User:Zeezee7/Lee Quede/Poppyprint Peer Review

Comments on second revision

'''*I think the lead needs a lot more reworking. Remember that you are only providing 2-3 sentences with key information about the artist. I wonder if you are too focused on what we focused on in class (his self portrait in the context of hyangtosaek and vernacular modernism). How do the survey readings (not the focused article on Lee) talk about him? What is mentioned first?'''

Lee Quede (Korean 이쾌대 1913, Chilgok, Gyeongbuk Province - Feb 2nd, 1965, North Korea) is a modern Korean artist, who is known for his figurative oil paintings and artistic anatomy (not clear what you mean here, rephrase or cut. I think figurative oil paintings is good enough). His artworks are mostly famous for provoking hyangtosaek (return to land) to ignore the social realities of the Japanese colonial period in Korea and recall the Korean traditional customs (I think this definition of hyangtosaek is not as neutral, as it highlights one side of it - and the readings discuss how his version of hyangtosaek may have been more complex. I am also not sure if his paintings are "mostly famous" for hyangtosaek). He is the representation (he represents - a person is not a "representation") of Korean artists who had to go through the dark shadow of Japanese Colonial Rule (1910-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953). (Again - I am reluctant to present him as THE representative artist of this generation of artists because they were so many. I would also delete "dark shadow" for more neutrality. Perhaps you could instead mention that he defected to North Korea during the Korean war and because of that his work was censored in South Korea until 1988 - that stands out more in his biography and the reception of his work)

Early Life - Great job with the links :)
Lee Quede was born in 1913, on the eastern side of South Korea in Chilgok, Gyeongbuk Province. At an early age, Lee was inspired by his brother, Yeoseon, who was an art student at Rikkyo University in Japan, and his activism toward the social role of art in Korea within the colonial context. When Lee graduated from Whimoon High School, he went to Japan to study art at Teikoku Art School from 1933 to 1938, which is currently called Musashino Art University, and began learning art techniques based on Western still-life and figures.  Throughout his studying , During his studies in Japan, Lee took part in the White Ox Society, which was a Korean art group in Japan that promoted national ist  consciousness by using the ox as a metaphor of Korean agriculture. After their group got (remember what I said about colloquial expressions - get rid of "got") dismissed and rejected by the Japanese police, they changed their name to Artists' Society in 1938 and continued to hold their activities and exhibition (grammar: here "hold" applies to both activities and exhibition so it ends up being a confusing statement - it sounds like they stopped their activities. Perhaps you could say "continued their activities, including holding exhibitions). In 1941, he  was the founder founded (so that is doesn't sound like he was the "founder" just in the year 1941) of the New Artists Association with other Korean? artists (I deleted the comma here) like Lee Lung-seob (OMG TYPO - fix this, it's JUNG), and worked with Korean design and patterns in their artwork. '''(Doesn't seem to belong in the same sentence. If you want to include this fact, write a separate sentence, something like: the artists in this group emphasized including Korean design and patterns - but what do you mean about Korean "design" and "patterns"? how are "design" and "patterns" different? Or do you mean subject matter? Motif? Use the most appropriate, effective vocabulary - how do the texts you consulted describe his work?) Alongside other co-workers, (I deleted this because...co-WORKERS? Where did he work? Or you could say he belonged to a group of artists...or alongside the artists in the New Artists Association) He believed that artists have a social responsibility to improve society through art  and should work hard for it . In the August of 1946, when he visited North Korea, Lee became the leading member of the Leftist Alliance of Joseon Plastic Art; however, the propaganda in North Korea's art heavily imposed state propaganda made him leave the association. He chose a neutral pole and joined the Association of Joseon Art and Culture.  (1) I suggest moving this last part to "death and legacy" and 2) seems to need more background information)'''

paintings (use uppercase Paintings)
Lee Quede is renowned for his figural paintings created between 1920-1940. According to the Daegu Art Museum, Lee depicted many self-portraits, out of which four have survived. Self-Portrait in Traditional Coat is one of Lee's master paintings in 1930 which has a mixture of both Western and Korean styles of art. He is wearing durumagi, a traditional Korean garment, and a Western-style hat while holding an oil painting palette in one hand and traditional Korean brushes in the other. Lee portrays himself as a professional artist who directly stares at the viewer with confidence. Even the dramatic brush strokes on his face are visible and add to Lee's settled look. Also, the colorful background of trees, the lake, and the blue sky represents an imagined space that Lee had in mind; it seems Lee created this painting to be separated from reality and be in harmony with the peaceful village.

