When RM of BTS was named global ambassador for the National Museum of Korea in June 2026, his first official move wasn't a photoshoot — it was a quiet walk through a special exhibition of an 18th-century painter named Kim Hong-do (김홍도). Within hours, a Joseon-dynasty artist was trending with fans worldwide asking the obvious question: who is this guy, and why does the biggest name in K-pop care?
Joseon's superstar painter
Kim Hong-do (1745-1806), better known by his pen name Danwon (단원), was the defining painter of late Joseon Korea. He had the royal gig — court painter to King Jeongjo, trusted with state ceremonies and royal portraits — and the range: landscapes, flowers and birds, Buddhist subjects, documentary court scenes. Korea's National Museum currently gathers 96 of his works in one hall, from misty seascapes to a painting of a Pyongyang governor's banquet crowded with more than 2,500 individual figures.
But that's not why Koreans love him.
The painter of ordinary people
Ssireum (씨름, Wrestling), from Kim Hong-do's Treasure-designated genre album.
National Museum of Korea collection — public domain.
Kim Hong-do's immortal works are his pungsokhwa (풍속화, genre paintings) — quick, warm, funny scenes of everyday Joseon life. The Treasure-designated Danwon pungsokdocheop album includes the two images every Korean grows up with: Ssireum (씨름), where a ring of spectators leans into a wrestling match — including one distracted snack vendor — and Mudong (무동), a boy dancing mid-leap to a folk band.
No kings. No idealized mountains borrowed from Chinese manuals. Just people — laughing, straining, showing off. In an era when "serious" art meant looking away from daily life, Kim Hong-do pointed straight at it and found it worth painting. That's why the RM connection lands: an artist documenting the texture of ordinary Korean joy is, functionally, the great-great-grandfather of every fancam, variety show, and slice-of-life music video K-culture exports today.
The RM effect
Fans have long tracked RM's museum visits the way they track photocard prices — his gallery posts routinely send attendance soaring, a phenomenon Korean museums openly call the "RM effect." The ambassador appointment made it official policy: Korea is using its biggest pop export to route global attention toward its classical culture. Judging by the crowds at the Kim Hong-do exhibition — BTS leader one week, packed galleries the next — it works.
Seeing it yourself
- The exhibition: Danwon Kim Hong-do: Painting an Era, National Museum of Korea (Seoul), through August 2, 2026 — 50 titles, 96 works, including 11 leaves of the genre album. Admission is free.
- Plan around it: if you're flying in for a concert anyway (see our survival guide to Korean ticketing), the museum is a subway ride from most of Seoul — and the gift shop's museum-goods line has become a fan collectible in its own right.
- From abroad: the museum's online collection database serves high-resolution scans of the genre album — the paintings are public domain, and the details (check the snack vendor) reward zooming in.