Page 65 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

While most buncheong ware was made to be used in the preparation, consumption, or storage
of food and drink associated with daily life, some pieces were destined for particular ritual or cere-
monial functions. The most easily identifiable are those that mimic the shapes of ancient Chinese
bronzes used in rituals and especially burials — quintessential models of antiquity and tradition that
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generated copies and revivals continuously in East Asia. An arresting early sixteenth-century example
(cat. 27) represents a pronounced and idiosyncratic adaptation of the bronze model. Though it
retains the general shape and the flanges along the seams characteristic of its metal prototype,
the distorted, hand-shaped quality, its solid, almost assertive materiality, and the scratched linear
abstract design on the surface are pure buncheong — and, to the modern eye, something that
would fit comfortably within the context of studio pottery or contemporary art. Another radical
interpretation is the fifteenth-century ritual piece in the shape of an elephant (cat. 3). As an objet
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d’art, it is delightfully quirky, with enormously appealing sculptural and tactile qualities. The exotic
image of the elephant, a rare animal in Joseon Korea, combined with the tortoise, symbolizing
longevity, carved onto its body, would have made this a potent ritual vessel. Buncheong with incised
elephant decorations and bronze-inspired vessels, including pieces similar to the one discussed
above, have been found at the site of the Chunghyo-dong kilns, in Gwangju, south Jeolla Province,
one of the principal buncheong manufacturing centers.
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Presumably these buncheong pieces were intended as ceremonial vessels and would have
been used in Confucian rites. Vessels of similar shapes can be found in Orye-ui (Five Rites), the
manual that prescribes important Confucian observances at the state level, down to the proper
types and placement of vessels used in various ceremonies. The officially designated implements
were metalware, especially those modeled after antique prototypes, though white porcelain was
also used in state rites. It is not clear whether the metalware-inspired buncheong ceremonial
vessels were actually used in state rites, which would have been unconventional, or whether they
might have been used primarily in the provinces (see Jeon Seung-chang’s essay, “Buncheong:
Unconventional Beauty,” in this volume). What is most fascinating about such buncheong is the
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degree to which it transformed the established modes, creating entirely unorthodox reinterpretations
of tradition.

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