Are you sure Gim Hong Do drew these?

Born and raised in Korea, whenever I was studying Chosun–the last dynastic kingdom of Korea–history, we covered Gim Hong Do–one of the greatest artists in South Korea. Below are some of his pieces that I like the most.

As one can refer from the artworks, he specialized in drawing the daily lives of common people in Chosun. Not only was he one of the pioneering artists in Korea that implemented true view painting, he did not forget to compose “humor” into this paintings. If you look closely into each person’s face, you can notice that every one of them has different facial expressions. For instance in the first piece called Seodang–it means Village School in Korea–you can see that one student is crying but all the students surrounding him are smiling or trying to silently to laugh. You can infer the situation or read the room atmosphere instantly by looking at their faces.

Another characteristic of his drawings is that each line doesn’t have hesitation and most artworks are drawn instantly. As a result some parts are missing detail or architecturally wrong.

In the first artwork, the student in the front has an overly exaggerated shoulder. In the second one, one of the audience’s hand should have been reversed. Because of these minor but basic mistakes, some researchers say that most artworks that are known as Kim Hong Do’s may not be real, but imitations drawn by less experienced artists. However, some researchers say that these are minor mistakes that can inevitable happen when even skilled artists as Gim Hong Do when drawing swiftly on the spot.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Gim Hong Do drew these?