In the process of mankind’s pursuit of modern civilization, traditional culture has gradually been added with too many negative meanings and even regarded as the opposite of modern value. However, while human beings have enjoyed all the benefits brought by technological progress, they have begun to realize the dark side of modernization, the model of social growth that is unrestrained, the excessive abuse of resources, the nuclear threat, and the global environmental crisis.

With the in-depth reflection on modernity, mankind has begun to rethink tradition, paying attention to the continuity and realistic value of tradition. In the 20th century, artists were among the first groups of people to trace back to ancient history to find the connections between shamanism and human civilization. This essay explores the features of mudang (shamans) in ancient Korean society and makes a comparison with the spiritual and shamanic elements in the art of Kandinsky.

Shamanism is the primitive religion of mankind and one of the important components of human traditional culture. Since the 19th century, with the rise of comparative religion, people’s thoughts have been liberated from religious theology. People began to use a comparative perspective to analyze the evolutionary relationship between world religions and primitive religions. The idea of ​​religious evolution has illuminated the development path of religion (Firestone, 2016).

It is precise because of emancipating the mind and opening the horizons that the understanding of Shamanism has also taken a leap forward. Shamanism is no longer regarded as an anecdote of the ignorance and superstition of the primitive peoples but as an important basis for rational thinking and academic research on human religion. Shamanism has a long history in Korea.

Whenever people encounter something difficult to solve, they always seek help from the mudang, not from Confucianism or Buddhism. In Korea, mudang is an ambassador that use spiritual power to communicate the relationship between man and spirits, and bearers of Sharman culture. They play the role of inheriting Sharman culture.

Korean mudang can be broadly divided into two types, namely charismatic and hereditary mudang. From the motive of joining the Sharman religion, both are passive. Volunteer mudang is almost nonexistent. The charismatic mudang is generally selected by the heavens, while the hereditary mudang is inherited into being mudang through marriage or family heredity. The charismatic mudang is a witch with a special function that can make the spirit possess the body and convey the will of spirits to people.

The charismatic mudang is constrained by gender, age, and social status (Yang, 1988). The basic condition for them to become mudang is to have a possessive experience, that is, to experience a painful and divine witch sickness. Mudang sickness is a necessary condition for becoming a witch.

It is characterized by the sudden appearance of abnormal mental state or frequent dreams, the appearance of ghosts or spirits, hallucinations such as white-bearded old men, being tortured by sickness for no reason, and other symptoms (Yang, 1988). These symptoms are considered symbols from the heavens, meaning the death of a mortal and the regeneration of a new life that can communicate with the great deities.

Hereditary mudang refers to the witch of hereditary witchcraft. Hereditary mudang is all women, and their condition for becoming mudang is through blood or marriage. Therefore, hereditary mudang form a special social class, and their descendants are obliged to inherit the career of their parents. Therefore, their own right to choose independently is subject to restrictions. Hereditary mudang can only marry the mudang’s son. Their husbands are usually mudang spiritual music experts.

Husbands and wives are often both engaged in Shamanism. They help Shaman sacrifices by playing music or acting and participate in various sacrifice activities (Yang, 1988). Hereditary mudang usually has its own spiritual sites. They can only engage in Shamanism in their own territory, and these sites are hereditary as well. As a medium, the charismatic mudang can serve as a bridge between people and spirits to convey spirits’ will, but hereditary mudang does not have this ability (Deutsch, 2017).

They can only tell people’s wishes to spirits, and use various skills to speculate on spiritual will. In the process of hereditary mudang sacrifices, songs and dances and games are the main means to entertain people and worship the spirits.

Sickness is only one necessary condition for becoming a mudang in South Korea. To become a mudang, a worship ceremony must be held. The initiation ceremony is equivalent to the ritual, that is, a ritual for a person to change from an ordinary person to a religious person with divine or magic power.

Although there was also a test of dancing barefoot on the two fodder choppers during the initiation ceremony, an important part of the test of mudang in Korea was to ask spirits to possess and convey their request (Yang, 1988). If this is not possible and the believer’s approval is not obtained, the passage ceremony will be invalid, and a mudang initiation ceremony will be held again until it is passed.

