이중섭 읽기 = 〈돌아오지 않는 강〉의 여인은 누구인가?

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Created in the year in which Lee Joong-seop died, the River of No Return series consists of a total of five paintings. This series exhibits a unique composition different from that of Lee’s other works and features the repetition of a mother and child theme. In addition, the thick, black borderlines and melancholy atmosphere of the series differentiate these paintings from Lee’s works depicting children or bulls. Such dark ambience frequently appears in the artist’s paintings produced during periods of emotional hardship―however, this particular composition of a mother and a child is not found in any of his other works. Comprehensively, three interpretations of this are possible. The first is that the series portrays Lee himself and his wife in Japan. This interpretation is based on a cutout of a newspaper advertisement for a Hollywood movie also titled River of No Return that Lee kept alongside a letter from his wife and his own drawings. As the artist repeatedly expressed his longing for his wife and family in numerous letters and drawings, he portrays himself as the listless child in this series next to the mother returning home from afar. The second interpretation is that this series depicts his aged mother, left in the city of Wonsan in North Korea, and himself. None of the artist’s other works portrays his elderly mother. However, in a letter sent to his older brother back in their hometown, Lee wrote of his yearning for his mother. In addition, at the time that he created these paintings, there was news of heavy snowfall in Wonsan, which would have prompted him to produce the series with a longing for his elderly mother. The final interpretation is that these works reflect the artist’s nostalgia for his childhood. This is apparent from the fact that, in the painting with both a white bird and colors, the mother, who has almost arrived home, and the sleeping child are both placed inside a light red circle. As Lee’s works of children depicts utopias, the River of No Return likewise expresses his longing for his idyllic childhood. The series thus can be interpreted in diverse ways depending on one’s perspective. Nevertheless, all of these works portray Lee as a child, thus demonstrating that the series was a soliloquy directed at the artist himself, who was inevitably powerless in a difficult reality.