Page 139 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

left: Catalogue 68 Tsujimura Shiro (Japanese, b. 1947). Sake bottle, 2000. Stoneware with white slip (kohiki style),
H. 9 in. (22.6 cm), Diam. 7 ⁄2 in. (19.1 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase,
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Parnassus Foundation / Jane and Raphael Bernstein Gift, 2003 (2003.393.1)
right: Catalogue 69 Tsujimura Shiro (Japanese, b. 1947). Tea bowl, 2000. Stoneware with white slip (kohiki style),
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1
H. 3 ⁄4 in. (8.3 cm), Diam. 6 ⁄8 in. (15.6 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Koichi Yanagi, 2003 (2003.485.2)

In twentieth-century Korea, appreciation for and revivalist efforts around the buncheong tradi-
tion started with faithful copies of early Joseon buncheong, undoubtedly influenced by a resurfacing
awareness of this long-forgotten ceramic as a result of archaeological excavations of old kiln sites.
Ironically, this most quintessentially Korean of traditional pottery, having expired as a living tradition
and receded from the cultural consciousness in the late sixteenth century, was reintroduced into
modern Korea directly and indirectly by the Japanese, through sustained interest in this genre in
Edo Japan, excavations of kiln sites by the colonial Japanese, and appreciation of buncheong by
Japanese collectors and cultural critics during the twentieth century. Thus, underlying the revival of
the buncheong styles in modern and contemporary Korea — in myriad interpretations, from faithful
copies to unorthodox reinterpretations — is an element of recapturing a lost piece of national history. 48

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