Page 112 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

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especially as manifested in tea utensils and wares, which embraced imports from all over Asia.
During the Edo period (1615–1868), the So clan of Tsushima Province played a key role in Korean–
Japanese trade, centered around the Japan House (Korean: waeguan; Japanese: wakan) in the
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Korean port city of Busan, and oversaw the production and export of ceramics intended specifically
for Japanese markets.
Art historians have dubbed the invasions led by the Japanese warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi the
“pottery war” — a reference to the large number of potters, specializing in various ceramics, who,
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along with other artisans and laborers, were forcibly taken to Japan. Major ceramic industries
were founded or significantly expanded by these Korean transplants in the domains of the daimyo
commanders who had participated in the invasions. Chief among the products of these kilns are
the ceramics popularly known as Karatsu ware of Hizen Province (which encompassed the domains
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of Tersawa, Nabeshima, and others, centered in today’s Saga Prefecture). Other ceramics by
Korean potters are the Agano ware of Buzen Province, under the Hosokawa clan, and the Takatori
ware of Chikuzen Province, under the Kuroda clan, both in Fukuoka Prefecture; the Satsuma ware
of Satsuma Province, under the Shimazu clan, in Kagoshima Prefecture; and the Hagi ware of
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Nagato Province, under the Mori clan, in Yamaguchi Prefecture. These wares evidence a range
of technical and stylistic approaches, in some cases adopting buncheong’s slip application but in
many instances displaying a combination of influences from regional kilns in Korea and Japan
that show little direct connection to buncheong. All of these ceramic manufacturers quickly estab-
lished themselves as important sources for notable tea ware, though most kilns also produced
more mundane tableware for everyday use.
During the Edo period, multifaceted revivals of buncheong idioms, initially in Kyushu but
spreading to many areas of the Japanese archipelago by the nineteenth century, represented a
layered and intriguing afterlife of this distinctively Korean ceramic in decidedly Japanese contexts.
What kinds of buncheong ceramics were popular in Edo-period Japan and what cultural meanings
did they embody or reflect? What was the nature of the revivals of buncheong idioms in that time
and place — was it primarily technological, stylistic, aesthetic, or a combination of these? Why
did these later references to buncheong occur, and what was their appeal? This essay elucidates
the impact of buncheong ceramics beyond their original geographical and temporal boundaries and
examines some of the key moments in the two phases of its history in Japan outlined above. The
goal of this essay is not to provide a comprehensive survey of the numerous reinterpretations of
slip-applied design in Japanese ceramics. Rather, it is to investigate a sampling of Japanese revivals,
centered around examples in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, that have not yet
been studied meaningfully in relation to buncheong idioms. The essay will also briefly touch upon
the significance of buncheong and its resonance for both Korean and Japanese potters today.

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