Korean pottery
From 10,000 to 6,000 years ago, the mankind started to make earthenware and use them. In Korea, they have used earthenware from 7~8,000years ago-the New Stone Age. As time went by, glazes were sometimes employed. The firing temperature varied between 500 and 1,100 degrees. Earthenware was used in Korea until the early Koryo dynasty (10-11th centuries). Earthenware and bronze developed in parallel through the prehistoric age, and then the periods known in Korea as Silla and Kaya (from 57 BC until the 10th century), and Koryo (10-14th centuries). The earthenware pottery of Silla and Kaya is particularly noted for its formal qualities. The earthenware was used for utilitarian vessels, which were sometimes modelled into the shape of people, houses, and animals. Among the various pieces surviving from this period, we can find vessels expressing vividly the characteristic spirit of the Korean people, a spirit that has remained alive through the centuries until the present day. The facial expressions are comically exaggerated, we find amusing caricatures, as well as bold sexual features suggesting use in fertility rites, a variety of concise artistic details indicating a rich imagination. Through such works the image of our ancestors
They find the beauty in simple colors and liberal molding. It is the hallmark of Korea's Choson Dynasty, and reminds us of the way in which the Korean people of the period valued thrift, integrity, and simplicity. The potters who produced these wonderful works transmitted their skills from father to son, spending a whole lifetime in poverty, unknown, they produced pottery without any desire for personal gain, content to be part of nature, one with nature. The ruling classes were eager to possess jade, but it was too little for their needs, and very expensive. It uses symbolic designs such as dragons, peonies, arabesque patterns, pine or plum trees, flying cranes. The Chosen in 17th century, the white-clad Korea, produced the whiteware, which has its own purity, chastity and modesty. Research was undertaken in order to make even better celadon, using the best clays. The old celadon wares lost favor, since there was a strong desire for novelty in a new religious atmosphere. In a similar spirit, wild chrysanthemums express calmness and solitude. Celadon was used to make the tea cups, and this seems to be the first time that it was employed for vessels in ordinary use. Finally, it leaves much of the surface blank; the designs are painted in a concise, clear manner. The Korean pottery, by base of good natural disposition, has clear characteristics and the shape is healthy and live. Therefore jade was popular for use in objects enclosed in tombs. The gentry of the period, searching for beauty with an acute aesthetic sense, recognized the true beauty of this form of Korean pottery. In a similar spirit, the Japanese valued a good tea-cup more even than honor or wealth, acknowledging the mysterious power of pottery.
Common topics in this essay:
PunChong Painting,
Silla Kaya,
Zen Buddhism,
Dynasty Koreans,
Choson Dynasty,
Korea Japan,
Japan White,
Celadon China,
Korea Chinese,
Japanese Japan,
white ware,
koryo dynasty,
zen buddhism,
content nature nature,
korean pottery,
centuries earthenware,
drinking tea,
similar spirit,
celadon wares,
korea koryo dynasty,
10th century,
silla kaya,
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