In publishing the book

Part 1 Women

1 Was she really a serial killer?
[Curious] Witch Hunt | Sexism
2 Who is the corset for?
[Curious] Foot Binding | Violence Against Women | Socially Vulnerable People
3. You must be beautiful even when you die.
[Curious] National Human Rights Commission Petition Concerning Flight Attendant Dress Code | Declaration of Women's Rights
4. The novel "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" redrawn
[Curious] The History of Women's Suffrage | Suffrage (Political Rights)
5 The Death of the Little Match Girl
[Curious] Children's Rights | The Flesh-Colored Crayon Case
6 Break the Glass Ceiling
[Curious] Ruth Bader Ginsburg | The Glass Ceiling

Part 2 Labor

1 He is on vacation
[Curious] The Dong-A Ilbo Blank Paper Incident | The Right to Rest
2. History of Human Rights, History of Struggle
[Curious] Jeon Tae-il and the Labor Standards Act | Three Labor Rights
3 Stop being like ramen youth
[Curious] The Screen Door Accident at Seoul's Guui Station and the Taean Thermal Power Plant Accident | Non-Regular Workers
4. Meet the Republic of Korea at Maseok
[Curious] Miners and Nurses Dispatched to Germany | Industrial Accidents
5 Thinking about women's labor
[Curious] International Women's Day | International Labor Organization
6 There is no such thing as insignificant labor.
[I'm curious] Labor rights

Part 3 Discrimination and Hatred

1 Discriminatory perceptions contained in ableist expressions
[Curious] Derogatory and Correct Expressions for People with Disabilities | Exceptions to Discrimination | Discrimination Against People with Disabilities
2 Hatred, Discrimination, and Refugees
[Curious] Syrian Civil War | Holocaust | Imperialism
3 Jesus was also a refugee
[Curious] UNHCR | Refugees
4. The time when discrimination disappears
[Curious] Key Events in the Black Resistance Movement | Racial Discrimination
5 A world where differences greet and face each other
[Curious] Rohingya Genocide | Kwantung Massacre | Pyongyang Chinese Massacre | LGBTQ+ | Protection of Ethnic Minorities
6 The invisible line of discrimination
[Curious] The French Revolution | The Gabo Reforms | Human Dignity and Value

Part 4: The State

1. A drug addict held life and death in his hands.
[Curious] Jeju April 3 Incident | Ideological Conversion System
2. Not all beautiful and brilliant history repeats itself.
[I'm curious] The Spanish Civil War
3. On the obligations that the state must fulfill
[Curious] Disaster and the Right to Safety | The Right to Life
4 A sad law made when the country was weak
[Curious] Rule of Law | People's Revolutionary Party Incident | National Defense Corps Incident | Yushin Constitution
5 Another Ugliness of the Revolution
[Curious] Personal Liberty and Security | Genocide | Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
6 'Jeongjo' still alive and breathing in the 21st century
[Curious] Japanese Military Comfort Women | UN Human Rights Council

Part 5 Dignity

1. Right to Survive in Heat Waves
[Curious] Climate Crisis and Human Rights | Greta Thunberg | Environmental Rights
2 No one deserves to be hit
[Curious] Children and Adolescents' Right to Life, Survival, and Development | The Best Interests Principle of the Child | The Right to Play
3 War, Peace, and Humanity
[I'm curious] The UN Charter
4. To be able to live with dignity
[Curious] Support for Women in Prostitution | UN Women | Misogyny
5 Even sinners have human rights.
[Curious] Human Rights in Correctional Facilities | Right to Health | Principle of Legality
6 Everyone becomes old
[Curious] Elderly Poverty and Suicide in South Korea | Elderly Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Sources and References

"This is a truly comprehensive human rights textbook, beautifully interweaving key human rights themes with famous paintings." _Professor Cho Hyo-je
“When you resonate with a masterpiece, your fierce feelings of hatred, anger, and discrimination disappear.” _Eunyu Writer
“The concept of human rights seems to have taken root not only in my head but also in my heart.” _Writer Kim Tae-kwon

“From the perspective of a human rights investigator
“See, read, and think about world-famous paintings.”

