The Characteristics of Calligraphic Script of Published Hangeul Documents in the 18th Century of the Joseon Dynasty and their Significance in Calligraphy History

The subject of this study is the published Hangeul documents in the 18th century of the late Joseon Dynasty. Its purpose is to trace and inspect the process of change of Hangeul scripts in documents, reveal its aesthetic characteristics, and examine the value that can affect the creation of Hangeul calligraphy and modern Korean life. Among the Hangeul documents published by government offices and the private sector in the 18th century, I selected 60 types of Hangeul documents with excellent calligraphic scripts, high readability, and clear bibliographical information and studied them. The scripts of the published Hangeul documents in the 18th century are flexible in strokes and shapes and appear in various ways depending on the printing method, such as woodblock, wooden type, and metal type. In particular, Oryunhaengsildo(1797), which was printed in an organized wooden type, shows the settled appearance of Hangeul characters in the 18th century in terms of the balance and stability of calligraphic scripts. On the other hand, in terms of content, the published Hangeul documents in the 18th century reflect the trends and demands of the times in various ways, such as Yuneum Eonhae(the king’s word with Hangeul annotation), edification books, and foreign language learning books. The characteristics of the published Hangeul documents during this period and their significance in calligraphy history are as follows. 1. In the early 18th century, Hangeul literature for edifying people was mainly published. In the later period, Hangeul literature on history, foreign languages, literature, and medicine reflecting changes throughout society, politics, and economy was published, and there was much of Hangeul literature related to foreign language education, such as Qing, Mongolian, Wae(Japanese), and Manchurian. 2. The Hangeul documents in the 18th century printed by the king’s order mainly used Musinja(metal type cast in 1668). The appearance of the characters is long and rigid, but the woodblock print of the central government edition led by the state is close to the elegant handwriting. In the latter years, it begins to change into the manuscript form of court-style calligraphic scripts. 3. Books on military science were published in the local government offices, and most medical books were published by the central government. 4. I could find the characteristics of calligraphy history that the Dodum style(block print style of calligraphy) in the early days of Hangeul creation changed and settled down as the Batang style(manuscript style of calligraphy).