After the Korean liberation from 35 years of Japanese colonial rule, Lee created the Group of People series, sizable oil paintings with large scales. In each series, there is a sense of romanticism and political activism that reacts to the challenging time of the Japanese Colonial Period (1910-1945) or soon after they left. Looking at the Group of People IV,  one can find a lot of (COLLOQUIAL), for instance, presents dynamic movements and motions. In the top right of the painting, an explosion and chaos are going on. Two men are wrestling and fighting while one is biting the other. The sense of desperation is alive in the bottom right of the painting as there is a woman who is terrified and has her child hidden behind her back. However, on the left side, there are signs of hope and love; people are walking together toward something that is outside the painting. There is a man who is holding a woman's body and focusing on the direction that people are walking toward it. According to Yak (who is yak?), the whole painting tells a story that starts from right to left, where people have overcome fear and chaos and are looking forward to a better future. It seems, Lee was hoping Korea, It seems to show Lee's hope that the newly liberated Korea would become after liberation, becomes a new nation that rises from all the social conflict that was happening in the past course of history. (hmm..is this neutral?)

Unlike other Korean artists (this is too vague. What artists? You don't provide a clear comparison point. I suggest deleting), Lee often portrayed portrays his wife as a model of inspiration and muse in his paintings. In Portrait of Two People (1939 put dates in parentheses), which got (WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT GOT) presented in the Association of Korean Artists in Tokyo, Lee painted his wife, Yu Gabong, and himself hidden in her shadow. While he is looking in another direction, somewhere outside the painting, Yu Gabong has a direct gaze at the viewer by wearing a red jeogori, a traditional Korean dress (this sentence does not make sense because what does a red jeogori have to do with Yu's direct gaze? Delete the jeogori) . A Similar setting is also visible in Couple Playing Cards in the 1930s, where both Yu Gabong and Lee are portrayed. the figures of the paintings. While they are holding cards and setting across from each other, However, in this painting, they both have a direct directly gaze at the viewer.

Drawings
Lee's drawings depict dynamic movements and leave strong impressions as they explore the figures' appearance, pose, and gestures. During the period he studied in Japan, Lee's interest in nude sketches and drawings began; he created most of his figure sketches, including a self-portrait that was cut from the bottom of the paper (not clear what you mean here), featuring a figure with a straight gaze toward the viewer. Another example that is evidence of Lee's interest in human anatomy and movement is the Beggar painting (I thought this was a drawing). Before the start of the Korean War in 1948, Lee, who was an art teacher at the Seongbuk Painting Research Institute by that time, painted a beggar wandering around the institute. Through strong marks, created by the pressure of the brush, Lee highlighted the emotions and movement of the beggar's body. Even during Korean War, Lee, who was imprisoned in the Geoje POW camp after arriving in South Korea, started teaching artistic anatomy to his fellow prisoners, including Lee Ju-Yeong. He provided detailed explanations in his drawing notes of the gestures, proportions, and movements of the human body. Much of his knowledge came from his memories of his studies at Teikoku Art School in Japan, where he learned from Professor Nishida Masaoki, whose knowledge of anatomy was based on French artistic anatomy from the 19th century.

Hyangtosaek
From the Joseon Dynasty to the Korean Empire and the 35-year Japanese occupation, Korea became a battleground for both locals and foreigners; the struggle to maintain its unification ended up in its division into South and North Korea (This sentence has several issues. First, do you mean the entire 500-year rule of the Joseon dynasty? "Locals" and "foreigners" are vague, and it seems like you need more info to jump from the Japanese occupation to the division of North and South. I actually recommend deleting this first paragraph altogether and just focus on hyangtosaek - you might also want to provide its translation, "local color") The incidents that took place in Korea during the 20th century had a deep influence on the development of Korean modern art and led to the emergence of various questions about the definition of art in Korea and the preservation of its traditions.

