The paper analyzes three artists by looking into their art works; Kim Hongdo and Picasso and Yeats. Kim is the greatest painter Korea has ever seen in history, and Picasso is the greatest painter of the last century, whereas Yeats is the 20th century greatest poet. What they have in common is the literati painting in them.
The first two were painters, well versed in poetry. Kim did not create poems, but poems in pictorial images; the best paintings were created toward the end of his life, after a life-long effort to perfect his strokes in calligraphy. His three-pause execution of a stroke is the key to his perfection of his art. When it reaches the limit of perfection in art, its strokes resemble nothing in the world, an astounding feat in art. The effect the sum of strokes makes in a work of his is tantamount to the pure abstraction of soul in Yeats's supreme poetry, and to the pure abstraction,
or the pure form of Picasso's painting. It is quite natural that the pure abstraction in Picasso evokes the most beautiful sentiment toward the whole humanity. Picasso's secret to his great art must be his literati temperament in art.

• Rhee, Young Suck(Hanyang University)