Page 45 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

production in Jeolla Province is Goheung, where bowls (with or without lids), plates, bottles, and
jars with inlaid, stamped, incised, sgraffito, slip-brushed, and slip-dipped designs have been found.
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Vessels with incised and sgraffito designs are the most representative type of buncheong ware
from Jeolla Province.
From the kiln sites in the Ulsan area of Gyeongsang Province comes crudely executed, stamped
buncheong ware — bowls and plates — from the latter half of the fifteenth century. Coarse, early
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sixteenth-century buncheong ware from Jinhae includes casually applied slip-brushed designs on
everyday items such as bowls; plates; cups, stemmed and not; bottles; and jars and on certain
ceremonial objects. Also from this region are bowls that in Korea are (and were) considered to be
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of the coarse types produced during the last stages of buncheong’s development but were greatly
treasured by the Japanese as tea bowls and used in a completely different context (see Soyoung Lee’s
essay, “Beyond the Original: Buncheong Idioms in Japan, 1500–1900, and Contemporary Revivals,”
in this volume). The Jinhae kilns are regarded as the quintessential source of these bowls. 35
The excavations at kiln sites show a progression in buncheong production, with particularly
notable changes occurring about the time the official court kilns of Bunwon were established in
Gwangju, not far from Hanyang, the new Joseon capital, today’s Seoul. In the years immediately after
the founding of the Joseon, buncheong with inlaid decoration represented a continuation of the
tradition of late Goryeo celadon, before evolving into the stamp-decorated type. With the establish-
ment of the centralized Bunwon porcelain kilns in the second half of the fifteenth century, regional
characteristics began to emerge in buncheong decorative techniques: incised or sgraffito designs
in Jeolla, iron-painted motifs in Chungcheong, and roughly stamped patterns in Gyeongsang. Not
long thereafter, early in the sixteenth century, the embellishment of buncheong ware became
further simplified with the introduction of slip-brushing and slip-dipping. The latter technique, like
the adoption of certain shapes hitherto associated with porcelain, represented an attempt on the
part of buncheong potters to emulate the more popular ceramic. As consumer demand declined,
buncheong came to exhibit a more exuberant freedom in the handling of its material and the
execution of its designs, becoming, paradoxically, increasingly divergent from the more refined
and successful porcelain.

the size and s truCture of Kilns
Excavations have also revealed the size and structure of kilns. Although, by and large, buncheong
kilns were similar throughout the country, there are differences depending on the region and
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the length of operation. The kilns of Boryeong, Chungcheong Province, which date to the fifteenth
century, were long, narrow climbing kilns built of mud, measuring 103 ft. 2 ⁄8 in. (31 m) long and
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43 ⁄8 in. (1.1 m) to 47 ⁄4 in. (1.2 m) wide. The kilns of Gongju, which operated until the mid-sixteenth
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