“This is just the beginning,” Ri Ryul Son thought when he began to take up fine art after he was demobilized due to a wound he had suffered during the Fatherland Liberation War (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953). But this turned out to be his lifelong motto.

The 92-year-old People’s Artist lives in Ryonhwa-dong No. 2, Central District, Pyongyang, and he still recalls with deep emotion how he could survive the agony of having his wounded left leg amputated and realize his childhood dream.

Thanks to the state policy, Ri received a prosthetic replacement for the leg and got into Pyongyang College of Fine Arts in late 1952. He worked hard to learn the rudiments of the Korean painting. He set it as his goal and ideal to keenly feel the breath of the times and the pulse of the reality and put them into painting. During the college days he drew “Peasant Pak Je Gun,” a Korean painting on the wartime theme.

It depicts a farmer covering a wounded solider with his body from an attacking enemy aircraft. With strained eyes the farmer looks sharply at the way ahead, with thick plumes of gun smoke billowing up. It is a good reflection both of the character and of settings.

The work won admiration at the Sixth World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow.

Asked about how he came to draw such a lifelike picture, Ri said it was based on what he had witnessed in wartime.

While in college, he already excelled himself in figure painting, making his future promising.

Ri graduated from the college in 1957 and became a teacher at his alma mater.

He spared no efforts to train his students to be promising painters. Among his disciples are People’s Artists, PhDs, professors and competent creators, namely Jong Yong Man, a world-famous painter who is honoured with twice Labour Hero title, Kim Il Sung Prize and People’s Artist. They are carrying on the baton of the country’s fine art circle.

Ri Ryul Son was a merited educator and renowned creator as well. As he worked as department head and dean, he asked the teachers to make constant and strenuous efforts to improve their painting skills. And he set a good example for them.

In 1961, he went to a tideland reclamation site with his students to guide their on-site drawing. At the site he drew “Tideland Reclamation” that vividly described builders and surrounding scenes. This work earned him such compliments of the Korean painting circle as the frontrunner of real figure painting by single stroke technique and a torchbearer of modern Korean painting.

The work was exhibited at the Korean National Art Museum as part of the national permanent collection.

Thoughtfulness, comprehension, boldness and virtuosity are Ri’s individual features and lifelong principles of depiction.

He always says “Once you fully understand the scene before picking up the brush, it will take you less time to finish the picture.”

Ri has so far drawn more than 100 Korean paintings, including 10-odd permanent collection pieces such as “Supreme Commander Kim Il Sung Showing Concern to Servicemen’s Living,” “Making Their Way through Swamp,” “Koguryo People in Their Fight against Invaders,” “Tiger in Mt Paektu” and “Pine.”

Ri Ryul Son used to take a fresh attitude towards each painting as if it was just the beginning for him all the time. Though he retired in 1998, he still refuses to put down the brush and tries to transfer his knack to young artists.

He was interviewed at the venue of the fine art exhibition for aged artists held in April in Pyongyang to celebrate the 113th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung .

Ri attended the show with “The Breath of Sangwon” and “The Greenhouse Farm Pays Off,” two paintings that are wonderful enough to showcase the unblurred brushwork of the war veteran.

Kim Hyok