Page 113 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

Made in Korea, adMired in Japan

Though buncheong was made as a domestic, even local, product, a portion of this stoneware made
its way to Japan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, primarily through the international port cities
of Hakata, in northern Kyushu, and Sakai, in the Osaka region of Kinnai. These major trade and
commercial centers, along with the cultural and political capital of Kyoto, were the areas of principal
demand, although buncheong was distributed from there throughout the archipelago from Kyushu
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to Hokkaido. Excavations of various consumer sites throughout Japan have revealed that imports
of buncheong ware occurred primarily in the fifteenth century, during its peak period of manufacture
in Korea, and diminished drastically in the latter half of the sixteenth century, replaced by other types
of regional stoneware from Korea’s southern provinces (glazed but without an application of white
slip) and white porcelain (mostly from regional kilns rather than from the official court kilns of
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Bunwon). However, archaeological evidence — usually the remnants after fires or other disasters —
does not necessarily provide a complete picture of the consumption of ceramics, as many objects,
especially those that held economic and aesthetic value, were preserved and handed down through
generations of collectors. Of the range of buncheong ware, those pieces with inlaid and stamped
designs seem to have been a popular choice with Japanese consumers, a preference that no doubt
stemmed at least partly from familiarity with the inlaid celadon from the Goryeo period (918–1392)
that had been imported into Japan. Buncheong vessels like the jar adorned with stamped motifs of
chrysanthemum blooms (cat. 57) would have been a novelty compared to the domestic ceramics
and Chinese imports available in Momoyama Japan. As will be discussed later, the decorative tech-
niques of inlay and stamp-patterning, along with brushed white slip, would resurface as prominent
modes of ornamentation in Edo-period stoneware from Kyushu and other parts of Japan.
One of the most significant contexts in which these Korean ceramics — indeed, ceramics
in general — were used in Japan during this time was the tea ceremony, or chanoyu. The practice
of drinking powdered green tea (matcha) developed into an increasingly important cultural phenom-
enon in the sixteenth century, owing to a handful of celebrated and influential tea masters. Perhaps
the most famous is Sen no Rikyu (1522–1591); credited with perfecting the aesthetic of wabicha in
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the late sixteenth century, he represented the dramatic climax of a long development. Wabi, which
originally connoted the misery arising from material deprivation, had acquired a positive sense even
before Rikyu’s time: austerity and restraint were desirable, and beauty lay in the simple, the unas-
suming, and the imperfect. By the 1570s and 1580s, this conceptual framework came to be embodied
in almost every aspect of the tea culture — from the architecture and the interior setting to the
myriad utensils, to the very process of the tea ceremony. Though it did not occur instantaneously,
the transformation was revolutionary.

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