For more than two decades, Han HanGuk, popularly known as the “world peace artist”, has painstakingly drawn world maps of various countries using Korean alphabets, to spread the message of love, peace and harmony. His latest creation is a spectacular “Qatar Peace Map” that elicits awe and admiration at once.
By using 5,000 Korean letters measuring 1cm in length and width, on Korean traditional paper of 220cm wide and 300cm long, the Korean calligrapher-artist has pieced together an elaborate Qatar Peace Map. In this beautiful work of art, HanGuk concisely describes “the culture, history and constitution of the State of Qatar”, and writes a poem “wishing for Qatar’s prosperity” in Korean letters. Apart from depicting Qatar’s national flag, and the Oryx, he shows many people living peacefully within a circular phrase of ‘God, protect the State of Qatar’ with oriental stamp ink.
Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in Qatar, Heung-Kyeong Park told Community, “HanGuk is an amazing calligrapher who has spent more than 20 years creating such work, having created peace maps of nearly three dozen countries and putting in a word of prayer and hope with each of them. It took him almost a year to prepare his latest work, the Qatar Peace Map, which wishes for peace and prosperity of Qatar. HanGuk completed this work in September, and I hope we can get him down to Doha sometime in co-operation with a Qatari partner interested in this endeavour.”
HanGuk is the only artist in his lifetime to have exhibited his artwork at the UN, and to have also sent Kim Jong-Il of North Korea a piece of art titled, ‘We are One’, according to Smart World Peace Forum. A descendant of master calligrapher Han Seok Bong, HanGuk grew up seeing his musician father “holding drum sticks”. But his father advised him to pick up the brush instead. Upon his father’s advice, HanGuk, from a young age, learned Chinese characters and calligraphy from two teachers.
It was a dream he would dream more than two decades ago that would change his whole life. In the dream, he saw scores of people praying for world peace and scores lining up in front of a gallery displaying maps of various countries drawn with Korean letters. When he checked the name of the artist who had created the artwork, the signature revealed – Han HanGuk. Right after he saw this very vivid dream, HanGuk began drawing maps countries using Korean letters.
Of all his work, the biggest peace map took HanGuk five years, all of which he spent working 12 hours a day. Eventually handed over to North Korea, this work was produced with a total of 80,000 Korean characters titled, ‘We are One’ – North Korea sent a note of thanks acknowledging having received this gift. HanGuk has always desired for the unification of Korea. Splattered all over this epic piece were letters written by poets representing both North and South Korea and also the letters of family members in Korea who were separated after the war.
Interestingly, this Sunday, October 9, is the 570th anniversary of the promulgation of the Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in Korea. In 1446, King Sejong promulgated 24 Korean letters. He had recognised the difficulty that the majority of commoners had experienced in learning tens of thousands of Chinese characters, and along with his scholars, devised a new phonetic script. The scholars designed 14 consonant letters according to articulatory phonetics and 10 vowels according to the principles of yin and yang.
The resulting Korean alphabet was also termed “morning letters” because it was believed that a clever man could learn them before the morning was over. “After more than 550 years, today, 99 percent of Koreans continue to read and write with these letters today. In this sense, the invention of Korean alphabet is a historical expression of pure humanism,” Park said.
Despite developing knee problems and enduring pain for years on end, HanGuk kept creating artworks by relying on knee protectors. “If even a single letter is wrong, then the years of hard work goes to waste, which is why he puts in every ounce of his strength to his artwork,” his bio on Smart World Peace Forum says. “That is why this map of world peace that was created through pain, sacrifice, determination and perseverance makes those who see it solemn.”