Rich Cultural Heritage of Joseon 朝鮮 Dynasty

choi

Lee Lawrence, Honoring the Joseon Dynasty; A rich cultural heritage that has been too often overlooked. Wall Street Journal, Mar 19, 2014
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303795904579431081584462424
(exhibition review on “Treatures From Korea. Philadelphia Museum of Art, through May 26[, 2014], before traveling”)


Note:
(a) The exhibition:

Treasures From Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910. Mar 2, 2014-May 26, 2014.
www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/795.html
(i) Watch video.
(ii) Below the video, click “Download the family guide >>”
(iii) There is no need to read “Download the teacher resource >>,” which is not helpful.

(b) “When the first king [of Joseon] took power, he transferred the capital to the site of today's Seoul. * * *
(i) Joseon  朝鮮
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseon_Dynasty
(also Chosŏn, Choson, Chosun, Cho-sen; table: royal standard, royal emblem; founded by Taejo 太祖 Yi Seong-gye 李 成桂, founded following the overthrow of the Goryeo 高麗 [918-1392] Dynasty in what is today the city of Kaesong 開城 [in North Korea, just north of Seoul])
(ii) Unless otherwise noted, the Chinese characters in this posting are hanja-- (Korean) 漢字.

(c) “It pays, for example, to marvel at the grandeur of a 39-by-26-foot painting of the Buddha surrounded by disciples, bodhisattvas and other enlightened beings. Painted in 1653, this banner painting once hung outdoors during special celebrations; here it presides over the museum's grand staircase. It is also worth taking the time to savor the lively designs in gray-green buncheong pottery, the subtle brocaded patterns that enliven fine silk robes, and the variety of painting styles—from the almost electric ‘Tiger Under a Pine Tree’ by the beloved artist Kim Hong-do (1745-c1806) to the understated elegance of bamboo and plum trees painted sometime in the 16th or 17th century on a porcelain jar. Or the inventiveness of three 19th-century depictions of Kings of Hell as they preside over fantastic beings and inventive punishments.”
(i) User:Waygugin/Hwaeomsa Gwebul  華嚴寺 掛佛
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Waygugin/Hwaeomsa_Gwebul
a scene from the Lotus Sutra in which the Buddha Sakyamuni is preaching the dharma to an assembly of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and disciples on Vulture Peak, in Rajagrha; executed [or painted]  at Hwaeomsa in 1653 by the monks; was designated National Treasure 301 in 1977)
(ii)
(A) Buncheong  粉靑沙器
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncheong
(“The style emerged in the early Joseon Dynasty, largely replacing celadon in common use. It largely disappeared from Korea after the 16th century due to the popularity of white porcelains 朝鮮白磁”)
(B) celadon  
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celadon
(China and Korea: 青瓷, Japan: 青磁; section 2 Etymology)
(iii) View paintings only in
Kim Hong-do 金 弘道
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Hong-do
(a painting is titled “Tiger under a pine tree” which in Korean is “Songhamaenghodo” 松下猛虎圖)

(d) “One translation of Joseon is ‘Fresh Dawn,’ and the new dynasty turned its back on Buddhism to embrace neo-Confucian ideals. Plain or minimally decorated porcelains express Confucian frugality and restraint—masterly examples include a large, ever-so-slightly irregular 18th-century ‘Moon Jar’ and a 16th-century ‘Bottle with Rope Design,’ each a recognized ‘Treasure.’ Similar elegance characterizes furnishings and utensils used in neo-Confucian rituals believed to ensure general harmony and prosperity, although these also include the occasional surprise. Don't miss the 15th- to 16th-century buncheong vessels in the shape of an elephant and ox, as charming as they are rare.”
(i)
(A) moon jar   白磁大壺
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_jar
(B) Moon Jar. Metropolitan Museum of Art, undated
www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/45432
(second half of the 18th century; Porcelain; Credit Line: Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, 1975; Accession Number: 1979.413.1)
(ii) “a 16th-century ‘Bottle with Rope Design’”
寶物 347: 白磁鐵畫垂紐文甁

blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=syin3&logNo=63483673
(31.4cm)
(iii) “the 15th- to 16th-century buncheong vessels in the shape of an elephant and ox”

The two wares can be found in (a)(ii), where they are identified as huijun 犧尊 and sangjun 象尊, respectively.
(Cantonese pronunciation for 犧 is same as English noun “hay, quite similar to the current Korean pronunciation.)

(e) “The centrality of rituals explains why court artists meticulously documented them. An 1848 screen depicts a royal banquet, a procession unfurls along the length of a 19th-century hand scroll, and a 1759 Royal Protocol, or Uigwe, chronicles, in meticulously labeled drawings, the proceedings of a royal wedding. Here, only one double page is visible, but an animation of the book's illustrations greets us at the entrance to the galleries and an interactive display allows us to leaf through the document virtually and access translations on select pages. This gives us a visceral sense of how much the court valued Uigwe both as commemorations and prescriptions for future celebrations—and of what a resource they have proved to be. No wonder scholars were excited when a South Korean historian doing research in France's Bibliothèque Nationale in 1975 discovered a cache of some 300 Uigwe mistakenly archived in the Chinese section. The books had long been believed burned in 1866 by Napoleon III's navy in retaliation for the execution of French Catholic priests. In 2010, France returned them to South Korea on a renewable five-year loan, a redress that would have no doubt satisfied the Joseon love of order.”

uigwe  儀軌
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uigwe
(section 2 Looting and repatriation, section 2.1 1866: French troops: In 1782, the Outer Gyujanggak library (known as Oe-Gyujang-gak 外 奎章閣) was built in the ancient royal palace on Ganghwa-do Island 江華島 to accommodate an overflow of books from the main Gyujanggak library at Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul)
(i) Changdeokgung  昌德宮
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changdeokgung
(first constructed 1405-1412, burned to the ground during the Japanese invasion in 1592 and reconstructed in 1609, burnt back down in 1623, rebuilt again)
(ii) French campaign against Korea (1866)  
丙寅洋擾 (literally: Western disturbance of the byeong-in year)

(f) “A less eye-catching but more far-reaching innovation appears in the form of printed books and letters written in hangeul, a phonetic alphabet for Korean introduced in the mid-15th century. No longer would literacy be confined to a rarefied male elite that could read and write Chinese characters. * * * In this and many other works, it is clear that China was for centuries the primary cultural influence as Korean artists adopted high-fired porcelains, ink painting and folding screens (to name just three genres) and made them their own. This began to change, first through Western ideas and knowledge that came via China in the 1700s; then, in the late 1800s, through direct trade and exchanges.”

For hangeul, see hangul
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangul
(created in 1443; section 1.1 Official names: 瀚글 ----> 韓글)