My suggestion: delete the paragraph above and write a better introduction to the concept of hyangtosaek. It's also worthwhile to discuss the controversies regarding hyangtosaek (you don't present it as neutrally here).

You can start by something like:

'''Lee Quede's paintings during the colonial period have been linked to hyangtosaek (향토색, local color), which... (make sure you provide an in-line citation to show that this is a scholarly interpretation)....'''

Hyangtosaek was heavily promoted in the Joseon Art Exhibition, xxx...

Upon Japan's opening of an exhibition in 1922 (it's not just "an exhibition" - you need to clearly state in UPPERCASE that you are talking about the Joseon Art Exhibition, which began in 1922, and that it was sponsored by the Japanese colonial government), they promoted romanticized landscape paintings of Korea that were far from reality, such as the hyangtoseak style, of which Lee's self-portrait, Self-Portrait in Traditional Coat, was an example. After returning to Korea, Lee Quede created a series of artworks, Self-Portrait in Traditional Coat and Group of People IV, that promoted the concept of hyangtosaek which referred to the political use of Korean landscapes to evoke traditional customs from before the colonization of Korea. This term became a norm throughout Korean art and was encouraged by colonial policy through exhibitions, and used as a political symbol containing nationalist ideas. Lee's art mostly featured this term and ignored the hard social realities of colonial Korea (not neutral).

Legacy and Death
During the Korean War, the South Korean government banned all artists who had left the country and moved to North Korea, (NOT DURING THE KOREAN WAR!!! Be more specific about the timeline) including Lee Quede, who had to flee and leave his family behind due to the government's restriction on his art and political ideologies. Consequently, his work got executed (how do you "execute" works of art? Use another verb) after the Korean War and was banned from being studied.

More background needed on his activities during the Korean War - how he participated in both North and South (or forced to participate) and as a result faced backlash etc.

I think you need to talk about when the ban was lifted; and it's also worth mentioning the big retrospective at MMCA:

https://kpopherald.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=201508061636325513046_2

Lee Quede's artwork features a variety of drawings and sketches that explore human form, emotions, gestures, and nudes. Most of these pieces were created while he was studying art in Japan during the 1930s. Out of the 300 drawings that were created, 40 of them have survived to this day and can be viewed at the Lee Quede Exhibition held at the Daegu Art Museum. In addition, there are two full text books that contain all of Lee's drawings and notes. The books are over 48 pages with a table of content, starting from the body portions, human skeleton, and muscles, and ending with the head. Among the 74 drawings are 4 of the trunk, 51 of the head, 7 of the arms, 9 of the legs, and 3 of the full body which Lee explains all the details and the movements through his notes. Although Lee Quede's work was executed and banned from being studied after the liberation, his family managed to keep his artwork in South Korea, which allowed his work to eventually receive acknowledgment and appreciation from the public eyes.

Hi Zahra - here are my comments. I think I am noticing a lot of overlap with your peer reviewers and wish you had taken last week (as listed on the syllabus) to make the suggested revisions, which could have allowed you to get feedback on another round of revised draft. I think all reviewers agree that you have an excellent basis, but you need to make sure that your writing and especially grammatical errors do not undermine the wealth of info you are presenting here. I have also made suggestions on where you could improve your contents. Happy to go over these in person, too, but ONLY after you have made some revisions.

* You have multiple typos in the bibliography! Check the author's names (Yeon Shim Chung)

Lead - good length but content needs some revision! Also, make sure that your sentences are grammatically correct - I am noticing many issues with the sentence structure. I am wondering if you could take advantage of the Learning Commons so that someone could copy edit your draft, so that it's free of grammatical issues?

