Art in Japan>Asian Art 100B.C.E.-1930>Dynastic Heritage of Korea

Original articles on art, artists, architecture, exhibitions, galleries, museums and cultural institutions around Tokyo, Japan.

Dynastic Heritage of Korea

by John McGee

Ceremonial robe, Joseon Dynasty, 19th-20th century (Photos courtesy
National Museum of Korea, Seoul and the Royal Museum, Seoul)

Ceramics held some logical and some not-so-logical places in the 12th-century Korean home. An elaborately decorated celadon pillow from that period demonstrates the country's ancient artisans were highly skilled craftsman, even if their work can seem somewhat impractical to us today. 

The "Dynastic Heritage of Korea" exhibition is much more than attractive housewares. The broad range of work in the show displays the dynamic creativity of internal experimentation and the complex influences of traders and invaders from neighboring Manchuria, China and Japan. 

The grandest of the various World Cup-related art exhibitions, "Dynastic Heritage" is a uniquely deep exchange between the Tokyo National Museum and the National Museum of Korea, Seoul. Tokyo gets 270 artworks ranging from 3,000 BC to the early 20th century (including 31 Korean National Treasures and items never before seen outside Korea) and Seoul gets the Japanese equivalent. 

A museum representative says this exhibition is unusual because it presents Korean rather than Japanese taste (the basis for most shows of Korean antiquities here). The show focuses on the variety of Korean art, arranging masterpieces and key works according to six themes: from Pre-history to the Three Kingdoms Period; Buddhist Art, Celadons, Ceramics, Painting and Calligraphy; and Royal Court and Nobility. 

12th-century celadon incense burner,
a Korean National Treasure 

The earliest pieces are an inscribed clay vessel (3,000 BC) and bronze daggers and implements (8th-3rd century BC). But the showstoppers are the loot from the Three Kingdoms Period Gold Crown Tomb (5th century). The central piece is a crown of thin gold sheet cut into flat, branching antler and tree shapes. Flecks of gold and nuggets of comma-shaped jade cover the crown, hanging loose on twists of wire. A rusty iron helmet and armor from roughly the same period fleshes out the hard realities that defended such opulence. 

Buddhism came to Korea from China in the 6th century and was popular until the 14th. Unusual objects in this show include a six-foot-tall, 8th-century cast bronze standing Buddha with a surprising amount of intact green and red polychrome; a delicate, relief-carved 7th-century stone Amitabha Triad; and stone tomb guardian figures—one half-boar, half-human (8th century), the other vaguely Western-looking (9th century). 

For a touch of controversy, compare the small, 6th-7th-century bronze Buddha figures assembled here with those in the Gallery of Horyu-ji Treasures next door. Were the Asuka Period Horyu-ji Temple figures made in Korea or Japan? 

Celadon from the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) took novel forms—pomegranate and dragon fish-shaped ewers and, of course, a pillow. It was adorned with incised or stamped flower designs or formed into delicate openwork. Ceramics in the succeeding Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) often had imperfect shapes and a variety of colors, surface treatments and uses. Bulbous, creamy-white lidded jars, for example, stored the placenta of 17th-century nobility. 

The large, diverse painting selection includes Chinese-style ink landscapes like the National Treasure, Mt. Geumgang (1734) and an 18th-century album of genre paintings shows roofers, blacksmiths, and a fortuneteller at work. Hanging scrolls of butterflies and flowers (19th century) detail the colorful wings and petals of different species with guidebook precision, and tight gold line images traced on purple paper illustrate Buddhist sutras. 

Finally, the educated taste of the Joseon Dynasty's Confucian bureaucracy is shown in bright ceremonial and military robes, painted maps, sundials, furniture, and huge bird's-eye perspective paintings recording important events. 

This show does little to clarify the murky historical development of Korean art, but it introduces its incredible variety through Korean eyes.

The Dynastic Heritage of Korea exhibition was held June-July 2002 at the Tokyo National Museum, Ueno Park, Tokyo, Japan.

©2006 John McGee

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