Including works by Picasso, Delacroix, and Van Gogh
Discover key themes of human rights in the works of lesser-known artists at home and abroad.
By reading the history, concepts, and related events of human rights in it,
A thorough human rights textbook that carefully examines the basic rights we must respect!

Park Min-kyung, who has worked for the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (hereinafter referred to as the “Human Rights Commission”) for over 15 years as an investigator, administrator, and human rights education operator, has published a human rights education book titled “Art Museum Where People Live,” which weaves together major human rights topics as the warp and world-famous paintings as the weft.
This book is a human rights manual with a new perspective, using the medium of 'pictures' to explain the 'basic human rights' that the author has seen, heard, and experienced in the field while at the National Human Rights Commission in an easy and interesting way.
By discovering key human rights themes in works by well-known artists like Picasso, Delacroix, and Van Gogh, as well as lesser-known artists at home and abroad, and reading the history, concepts, and related events of human rights within them, we meticulously point out the fundamental rights that must be respected and protected in this society.
This book is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that has had a profound impact on protecting and respecting human rights around the world.

《The Museum of Human Life》 divides the main concepts of human rights into five broad categories: ‘women,’ ‘labor,’ ‘discrimination and hatred,’ ‘state,’ and ‘dignity.’
It includes essential human rights topics such as children, people with disabilities, refugees, race, genocide, corporal punishment, the climate crisis, war and peace, prisoners, and the elderly.
This film tells the story of how women face great difficulties in a world where the glass ceiling still exists, how the workplace where people work to make a living has become a place where lives are taken, how discrimination develops into hatred and what tragedy that hatred causes, how many human rights violations the state has committed, and finally, why human dignity must be respected. This story is told in an entertaining way through famous paintings.
The masterpieces introduced here are scenes viewed through the lens of human rights rather than aesthetic value, and they provide food for thought through three-dimensional perspectives through dynamic stories intertwined with historical backgrounds, events, and characters.
The author doesn't stop there, but creates a "I'm curious" section at the end of each manuscript, providing detailed explanations of the concepts of human rights and related events mentioned in the text, thereby helping readers think about humanities topics such as history, society, and politics.


Author Park Min-kyung says, “I used to like paintings for their aesthetics, but after working at the National Human Rights Commission, I began to think about the human lives contained within them.”
So, I wanted to introduce famous paintings from around the world that made people think about human rights, and I emphasized that I wanted to explain human rights through pictures in an easy-to-understand way.
Although I am not well-versed in art or have studied human rights academically, it may have been possible because I have worked for a long time as a member of the Human Rights Commission and have heard living voices in the educational field.
Above all, it is noteworthy that this book lectures on the dignity, freedom, political, social, economic, and cultural rights that we must be respected and protected by from the state and society, using world-renowned paintings and real-life examples.
So it's easy, interesting, and fun to read.
"The Art Museum Where People Live" will serve as a valuable guide for young and adult readers living in this era, where the concept of human rights is still unfamiliar, to properly recognize their rights and cultivate a sense of balance.
It will also serve as an optimal educational resource for teachers who wish to foster human rights awareness in their students.


Written based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The story of a person living in a beautiful painting

“Know how to empathize with others and recognize each other’s differences
When we become a society with a strong sense of human rights,
I believe that this can become a ‘world where people can live.’

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was the first document in which the world agreed to state in writing that all people are free and equal, regardless of their sex, color, creed, religion, or other characteristics.
It consists of 30 articles and serves as the basis for respecting and protecting human rights and freedoms.
The texts set forth here are not without their comprehensiveness, as they have been refined to ensure maximum respect for everyone's rights.
That's why it's not easy to read our actual 'lives' between the lines of the text.
Author Park Min-kyung uses her favorite art as a medium to explain human rights in a way that is more closely related to our lives and is easy and fun to understand.


This book is divided into five parts.
Part 1, “Women,” tells the story of how prejudice against women can have dire consequences through Istvan Zorc’s “The Torture of Countess Bathory.”
In Pietro Longhi's painting "Fainting," we examine the corset, a symbol of violence that forced women to be beautiful, and in Paul Delaroche's "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey," which required women to remain beautiful even in death, we speak frankly about the human rights violations and discrimination committed by the Korean airline family.
On the other hand, we look back on the history of women's suffrage by connecting it with John Singer Sargent's "Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth," which depicts the image of a dignified woman, and we also find children's rights in Floris Arntgenius's "The Little Match Girl," and the images of strong women who lived their own lives in Honoré Daumier's "Bluestockings" and Artemisia Gentileschi's "Judith Beheading Holofernes."

