There is no doubt that the 1950s was the upheaval in the modern history of Korea. Reason for this, Korean War and the consequent political, social, economic, and cultural change occurred in the 1950s. The awareness about the world, separated from the previous period, also appeared. The 1950s is the time which should be discussed in depth on historical and art historical context. Reason for this, grabbing 1956, 57 as origin years of modern art is the prevailing view. This prevailing view is distinguished from the origin year of contemporary art which is broken into several opinions according to various comments. Meanwhile, the 1950s is a period when the trauma of modern Korea, Korean was formed. The tragedy of fratricidal war was occurred by the proxy fight of the East and West sides. In the midst of this fight, genocide was experienced by ideological confrontation to being exploited by politicians. In a short period of time, a lot of people had to watch mutual antagonism and hates of conservative and liberal, right-wing and left-wing, the tradition and modern in the process of death to the public.
‘Modernism’ is in the Fur Sich position of tradition. However, modernism in Korean art is used as examples of art with tendency of abstract as being pointed out early. This usage invites confusion of abstract art, started from Informel in the 1950s, and the modernism, started in the 1930s. In that sense, there is a need to read what the modernism meant to us according to the thoughts of people from the day. Although a same word forming a different semantic network according to the person who use is inevitable, the spatial background called ‘same age’ as a basis needs to be exactly described in critical text and art discourse.
This thesis places its emphasis on the meaning and proposed direction of tradition and modernism, which were an important social discourse of the day, and how it was revealed in the work of art by revolving around the 1950s.
The Korean War accompanied changes in the art world as well as the society and this provided a background for the appearances of many events and phenomena, such as the occurrence of defected artists due to the adhesion of the South Korea and North Korea, and the style of art and theory of painting tuned by ideology. Therefore, discussing about the tradition and modernism, which made a rapid progress after the war, is discovering the point where the artists of the day fixed their 자표책정 to act in the history. According to Gadamer, the human cannot escape the tradition and the framework of the tradition. Art is a social product which is based on the society as a social organism is a known fact without mentioning the quotation of Gadmer. Knowing art as a product of the times and society based on tradition and having a serious reflection about how modernism, on an extreme opposite side of tradition, can be understood in the category of the modern history of Korea is a way to see Korea modern and contemporary art in history in the right perspective.