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Monumentalizing the Ruins of Korean Antiquity: Early Travel Photography and Itinerary of Seoul’s Heritage Destinations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2014

Hyung Il Pai
Hyung Il Pai*
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara. Email: hyungpai@eastasian.ucsb.edu
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Abstract:

This study introduces the oldest photographs of Seoul’s ruins, which have been recycled for more than a century in a wide variety of print sources, such as travelogues, postcards, museum catalogs, and guidebooks. Regardless of the medium, the aesthetic, disciplinary, and cultural biases practiced by the first generation of globe-trotters, diplomats, and commercial photographers to arrive in the Korean peninsula resulted in the mass distribution of the most “picturesque” monuments, such as Buddhist art and architecture, palaces, and fortress gates targeting the “tourist gaze.” By analyzing a select number of stock images of architectural landscapes, which have served as the “scenic” backdrop for framing “native types,” currently part of museum collections and photographic archives, the article will illustrate how such exoticized and romanticized visions of the conquered “Hermit Kingdom” trapped in time and space have continued to impact the trajectory of heritage management policies and the hierarchical ranking system of national treasures and famous places in postwar South Korea.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 21 , Issue 3: SPECIAL ISSUE: Thinking About Cultural Property: The Legal and Public Policy Legacies of John Henry Merryman , August 2014 , pp. 331 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2014 

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