Lee Quede (Korean 이쾌대 1913, Chilgok, Gyeongbuk Province - Feb 2nd, 1965, North Korea) is a modern Korean artists of the early 20th '''century. (aren't early 20th century artists "modern" anyway? And was he active in the EARLY 20th century? He was born in 1913) He (divide sentence) is known for his figure painting s and human anatomy drawings (really? Human anatomy drawings??? Not clear what you mean here).'''

He is the representation of Korean artists who had to go through Korean War (1950 – 1953), after Korean's liberation from Japanese Colonial Period, and got banned (colloquial. Do not use "get" as a verb like this in formal writing. You can just say his works were banned, not "got") from South Korea due to their (his) escape (defection) to North Korea.

-> I am not sure if he is "representative (not representation)" - I mean, virtually every single artist who lived in this period went through the Korean War, and other notable figures who defected were banned, so I would not call him "representative."

Perhaps you could briefly mention that he defected to North Korea during / after (was it during or after? Check dates) and because of that, his work was banned in South Korea until 1988 (make sure that the readers are aware the ban has been lifted).

Early Life
Lee Quede was born in 1913, on the eastern side of South Korea in Chilgok, Gyeongbuk Province.

In the early age, Lee was inspired by his brother Yeo-Seong who was an artist and literature student in Rikkyo University, Japan. Lee Yeo-Seong (use full name here, do not address him only by the first name. Note that Yeo-seong is the full first name. You also need to figure out how to spell these names for consistency - since you do not use hyphen in Quede, you could also use Yeoseong here!) participated in the resistance movement (against what?) in China and got (colloquial) arrested in Korea because of his contribution to the movement; after he got out of prison, Yeo Seong studied economics by being influenced by socialism and Marxism (not sure what you mean here - did he started studying economics because he was influenced by Marxism?? Or was his study influenced by Marxism?). He (<-who??) started to define (strong statement, it sounds like Lee Yeoseong was THE person defining it?) the tradition and origin of the Korean nation and identity to restore its subjectivity under the Japanese occupation. Throughout his activism toward the social role of art in Korea within the colonial context (but this is not discussed at all - how was he related to art? You only mentioned that he studied economics), Yeo became a role model for his little brother Lee Quede.

Lee Quede also went to Japan for his education. He studied in the Imperial School of Fine Arts which currently is Musashino Art University (link?) in Tokyo from 1933 to 1938 and began learning art techniques and skills (I would delete this since it's pretty obvious that's what he was doing in the art school, unless you would like to specify what he studied / what he was exposed to). He experienced (studied? How do you "experience" oil painting?) oil painting based on Western still life and figures.

Activities
Throughout his studying, Lee took part in the White Ox Society, (uppercase, comma) which was a Korean art group in Japan that promoted nationalist consciousness by using the ox as a metaphor of Korean agriculture. Although (is this the right transition? Because? After?) their group got dismissed and rejected by the Japanese police, they changed their name to Artists’ Society (uppercase) in 1938 and continued their activities in their exhibition (what do you mean? Or do you just mean that they simply continued to hold exhibitions of the group??).

In 1941, he joined the New Arstis (typo) Association with other artists, like Lee Lung-seob, (typo) and worked (separate sentence since these two are not really connected / He began to incorporate...or do you mean both Lee Jung-seob and Lee Quede did that since you use the pronoun "they"?) with Korean design and patterns in their artwork. Alongside other co-workers (or do you mean the artists in the New Artist Association?), he believed that artists have a social responsibility to improve society through art and should work hard for it. Therefore, throughout his life, he worked tirelessly to promote his art and point of view throughout his life (I suggest deleting this sentence, or moving it up without "therefore". "throughout his life" is repeated twice

'''*I think it's worth discussing his participation (or forced participation) in both North and South Korean sides during the war and his defection. Doesn't Chung's article have info on that?'''

Art Work *I would double check with the Wiki officers about providing external links
Lee Quede (please refer to artists by their full name, or last name) is known for his figure (figural) paintings of 1920-1040s (typo).  Each artwork contains different styles of insights, expressions, artistic vision, and beauty (vague..). According to Daegu Art Museum Lee Quede depicted (-> painted) many self-portraits, which four of them have survived, and each has different level of insight and expression. "Self-Portrait in Traditional Coat" in 1930, is one of the examples that combines (combine) traditional and Western styles (how?? What do you mean?) together in a unique way.