The process of becoming a mudang is actually not easy. For ordinary people to become real mudang, they must first become candidates after experiencing mudang sickness and be recognized by believers and the society through the deities and sacrifices. To gain divine power, a mudang candidate must carefully serve the deities that come to them. In this way, the mudang and the temple form an inseparable bond.

The social functions of mudang include communication between man and spirits, making prophecies, and spiritual healings. Historically, Korean mudangs were both priests and witch doctors. They also had the ability to predict and communicate with humans and spirits. As a priest, the shaman presides over ritual activities such as “lighting candles for their deceased loved ones, seeking special favors of the spirits to repair a distressed marriage or find a new one, or to ask for the restoration of health to the body or business” (Deutsch, 2017).

In ancient times, mudang already possessed the so-called healing function. The royal family and ordinary Korean people were convinced that the root cause of the disease lies in the soul that died injustice. People think that resolving the grievances of unjust souls is the way to cure illness, so when they are sick, they just blindly worship ghosts and spirits and rely on mudang (Mills, 2012).

Divination is another basic function of the mudang. Mudang sometimes uses the power of spirits to predict the ups and downs of the country, and sometimes they are responsible for disaster relief and blessings as intermediaries between people and spirits (Yang, 1988). The tradition of Korean Shamanism is passed down by mudang. It can be said that there is no Korean Shaman culture without a mudang.

Both the artworks of Kandinsky and the Korean Shamanic religion promote the belief in omnipresent spirits or animism. The formation of Kandinsky’s abstract art style is closely related to theosophical and Shamanism cultures, and its roots are in the prevailing cultural atmosphere o at that time in Moscow and Petersburg. Theosophy is a complex of many religious beliefs and spiritual concepts, including the Orthodox Church, Buddhism, and the thoughts of some secret societies in the east and the west.

It believes in monism and pursues higher forms of being that cannot be seen by the eyes (Firestone, 2016). That is, the transcendental spirits hidden behind the material phenomenon. It is a way to see the wisdom of spirit and illuminate the spirituality of the inner soul and the world. The abstract painting method established and developed by Kandinsky is not only a creative painting method but also a state of mind. It is the blend of the spiritual soul and human reason, a reflection of modern industrial civilization, and the manifestation of modern people’s complex ideas of human renewal, struggle, and transcendence.

In the paintings of Kandinsky, geometric painting has become an important symbolic language. He believes that to avoid direct imitation of things, the abstract painting should be partially removed from the external form of the object and transformed into a kind of simple geometric figures and symbols.

It is the simplification by picking a key point that can represent the creative object, can reflect the essential characteristics of abstract objects (Firestone, 2016). Therefore, Kandinsky has his own unique views on the use of geometric figures. Kandinsky focused on the related issues between geometric figures and semiotics, analyzed the essential forms of geometric figures, and combined different geometric figures with each other.

In his view, the creation of these geometric figures should have vitality and spiritual tension (Barnett, & Barnett, 1989). For example, in Kandinsky’s representative work Composition VII, he basically expressed his thoughts with a large number of geometric figures, such as circles, quadrilaterals, and various curves. The geometric shapes show the overall coordination and instability of the coexisting picture effect, but at the same time, there is a directional force. Even shapes are given life and meaning once they become the symbols of spirits.

Similar to the integration of visual and audio art forms in Korean mudang, Kandinsky also makes close associations between visual art and sound. Kandinsky is both a painter and a musician. He feels that “sound is the soul of form, a form that can have life only by virtue of this sound and that produces its effect upon the external world from within” (Firestone, 2016).

For example, yellow is a color that goes upwards continuously, and it can achieve the function of making the eyes and nerves unbearable, just like the high and sharp sound of the horn makes that tingles in the ears and nerves. Blue has the opposite power, which can lead the eyes to infinite depth, making like a flute-like sound, or the sound of the bass violin.

He always dreamed that there would be pure visual music in the works. Therefore, in his paintings, he treats all objects as musical notes, expresses his inner excitement with passionate emotions. In his Romantic Landscape, he depicts several horses running downhill from a hillside. The intense movement, dazzling color points, large color blocks with full dynamics, and the crossing diagonal line that runs through the picture is like an unrestrained symphony being played.

