The portrait is a genre that recreates a specific individual image, and it naturally reflects not only the outer characteristics and aesthetic viewpoint of the subject but also certain inner characteristics such as how the society in which the portrait was drawn views humanity. Therefore, it is indispensable to have a correct understanding of individuality. However, it is not an exaggeration to state that explanations of individuality in East Asian Confucian society are direly lacking. Terminologies that we customarily use such as“self”(“moi”in French) or “individual”(“individu”in French) are words loaned from western philosophical concepts signifying “an existence as a subject of perception, desire, and action which is separate from the external world or other human beings”or “a human being as an individuality that is irreplaceable with others.”Such meanings, however, are remote from the individuality of traditional East Asian society and that has been a cause of incomplete understanding of traditional portraits. Originally, the Confucian self was an active being with moral autonomy and the ability to judge appropriate patterns of behavior in each of the five cardinal relations(五倫): the parent-child, ruler-subject, husband-wife, old-young, and fiend-friend human relationships. However, as Confucianism became politically ideologized during the Han Dynasty and filial piety(孝) became known as the supreme value, the active individual self became submerged into a hierarchy of family ethics centered on the head of the family. Nevertheless, in spite of such a regression of individual autonomy, the Confucian individual can still be said to be a relational being that actively chose and carried out roles proper to the self within the horizontal relationship network of the five cardinal relations and the vertical[hierarchical] relationship network of the four classes(四民). The East Asian Confucian society based on these five cardinal relations and such a status system began to show political, social, and economic contradictions during the 16<SUP>th</SUP> and 17<SUP>th</SUP> centuries. In China, the desire to reform the irrational reality was expressed as a new current of neo-Confucianism, namely the doctrines of Wang Yangming(陽明學), which affirmed human desires and individuality, and that led to increased interest in the physical world. In the case of the Joseon Dynasty, studies on governing and applied scholarship were carried out mainly by the out-of-power Confucianists who rebelled against the unreality of existing neo-Confucianism and the failure of its policies. The resulting emphasis on the physical aspects of the Universe in the Late Ming Dynasty in China and the Late Joseon Dynasty in Korea also caused a transformation in the characteristics of the traditional Confucian individual. The traditional Confucian human being that endeavored to become an ideal person, a “man of virtue”(君子), through the cultivation of oneself as a relational being located within the network of the five cardinal relations and status-based relations, now became replaced by a realistic human being pursuing perfection of character within the concrete activities of everyday life. Such inner changes in Confucianism, however, did not negate the foundations of Confucian society, which rested on the traditions of the five cardinal horizontal relations and status-based hierarchical relations. The traditional self built on relationships was maintained just the same, while only the method of reaching the Confucian individual's ideal adulthood (becoming a man of virtue) had changed, shedding the abstract approach that had been the norm until then and following the new method of expressing that ideal within the concrete life of reality. The interest in reality influenced painting and created a tendency to emphasize realistic representation, and this showed most notably in portraits. With portraits in the Late Joseon Dynasty, the reception of western painting techniques began first with perspective rather than with chiaroscuro, because the techniques required for the former were relatively easier to change and adapt to the techniques of Oriental painting, which depends mainly on line-based expressions. Chiaroscuro, which pursues plane expressions through repetitive brush strokes and the hiding of the traces of the brush, was too removed from the modeling principles of Oriental painting which depended on brush and ink, and thus required far more time to become part of Oriental painting. The portraits of the Late Joseon Dynasty partially implemented the precise light and shade expressions of western drawing techniques, as can be seen in the way in which faces and clothes were expressed, as well as linear perspective, which can be seen in the foot-board. Those implementations achieved a faithful visual representation of life that was far more advanced than that of the previous period, but they still remained within boundaries that did not impede the essential function of traditional portraits. The interest in everyday occurrences and the ability to see into the artist's selfconsciousness have expanded the portrait genre, such as commemorative portraits and self-portraits, but the sense of commemoration expressed in these works merely reflected the motivation for producing the work, rather than bringing about any great change to the traditional iconography that was grounded on ritual symbolism. The newly introduced genres could never depart significantly from that ritualistic iconography, and the individual expressed was always a relational being defining his or her role within the five cardinal relations and status-based relations, never departing in any way from the Confucian individual. The drawings had such strong ritualistic appearances that the portraits could, without any awkwardness, be used as ritual portraits once the subjects of the portraits passed away. The external innovations and the internal conservatism of the western style portraits of the Late Joseon Dynasty reveal that this relational self and the Confucian system that formed the framework for this self were, although under threat from without and within, still exerting a strong influence.