“Korean Dancer at Rest” (1937) shows a Korean dancer who wears a traditional dress with a traditional hairstyle. The same style (what do you mean by same style?) of painting can be seen in another artwork called “Portrait of Two People” in 1939, which he painted himself with his wife Yu Gabong. In this painting, Yu has a gaze (gazes) toward the audience though Lee himself is hidden in his shadow, looking somewhere else. The shadow and dark mood of the painting more describes discomfort and dislocation.

1938- “Situation” (1938) is another (using "another" makes it sound like he received the same prize before. Please clarify) of Lee's paintings which received a prize in the Nika Ten (do we have translation for this?) in Japan. The dark brown and pale green symbolizes Korea however its competition is pretty confusing as we do not know what is going on in the painting. There is a Shaman, a Korean Dancer who is performing a dance while there are two women on her right side. One woman is wearing traditional clothes while the other one has (reveals? Shows? How do you "have" a naked breast) a naked breast to the viewer. The bowls are broken in front of the Shaman as it looks like she is doing some magic dance (colloquial). Another woman is visible on the left side of Shaman who has gifts in her hands while in the back there is a man who is ignorant and seems not interested in the situation.

Lee Quede and Hyangtosaek
When Lee Quede returned to Korea, he worked on a series of artworks that prompted the concept of  “hyangtosaek” which in English means, “Return to Land.” This term is referring refers to to the political use of the Korean landscape to evoke the traditional customs which were before the colonization of Korea. It became a norm throughout Korean art which encouraged by colonial policy in a  government by supporting exhibition and it got used by Korean painters as a political symbol containing nationalism ideas. (revise sentence structure, and consider dividing it in two. I also think you need a line about the Joseon Art Exhibition) Lee Quede's art work mostly has this term (?? How does a work of art "have" a term in it? Do you mean it falls under this category, or could be described in this term?) in it as it ignores the hard social realities of colonial Korea and instead contains land that is imaginative and has ancient qualities (again, review sentence structure).

One of the examples of his work that provoke hyangtosaek (*italicize) is called “Self-Portrait in Traditional Korean Costume” which got painted in 1940. In this painting, Lee is wearing a modern hat and traditional jacket while holding traditional Korean ink brushes. There is the feature of the landscape that is peaceful (sentence structure). Three women are carrying bundles on their heads (aren't they in the background? The description makes it sound like they are the primary feature of the painting - you could also emphasize that Lee is at the center - provide a better description of the overall composition) while the sense of peace and liveness is present through the harmony of the blue color of jacket, sky and the lakes (<-is this the most important thing related to hyangtosaek? Focus on features related to hyangtosaek or Lee's exploration of his identity as a Korean artist in the 1940s).

'''*Make sure you are paraphrasing! And use uppercase for all titles'''

'''These two paintings seem to need more info on the background - most people would have no idea what you are talking about by "on the Right or the Left" - which is why the article would benefit from a more detailed discussion of Lee's biography during this period, and his involvement in the Right / Left groups. I also wonder if there is a good Wikipedia article you can link to about this period.'''

Other paintings that became famous in the public eye were “Group of people” and “Group IV.” These paintings were representing the celebration of liberation and the revolution that was happening in Korea on whether the nation should be established on the Right or the Left. As the country divided into two, the South Korean government decided to ban the work of artists who left the country and went to North Korea and Lee Quede was one of them who migrated (did he migrate or defect?? Didn't he choose North Korea as a prisoner??) to North korea in 1953. As a result, Lee Quede’s work got executed (?? How do you "execute" work?) after the liberation (um, NOT after liberation, he was doing fine until the Korean War! also in South Korea - specify) and banned from being studied; however, his family kept his artwork and paintings in South Korea. After decades, his work started to receive acknowledgment and appreciation into the public eyes of South Koreans and began to be studied. You could mention the major retrospective at the MMCA here

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