preface
Recommendation
About Escher
Looking up at the star field at the top of the page

primitive art
1 Virtual and Real

naked eyes
Play, labor, and magic
Golden Bough
Escher's World
Pygmalion
Escher's World

Ancient Art and Aesthetics
2 The Birth of Virtuality

Land of Osiris
Noble simplicity and quiet grandeur
School of Athens
Escher's World 3
Apollo and Dionysus
In the amphitheater

Medieval Art and Aesthetics
3 Beyond the virtual

Light and Darkness
Agnew's Day
Escher's World 4

Scholastic philosophy in stone
In the cathedral
The Temptation of the Saint
Escher's World 5
The Name of the Rose

Modern Art and Aesthetics
4 Virtual Resurrection

Da Vinci and Michelangelo
Dürer's Laboratory
Escher's World 6
Baroque master
Aesthetica
Escher's World 7
The Judgment of Paris
Glass Bead Game
At the theater
Odyssey of the Mind
In front of the cafe
Escher's World 8

About Beauty
5 Beautiful Virtual

Venus and Nefertiti
Escher's World 9
aesthetic categories
A Walk with Euclid. 305
Escher's World 10

References
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《Aesthetic Odyssey》, a classic of our time that opened the world of aesthetics.
The original and delightful aesthetician Jin Jung-kwon presents a new perspective on 'beauty' and 'art' and a unique aesthetic sensibility.
Crossing the spatial and temporal boundaries of ancient, medieval, and modern times, it depicts the history of art and philosophy at a glance with the works of Escher, Magritte, and Piranesi.

"A book that speaks to its own aesthetics, rather than simply presenting Western aesthetic theory in a crude and unfamiliar form."
-Yoo Hong-jun (art historian, author of "My Cultural Heritage Tour")
“I learned aesthetics from this book.
“I also learned how to write from this book.”
- Jaeseung Jeong (Professor, Department of Bio and Brain Engineering, KAIST)
“It is no ordinary feat to be able to write about aesthetics and art history so flexibly and at a popular level.”
Park Young-taek (Professor of Art Management, Kyonggi University, art critic)
“It is a guide that is perfect for leading teenagers, who are burning with sensitivity, into the deep world of literature, history, and philosophy.”
-An Gwang-bok (philosophy teacher at Jungdong High School)

1.
Their own aesthetics into our aesthetics!
-The first book and representative work that introduced the world of aesthetics to Korea.
Published on January 15, 1994, 《Aesthetics Odyssey》 is the first book to introduce aesthetics to Korea and the debut work that made Jin Jung-kwon, a power writer and aesthetician, a success. As the author himself confesses, it is a book written with "vigorous intellectual curiosity and the ecstatic joy of discovering something new," and it is a book that still evokes "a sense of wonder or awe, wondering when I ever wrote something like this."
At a time when aesthetics was largely unknown to the public, the delightful aesthetician Jin Jung-kwon presented a new perspective on 'beauty' and 'art' and a unique aesthetic sensibility through his unique, conversational writing style.
Without any special promotion, "Aesthetic Odyssey" has maintained its position as a bestseller for 20 years solely through word of mouth from readers. By introducing a unique writing format that three-dimensionally organizes the basic knowledge of aesthetics along with the history of philosophy and the works of artists, it has popularized the difficult field of aesthetics.
Not only does it demonstrate how to interpret and critique art, crossing the boundaries of diverse disciplines like philosophy, psychoanalysis, and semiotics, but it also explores the magnificent world of beauty by introducing Escher, Magritte, and Piranesi into each volume, offering a new way of thinking where the experience of art leads to philosophical reflection on the world and life.
This book, which uniquely unravels the world of 'beauty' and 'art' through the author's unique perspective that seems to traverse the vast expanse of space, is still recognized as a representative introductory work to aesthetics and is recognized for its cultural value.


2.
The 20th Anniversary Edition of "Aesthetic Odyssey": Rewriting the Cultural History of Books
A publishing culture that focuses on steady sellers, not just bestsellers.
“It is not Goethe’s works that make Goethe what he is today, but the tens of thousands of different editions of Goethe.” There are over 1,200 editions of Goethe’s Italian Journeys around the world, with dozens of editions published in 1999 alone for the 170th anniversary, and hundreds of different editions published in 2008 for the 200th anniversary of Faust.
In European publishing culture, the publication of 20th, 30th, 60th, and 100th anniversary editions is not unusual.
This stems from a long historical tradition of presenting the same work in different editions, starting with the Bible, which already produced 200,000 editions before the advent of modern publishing in Europe in the late 19th century.
It is no exaggeration to say that there is a cultural gene for the new edition.
By continuously reviving works of classical value, we can ensure that they continue to be bestsellers for a long time and remain as cultural assets.
So, what is the reality of our publishing landscape? Korean publishing, which follows the Japanese publishing culture, is busy searching for new texts.
Only new releases and bestsellers matter.
Because there was no experience in focusing on steady sellers per se, even the best domestic works that have been consistently loved by readers for over 20 years have only been published in revised editions (with the new content always being the center of attention), and there have been no editions commemorating their history.
The 20th Anniversary Edition of Jin Jung-kwon's "Aesthetic Odyssey" is the first attempt to commemorate and express gratitude for the work's 20 years of popularity and recognition for its value and cultural significance.
It is in this context that the 20th anniversary edition is intended to be popularized among a new generation of readers through contemporary editing and design, rather than being limited to a high-end readership through a complete collection or hardcover.

