Oh Kwang-su’s Criticism of Korean Painting and the Ink Wash Painting Movement

Since his debut in 1963 as the first winner of the Dong-A Ilbo annual spring literary contest in the art criticism category, Oh Kwang-su (1937–) has been a prolific firstgeneration professional art critic. His writings, produced through direct interaction and sustained communication with artists in the field, hold significant value as empirical research that fills the gaps in the history of Korean contemporary art. While Oh has generally been defined as a critic of Korean modernist art—spanning from Informel to Dansaekhwa—this paper focuses on the critical consciousness regarding Oriental and Korean painting that has consistently appeared in his work since his early years.<br/> Starting with his debut essay, “The Attitude Toward Inheriting Tradition: For the Future of Oriental Painting,” this discussion posits that Oh perceived tradition not as a fixed form or concept, but as a critical task to be reconstructed from a contemporary perspective. The study further examines how his subsequent criticism and exhibition curation influenced the Ink Wash Painting Movement of the 1980s. Through this analysis, the paper aims to demonstrate that Oh Kwang-su’s criticism contributed to exploring the formative and spiritual possibilities of ink as a medium for new-generation artists in the 1980s and 1990s, while providing a critical framework for analyzing these developments.