Page 52 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

Decoding Design

Buncheong’s Forms,

Decorative Techniques, and Motifs

soyoung lee and jeon seung-chang

The trademark of this highly distinctive genre of ceramics made more than a half millennium ago
is its startlingly modern aesthetic. Many of the characteristics that we might today associate with
modern and contemporary art — abstraction, minimalism, and both “naive” and boldly sophisticated
designs — are expressed, even highlighted, in buncheong. To what extent these sensibilities were
consciously infused by the potters is a complicated question. Indeed, the very question of artistic
creativity or creative intent in buncheong ware poses a challenge, given how little information we
have about the specifics of buncheong manufacture and workshops, let alone about individual or
even groups of potters. Archaeological evidence from kiln-site excavations, especially those carried
out in the last several decades, offers some clues to various aspects of buncheong production.
Large-scale kilns attest to the existence of sizable, well-organized, and long-running operations that
supplied not only local and regional consumers but also, in the first half of the fifteenth century in
1
particular, the royal family and central government. These kilns would presumably have had an
efficient management system to oversee what might have been factory-style operations, character-
ized by division of labor and high productivity, as well as by a large number of skilled potters and
assistants to fulfill orders and general demand. In contrast to the larger manufactories, there were
also many small, localized kilns all over Korea, whose operation would have been less grandly
scaled in both the number of potters and output.
Unlike painters of the same period, buncheong potters — indeed makers of all ceramics during
the Joseon period — did not make pots as “art” per se, or solely as artistic objects, but as tableware
or ritual vessels to be used in daily life or for special occasions. In other words, their work would

opposite: Figure 2.1 Detail of catalogue 51, reverse