dot is modernistic version from ink painting. In that point there is a possibility to say that 'dark blue' of the dot painting is 'Hyun-saec(玄色)'. Eventually we can make sure that Kim Whan-ki's view of Art originated in oriental philosophy and beauty.