《Gombrich's World History》, published in 1936 and reissued in 2006 as a 70th anniversary edition, included a preface by Gombrich's granddaughter.
Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, republished in 2005 as a 30th anniversary edition, was also published without revisions to the original work, with the author's new preface, several book reviews, and the restoration of the publisher Robert Trivers's preface, which had been included in the first edition but then deleted.
A new preface or recommendation by the author commemorating the long history of a book has its own cultural and historical significance.

In a society that has never considered the cultural significance of publishing an unrevised commemorative edition of a work, the 20th anniversary edition of Aesthetic Odyssey poses a new topic.
This is especially significant as the works published in the 1990s, which marked the beginning of the publication of popular educational books in Korean society, are now celebrating their 20th anniversary.
We hope that this will serve as an opportunity to reexamine the social significance of domestic best-selling works that have been loved for over 20 years, such as Yoo Hong-jun's "My Cultural Heritage Tour" in 1993, "Aesthetic Odyssey" in 1994, Lee Jin-kyung's "Philosophy and the Chimney Sweeper", and Jeong Min's "A Walk Through the Aesthetics of Chinese Poetry" in 1996, and to communicate with a new generation.
The 20th anniversary edition of Aesthetic Odyssey marks the first generation, the first era, of passing on classic works to the next generation and establishing a cultural consensus across generations in our society.


3.
A model of popular education writing that has continued for 20 years!
Aesthetic Odyssey exemplifies the need for a popular intellectual book that maintains a professional level while also creating a popular connection, with a structure that rivals the groundbreaking form of Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach, a narrative that utilizes a dual code that is both popular and elitist, reminiscent of Eco, and a writing style that seems aimed at the digital generation.

This book embodies the format of "three-part counterpoint," where a history of aesthetics organized according to the flow of major discourses, a history of philosophy composed of hypothetical conversations between philosophers, and the works of Escher, Magritte, and Piranesi unfold independently while simultaneously illuminating themes.
The colloquial writing style, intended to aid readers' understanding, was criticized as being "undignified" at the time of publication, but it later resonated deeply with the digital generation and spread through word of mouth among readers for a long time.
《Aesthetic Odyssey》, which features colloquial writing, an exquisite harmony of image and text, and the formal innovation of three-part counterpoint, is read as a novel by the general public, but like 《The Name of the Rose》, which is read as a philosophical history dealing with postmodern discourse, it simultaneously serves as a popular and specialized aesthetic theory book, becoming a model for popular knowledge books in Korea.
This book received praise from readers and was recommended by various organizations (100 books that shone in the 1990s, 50 classics of our time, 20 books recommended to CEOs, 50 must-reads for 19-year-olds, recommended books selected by Seoul National University and KAIST, must-reads for teenagers selected by Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, etc.), and has established itself as a classic of our time for 20 years since its publication, leading the popularization of aesthetics and being recognized for its cultural value.

Jin Jung-kwon persistently ponders over ‘how’ to compose and speak rather than ‘what’ to describe and explain.
He believes that a single painting or phrase he encounters by chance can give rise to thoughts that surpass his imagination. He constantly reconstructs and rearranges them with a unique perspective, demonstrating his own free-spirited adventure of thought.
The preface by Gombrich's granddaughter, included in the 70th anniversary reissue of "Gombrich's World History," is a detailed account of "how Gombrich wrote this book," which she heard from her grandmother when she was young. Through this, readers can get a glimpse into Gombrich's writing style and the process of how this book came to be.

4.
A glance at the history of aesthetics from primitive times to the present.
-Introduction to the book "Aesthetic Odyssey"
Consisting of three volumes, "Aesthetic Odyssey" presents the history of philosophy that forms the basis for understanding aesthetics in an easy-to-understand manner by arranging fictional dialogues between Plato, Aristotle, and Diogenes, and visually illustrating difficult aesthetic concepts at a glance through the works of Escher, Magritte, and Piranesi.
The conflict between the rationalist mainstream represented by Plato and Aristotle and the irrationalist non-mainstream from Diogenes to Nietzsche is systematically organized through witty, fictional dialogues.
Volume 1, which contains 'Exploring the World of Beauty with Escher', explains the difference between naturalistic and geometric styles through Escher's works along with the aesthetic history of ancient, medieval, and modern art.
In Volume 2, which contains 'Exploring the World of Beauty with Magritte', we begin with Hegel, who completed modern philosophy, and Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse, who opened new horizons in modern art, and then examine the progression of thought from 'form' to 'content' through the surrealist painter Magritte.
Volume 3 of 'Exploring the World of Beauty with Piranesi' reveals the difference between pre-modern art, which reproduced reality, and modern art, which presents an invisible reality, and at the same time, shows the flow of aesthetic history at a glance through the various works of Piranesi, an 18th-century architect and printmaker.
The novelist Borges appears as an aesthetic emblem expressing the philosophical problems implicit in Piranesi's work.

This book uses the conceptual framework of 'virtual and reality' as the basic framework of the narrative, and organizes various art theories and problematic areas of aesthetics in an easily understandable manner.
Volume 1 covers prehistoric times when the virtual and real were indistinguishable, and historical times when the distinction between the virtual and the real existed. Volume 2 covers modern times when the boundary between the virtual and the real is once again blurred.
Volume 3, which deals with postmodernism, shows the subversive nature of the virtual replacing reality.