Page 424 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

Punch'ong ware with brush-marked slip is meaning "there is enough and to spare/' making by geometricized lotus-petal panels. Several clus-
popularly known as hakeme (brush-marked), a the fish an especially appropriate motif for a wine ters of curved lines, which may represent grasses,
term borrowed from Japanese connoisseurship. bottle. It was also believed that overimbibing are spaced around the neck.
Several centuries prior to the development of could transform one into a fish. But that was held Due to the paucity of dated material the exact
punch'ong ware in Korea, Chinese potters at a happy fate, if the punch ong wares are any indi- chronological development of punch'ong wares is
numerous kilns throughout northern China had cation, since most of the fish appearing on them uncertain. It is generally and logically believed,
perfected a slip-decorated stoneware called Cizhou have upon their faces quite unmistakable smiles. however, that the carefully wrought incised or
ware, Cizhou in Hebei Province being the major M.A.R. impressed slip-inlaid wares are earlier than the
center of production. In China the vessels were more spontaneous, uninhibited slip-brushed wares
usually dipped in the white slip, whereas a sturdy with either incised or iron-oxide brown painted
brush proved to be most effective in making slip decoration. Bold design and dynamic, vigorous
adhere to the coarse, iron-rich clays of Korea. 276 execution are characteristics associated with the
Chinese slip-coated ceramics might be left plain, later wares, of which the present jar is a superb
or designs might be painted in dark slip on the JAR example. Although the workmanship may at first
white ground, or incised through the white slip to seem overcasual, the genial freedom and exu-
the darker body beneath. All of these methods i6th century berance of the piece are exceedingly attractive,
were used also by punch'ong potters. By the fif- Korean and one soon comes to appreciate the carefree
teenth century painted designs predominated in punch'ong ware with slip coating and incised approach of the decorator. The unconcealed crea-
decoration
the Chinese wares, and Chinese potters had height 43.8 (if/4) tive process, in fact, becomes part of the aesthetic,
almost completely abandoned the slip-incised or references: Gompertz 1968, 25-42; Rhee 1978, and in the end quite seductive.
carved technique, which was carried on by their 3:pLi} The great stylistic diversity among punch'ong
Korean counterparts. ceramics is not a result of temporal factors alone.
The present piece exemplifies the refreshing National Museum of Korea, Seoul Produced at numerous kilns throughout central
simplicity and straightforward technique and and southern Korea, the wares reflect the differ-
design that make these wares so endearing and This substantial jar has an everted lip, constricted ences in local materials, in the skills of particular
admired. An interesting contrast obtains between neck, low sloping shoulders, and a trunk which workers, and even in local tastes which influenced
the formal regularity of the lotus panels and the tapers gradually to the wide base. White slip was style. This rich, vital, and widespread indigenous
whimsical informality of the fish, a very popular roughly brushed over the entire surface of the tradition, which served Korean society so well
motif within the limited repertory of representa- vessel, and the design was produced by incising during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, was
tional designs on punch'ong wares. In China fish and scraping through the hardened slip to the devastated by the invasions from Japan initiated
symbolized affluence and abundant progeny, and a dark body clay below. In certain areas the glaze, by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) in 1592.
pair of fish represented connubial bliss; given the irregularly applied, streaked down the sides and During the ensuing seven years of upheaval the
profound and far-reaching influence of Chinese streamed into thickened globules. A massive lotus wholesale destruction of kilns and uprooting of
thought in Korea during the Choson period, the scroll swings and curls rhythmically around the potters was so thorough and complete that the
same symbolism probably obtained. The founder expansive body zone, bordered near the base by a production of punch'ong wares, those paragons of
of the Yi dynasty and his early successors modeled band of pointed petal shapes and at the shoulder simple grace and ruggedness, either diminished to
their new state of Choson on Ming dynasty China, insignificance or vanished entirely from the rep-
adopting enthusiastically and wholeheartedly the ertory of the Korean potter. M. A. R.
form and content of that highly bureaucratic state
shaped by Confucian doctrine and manned by
officials who acquired their positions by way of
exhaustive, state-sponsored examinations in Con-
fucian learning. In China the Confucian scholar 2 77
was likened to a carp fighting its way upstream
past the rapids of Longmen (Dragon Gate); COVERED BOWL
perseverance and eventual triumph transformed
i century
the humble fish into a glorious dragon, as Korean
perseverance and success in the examinations white porcelain
transformed the struggling student into an hon- height 22.5 (8 /s)
7
ored official. The possibility of some relation reference: Gompertz 1968, 43-47
between that Chinese metaphor and the preva-
lence of fish motifs on ceramics of Confucianist Horim Museum of Art, Seoul
Choson society is buttressed by fifteenth-century
Korean bottles whose slip-inlaid decoration Slightly above its modestly flared ring-foot the
includes fish metamorphosing into dragons: their body of this bowl swells to its greatest diameter,
bodies are those of common fish, their heads then contracts gently to the wide mouth. The
those of dragons. high, domed lid has a thickened ridge where it fits
The fish motif, however, could as well have over the mouth of the bowl, serving, like a belt at
been inspired by more mundane concerns. Being the waistline, to emphasize the contraction. Atop
good to eat, fish were a most suitable motif for the lid is a finial in the shape of the magical wish-
this widely produced and used tableware. The fulfilling gem of Buddhist iconography, encircled
Chinese characters youyu, meaning "I have a by two incised rings. The gently balanced rotundi-
fish/' are homophonous with different characters ties of bowl and lid are typically Korean. Gray

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