Page 83 - Korean Buncheong Ceramics, Samsung Museum Collection (great book)

Two examples of buncheong with inlaid designs of dragon-fish exemplify the fantastic and
simultaneously literal transition from mythical beast to water creature. On the maebyeong (cat. 2),
the dragon has been integrated into the fish, though the exaggerated features of the head and the
snakelike design along the inside of the body subtly but surely emphasize the dual nature of this
animal. A creature on a fifteenth-century bottle (cat. 38) has a cartoonish face, which contributes to
its overall comical appearance. This piece also displays the decorative tendency of buncheong
to fill a great part, sometimes the entirety, of the surface with motifs. Here, the dragon-fish is envel-
oped by waves rendered in meticulously rhythmic concentric arcs. Dragons in East Asia were
traditionally regarded as formidable and apotropaic beasts; hence the appropriately fierce physical
features: large, glaring eyes; fins; sharp toenails; and so on. Yet, overall, the dragons, in their multiple
manifestations on buncheong ware, have been transformed into droll and charming creatures. 15

repreSentatIon/aBStractIon
fish
The fish on celadon, whether mold-impressed or inlaid, are generally small, lean, and delicate.
In contrast, the fish on buncheong ware tend to be large — often corpulent — and robust. A prime
example is the inlaid fish gracing a fifteenth-century drum-shaped bottle and depicted in a delight-
fully lighthearted style (cat. 23): a twenty-first-century viewer might be tempted to read the black
inlaid line marking its gills as a wide, humor-filled grin. The late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century
bottle with iron-painted fish presents a sharper-edged and slightly menacing creature (cat. 39).
The swift strokes articulating the fins and the area around the gills, along with the swirling patterns
on its body — a creative rendering of scales — manifest the vitality of the brush and of the painted
image generally. Many examples of carved fish on buncheong vessels are strikingly minimalist,
exploiting the potent effects of linearity and abbreviation (see cats. 40, 41).
Besides being a staple of Koreans’ diet, fish in East Asia have long had symbolic associations
with fertility and harmonious familial relations. Whether the fish on buncheong were explicitly
intended and understood to bear these meanings is a matter of speculation, though it would not
be surprising. On a more elemental level, fish seem an entirely appropriate, even witty choice of
motif to decorate vessels related to the consumption of food and beverages. Whether the traditional
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teardrop-shaped or the more distinctive flask- or drum-shaped types, buncheong bottles would
certainly have been used to hold liquids, including alcohol.

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