In Composition VII, at first glance, this painting feels extremely confused and messy, but if people feel it carefully, they will find Kandinsky’s skills in a painting composition. There are countless overlaps and changes in the picture. The uneven thickness of the lines is just like the beat of the strong and the weak in music in ancient Shamanism. Thick lines and solid lines are like a strong drumbeat in music, and thin lines and dotted lines are like string instruments in music.

Just like in a beautiful piece of music, only the combination of strong and weak beats can reflect the importance of the song, its tempo, and the intense emotions expressed. The color expression in the picture is also extremely strong. Red, black, blue, and yellow blend together in a chaotic and passionate way. The black dots and lines appearing in the center of the picture are the more prominent parts of the work. This is an indispensable part of the work, which affects the color of the entire picture like a whirlwind.

Through the combination of visual elements and music, Composition VII embraces its viewers in the intense emotions of the artist, making it feel like they were in an ancient Shamanic ritual that celebrated all spirits of the world.

Different from the functions of reflection in Kandinsky’s art, the primary goal of Korean Shamanic culture is to pursue fortune and happiness. The common functions of mudang sacrifices are to pray for blessings, to treat illnesses for healing, and to send the souls of the dead to seek peace and happiness for people living in the world, and to remove disasters.

The shamans believe that the dead can become the ancestors of their families who can protect their children only through the necromancer (Deutsch, 2017). The village mudang festival is undoubtedly a celebration for the auspiciousness and happiness of the entire community. All these shaman sacrifices are designed to purify the living place of the family or tribe and to expel all bad and evil forces, confirm that this place is a sanctuary where spirits can descend.

Therefore, most of the mudang sacrifices, especially in hereditary mudang, usually sing and praise the long narrative songs of mudang festivals, their families or village residents, and the spirits who are invited to festivals. This idea of ​​blessing and happiness has the focus on the current living world, centered around the happiness of human beings.

In mudang sacrifice rituals, the attitudes and styles of people are neither religious nor serious. These rituals often express a sense of spiritual freedom instead of conforming to religious devotion. Unlike the religious priest from many other cultures, the mudang who perform rituals and play the role of spirits are discriminated in society (Yang, 1988).

Through the mudang rituals, humans want to invite spirits to come to the place where man is, instead of sending man going to the place where spirits reside. The spirits or gods appearing in rituals have no individualized personality, and there is no distinction between good and evil ones. This is similar to ancient Greek mythology where all Gods can do both good and bad things to others and to the world.

In the rhythm of life, labor and play, day and night, yin and yang, life and death merge into the center of human beings. There are art and creativity in Shamanism, with no estrangement, no repression, but only the flood of life, joy, and satisfaction. The ideal state of Shaman culture is a culture where knowledge and sensibility are combined with life and death, and freedom and joy create a history of culture.

In conclusion, mudang has been an important part of cultural heritage in Korea. In Korean society, mudang carried important social functions of communication between man and spirits, between living and dead. They were also considered important means for society to obtain fortune and for people to obtain happiness. The fundamental ideas of Shamanism in Korea are the belief in the existence of souls and the need for communication between different forms of consciousness.

These ideas are also reflected in the works of Kandinsky, in which animisms and symbolism are found to be the defining features. Through the use of simple geometry, symbols, and intense colors, Kandinsky creates the perfect combination of music and visual culture. In his celebration of human freedom, imagination, and spirituality, a sense of resemblance is created with the Shamanism rituals in ancient Korea.

References

Barnett, V. E., & Barnett, P. H. (1989). The originality of Kandinsky’s compositions. The Visual Computer, 5(4), 203-213.

Deutsch, L. (2017). Shaman Kim Keumhwa’s Ritualistic Theatre: Engaging with The Spirit World.

Firestone, E. R. (2016). Animism and Shamanism in Twentieth-century Art: Kandinsky, Ernst, Pollock, Beuys. Routledge.

Mills, S. (2012). Sounds to soothe the soul: Music and bereavement in a traditional south korean death ritual. Mortality, 17(2), 145-157.

Tucker, M. (1992). Dreaming with Open Eyes: The Shamanic Spirit in Twentieth-Century Art and Culture. San Francisco: Aquarian.

Yang, J. (1988). Korean Shamanism: The Training Process of Charismatic ‘Mudang’.