Page 122 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

manufactory founded or expanded by Korean
immigrant potters. The technology associated with
the earliest extant Karatsu ware, dating to between
1590 and 1610 and including pieces from the Arita
and Imari regions, as well as from the Kishidake
area, relates to that of regional ceramic production
in Korea and China, for example in kiln structure
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and firing techniques (such as the use of clay wads
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between vessels when stack-firing).
Objects from these regions do not always
manifest a direct stylistic descent from buncheong
or other regional Korean lineages, though they do Figure 3.6 Jar with leaf-shaped decoration. Japanese,
evince technological connections. Indeed, Momoyama period (1573–1615); 1590s. Stoneware with
1
iron-painted design (Karatsu, Kishidake type), H. 4 ⁄2 in.
Momoyama-period Karatsu ware does not always (11.4 cm), W. 6 in. (15.2 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of
display the most salient visual feature of buncheong: Art, New York, Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry Collection,
Bequest of Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry, 2000 (2002.447.21)
white slip as the principal decorative medium. Even
the iron-painted examples dating to the decades
immediately following Hideyoshi’s invasion, a group traditionally considered to have been inspired
by the iron-painted buncheong of the Hakbong-ri kilns, in fact represent an intriguing blend of
stylistic elements from buncheong ware and painted Seto ware.
From about the 1610s, kilns in the Takeo region began producing stoneware with white-slip
decoration and inlaid and stamped motifs reminiscent of the early buncheong of the fifteenth
century. Given the great time lag — the techniques had died out on the Korean peninsula more
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than a century before — the appearance of these methods on Hizen stoneware represents a revival,
rather than a continuation, of the earlier tradition. The earliest such vessels, from kilns operating in
the first half of the seventeenth century, in north and south Takeo, both imitate and interpret
fifteenth-century inlaid and stamped buncheong ware. The references to the buncheong decorative
modes are deliberate and selective. One particularly intriguing example is a large mishima-type
dish produced at the Kotoge kilns in the southern part of Takeo (fig. 3.7). Not only the specific
motifs — chrysanthemum blossoms, a turtleback pattern, and rows of wavy lines, all executed
with stamps — but also their arrangement within the overall design echo closely those on early
buncheong dishes and bowls. These decorative motifs appear often on early inlaid and stamped Takeo
Karatsu ware, sometimes in combination with the crane (see fig. 3.8), a representative motif on
Goryeo-period celadon that is rarely found on buncheong ware (see the essay “Decoding Design:
Buncheong’s Forms, Decorative Techniques, and Motifs,” by Soyoung Lee and Jeon Seung-chang, in

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