HwagongiPhone app, Korean art camera

Most art filters reach for a generic “painting” look, and anything brushy and monochrome ends up labelled as Chinese or Japanese. Korea has its own painting traditions, with their own line, ink and color, and there is very little that lets you see your own photos in them.

Hwagong (畫工) is named after the painters of the Joseon court. Pick a photo or take one, and the app redraws it in one of four Korean styles, lays it on the grain of hanji paper, and stamps it with a red seal. Everything is drawn on your iPhone. The photo never leaves it.

How it works

1. Choose or take a photo. The photo picker only hands the app the picture you select. It never browses the rest of your library.
2. Pick a style. The painting appears right away. Touch and hold to see the original, and use the strength slider to blend the two.
3. Save or share. Paintings are redrawn at the photo’s own size, up to 4096 px on the long side, and saved to your photo library or sent with Share.

Features

• Four Korean styles. Panhwa, a woodblock print with bold carved lines. Sumuk, ink wash with soft gradations and wide empty space. Baekmyo, a fine brush line drawing in ink alone. Dancheong, the red, green and blue of palace eaves.
• Hanji paper and a red seal. Every painting gets the texture of Korean mulberry paper and a red “Hwagong” seal. Ink and paper colors can be changed for the monochrome styles.
• Full resolution, not a preview. What you save is drawn again from the original photo, not scaled up from the screen.
• Your photo’s details stay with it. A painting saved to your library keeps the date and place the photo was taken. One sent with Share leaves the place out.
• Nothing leaves the phone. No account, no ads, no analytics, no server.

FAQ

When can I get it? Hwagong is not on the App Store yet. This page will link to it once it is. It runs on iPhone with iOS 17 or later, in Korean and English.

Does it cost anything? At launch it is free to download, with all four styles included and no ads. That is the plan for now rather than a promise. If it changes, this page will say so first.

Are my photos uploaded anywhere? No. Every painting is made on the iPhone itself, and the app collects no data of any kind. The privacy policy says the same thing in more detail.

Does it imitate a particular painter? No. The styles follow techniques, such as carved woodblock lines, ink gradations and palace color schemes, rather than the hand of any one artist.

Can I remove the seal or change its text? Not yet. Every painting carries the “Hwagong” seal for now.