In Part 2, ‘Labor,’ we look at Vincent van Gogh’s “Noontime Rest” to point out that workers’ right to rest must be guaranteed, and look at Honoré Daumier’s “Insurrection” and Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People: July 28, 1830” to examine why poor women had no choice but to jump into the labor struggle.
Looking at Russian painter Ilya Repin's "Workers on the Volga" and Henry Willis's "The Stonebreaker," he criticizes the unstable working conditions of a young man who died in a screen door accident at Seoul's Guui Station. Looking at portraits of Asians painted during the Renaissance, he points out that even foreigners should not be discriminated against in their work and should be able to enjoy a decent standard of living.
It is a warning that we must not overlook the fact that the establishment of 'International Women's Day' was triggered by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911, and that behind the beautiful 'Mont Saint-Michel', which took a thousand years to build, the harsh labor of ordinary people was hidden.

In Part 3, “Discrimination and Hatred,” we examine the widespread expressions of disability hatred in our daily lives through 16th-century genre painter Pieter Bruegel’s “The Blind Leading the Blind,” and we are reminded of the Syrian refugee Kurdi through “The Rescue” by Honoré Daumier, a painter who most realistically portrays the lives of ordinary people.
Looking at British artist Ford Maddox Brown's "The Last of England," we look back at the history of the Korean people as refugees and emphasize that there should be no borders in protecting human dignity.
In Klöcker Ehrenstrahl's "The Negro, the Parrot, and the Ape" and William Turner's "The Slave Ship," we look at the human rights and major events of black people, in Yoo Young-ho's "The Greeting Man," we look at the acts of hatred and discrimination against "difference" toward ethnicity, race, and sexual minorities, and in Gustave Courbet's "Hello, Mr. Courbet," we look at the bold crossing of the line of social status from a human rights perspective.

In Part 4, “The State,” the author looks at Eugène Delacroix’s “Massacre at Chios” and recalls the Jeju April 3 Incident, emphasizing that the history of violence must be recorded and remembered so that it is not repeated.
Pablo Picasso's Guernica brought the world to light of the horrific state violence perpetrated by the Franco dictatorship.
Théodore Géricault's "The Raft of the Medusa" is a painting depicting the wreck of the Medusa, which coincidentally overlaps with the Sewol ferry disaster.
While looking at the most famous sculpture, the Dying Lion, in Lucerne, Switzerland, we get a glimpse into the history of our country's mercenaries. In the stained glass on the church wall of a village in Vendée, France, and Jean Souriel's The Battle of Le Mans, we see the ugly massacre of civilians that took place after the French Revolution. While looking at Nicolas Poussin's The Kidnapping of the Sabine Women and Charles Christian Nal's The Rape of the Sabine Women, we continue with a sharp critique of the prejudice and hatred experienced by Kim Hak-soon, a victim of Japanese military sexual slavery.

In Part 5, “Dignity,” we look at Carl Spitzweg’s “The Poor Poet” to see that everyone has the right to health, happiness, and a decent standard of living; we look at Danwon Kim Hong-do’s “Seodang” to see that children and adolescents have the right to be protected from violence and abuse; and we look at Käthe Kollwitz’s “Mothers” to see that the continuation of peace, not war, is the most certain human right that humans can enjoy.
Looking at Henri de Toulouse-Lautrez's "Examination of the Sick," we discuss the importance of individual "dignity" over freedom of occupational choice, and through Vincent van Gogh's "Promenade of the Prisoners," we reflect on the ultimate purpose and reason for existence during the correctional period.
Finally, in Quinten Mathis's "The Ugly Duchess," we read about the hatred and discrimination against old age, and in Anna Dorothea Terbusch's "Self-Portrait with Spectacles," we discover that a graceful and dignified old age is also possible.
Above all, we demand that we view the elderly not simply as ‘objects of charity’ but as ‘parties with rights.’