Alright. So. Painter of the Night is straight up porn with the premise of a guy brought up in a gisaeng house (gibang) who sells erotic paintings of men getting tracked down by a noble who can only get aroused by looking at the paintings.
Lord Yoon Seungho is, naturally, an incredibly unsettling character because of how cold and dismissive he is to the people around him. Baek Nakyum is quite a pitiful character but throughout reading, I found him very easy to root for. There are too many awful people and things around him and I spent a significant portion of the reading experience waiting for him to return to the gisaengs and somehow have a happy ending.
As off-putting as the interpersonal relationships have been, watching the changes in character perspectives has been interesting. To be honest, I found it to be a very quick read. I blew right through seasons 1 and 2 and it wasn’t until partway through season 3 that I forced myself to pause and take stock of my thoughts.
From the fact that I devoured this webtoon, you can correctly infer that I enjoyed this webtoon a lot. Recommending this without much information is very careless, but the aspects I liked about Painter of the Night overshadowed the ‘problematic’ features to the point that I can’t clearly bring any to mind.
The heavy manipulation, unbalanced sexual dynamics, and disregard for human life/dignity aren’t occurrences that can be justified. Except in terms of their narrative value. Morally, a lot of the content here is awful. Narratively, it is so brilliantly impactful.
The plot is crazy. I enjoy sageuk dramas because they allow for such drastic twists and insidious betrayals and intrigue with little need for the suspension of disbelief. Painter of the Night carefully unfurls to reveal it can tackle the same atmosphere without even needing to take place within a palace.
So, I can’t carelessly recommend Painter of the Night, but I can say, proceed with caution but please give it a try.
Painter of the Night by Byeonduck on Lezhin
Hush Nili 
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