Azaleas and Golden Bells:  Korean Art in the Collection of the Portland Art Museum and in Portland Private Collections, by Junghee Lee.  Portland:  The Portland Art Museum, 1998.  85pp, 50 b/w and color prints.  (ISBN 1-883124-08-5).

Reviewed by Michael Reinschmidt
Academia Koreana

[This review first appeared in Acta Koreana, 2 (1999): 167-69.
Acta Koreana is published by Academia Koreana of Keimyung University.]

During the past couple of decades, interest in traditional Korean art has been steadily increasing in the West.  Prior to that, however, Korean artifacts in museums were often absorbed into general East Asian collections, whose mass of contents usually was weighted towards items of Japanese or Chinese provenance.  In particular, publications making the Korean portion of such collections known to a wider audience have been small in number.  The present catalogue, a favorable indicator of the end of this era, was made possible through a combined effort initiated by the Portland Art Museum of Portland, Oregon (PAM), at dedicating a new gallery devoted entirely to its growing Korean holdings.  The gallery opened in May 1997 and ever since then, its Korean collection has been expanding through support from collectors, from Portland's Korean community, and from the Korea Foundation.  Gaps still existing in the collection have since been filled through meaningful loan decisions.  This proactive approach combined with quality publications such as the present catalogue will probably quickly enhance the status of the entire Korean program at PAM.

With much sensitivity for the needs of Western museum-goers, curator Junghee Lee has delineated a thorough but still readable summary of Korean art history (pp. 8-19).  The introductory chapter covers the main periods of the development of Korean art.  The author then points out the uniqueness of Korean styles and their special development in between the power centers of China, Japan, and Mongolia.

Lee carefully distinguishes between styles and inventions uniquely Korean and those non-Korean, traces Chinese influences and indicates transmission of elements on to Japan (pp. 10, 12, 14).  For example, the reader unfamiliar with Korean art learns about three main inventions of Koryô potters which set new standards in ceramic production:  (1) the creation of the famous bluish-green kingfisher color (e.g., twelfth century prunus vase, fig. 4), so unobtrusive and yet so effective on Korean celadon; (2) the technique of producing meticulously inlaid designs on celadon-glazed porcelain (e.g., the set of twelfth-century porcelain cosmetic boxes, fig. 7); and (3) the brilliant technique of creating underglaze red by means of copper oxidization.

In unusual detail and far beyond simple listings of object measurements, each item is minutely described, one of the strongest points of this catalogue and a point which many other publications lack.  With such detail, this book is obviously addressed to the serious student of art rather than the casual museum visitor.  The text is well written and each object has been painstakingly researched.  Thus the catalogue should prove a rich source of information for art and museum professionals, as well as for collectors and aestheticians.

The inclusion of Korean Buddhist artifacts serves to contrast the difference between indigenous artistic elements and the lingering South Asian influence (figs. 11, 12, 20, 23a and b, 24, 39, 40, 43, 45, 46a and b).  The establishment of Buddhism during the Silla (676-935) and Koryo (918-1392) periods inserted new impulses into the Korean realm of aesthetic perception.  The new ideas seem to have accelerated the artistic blending and reinventing of old and new in Korea.  Lee exemplifies the subject by pointing out that, "religious statues seem to depict idealized Koreans, breathing and moving as if alive, whether they are in bas-relief sculptures or sculptures of the Buddha fully in the round" (p. 11).

The social dominance of the luxury-loving royalty throughout most periods of Korean history is reflected in ceramics dating back to as early as the Koryô era.  Up to about the eighteenth century, as Lee points out regarding the object in figure 30 depicting two dragons, "jars emblazoned with dragons were the king's royal ware:  no commoner could use pottery ornamented with dragons.  In the nineteenth century, however, these jars became popular, and the aristocracy and wealthy patrons began using them." (p. 54)

As outstanding and particularly valuable or intriguing objects from the collection depicted in the catalogue, I would like to mention several items:  fig. 1, a globular food storage jar (t'ogi hangari) with natural ash glaze, fourth century Silla; fig 22, a porcelain wine (or white) bottle from a famous royal kiln in Kwangju, depicting the plum (paekcha maehwa chungmun pyông) with underglaze cobalt floral decorations, ca. 1730-1850; fig. 27, a nineteenth century ten-panel screen displaying episodes from a Nine-Cloud Dream (Kuunmong), illustrating a beautiful story of a Buddhist monk who is reborn into a marriage with eight women, but still prefers to search for truth and enlightenment as a sincere monk; fig. 28, a screen of the eight Confucian virtues (munja-do), early nineteenth century, ink and color on paper; fig. 30, the dragon (or white) jar (paekcha yongmunho) mentioned above; and fig. 39, Solitary Monk (toksûng).

If the fifty depictions in the catalogue are an adequate representation of the entire collection, then this collection should, with steady growth, become a richly diverse resource for the Korean heritage in the Pacific Northwest.  In terms of the gallery's design, however, it is regrettable that no innovative alternative was deemed appropriate to balance the overly popular theme of upper class life-style depictions.  Displays of yangban upper class living arrangements such as the sarangbang noblemen's quarters; houses with ondol central heating, and court estates probably reverberating with chôngak classical Korean music, are the sole theme of museums around the world that maintain permanent exhibits on Korea.  Certainly a question of representation, I think it is high time to start thinking also about portrayals of every-day Korean life, apart from the yangban class, which would represent the vast majority of the Korean people of the nineteenth century.  However, since art all over the world has largely been dominated by the tastes and affluence of the rich, we have to accept these manifestations of art for what they are -- a powerful reflection of the context of their origin.

A serious shortcoming of the catalogue is the complete disconnection of the book's title from its contents.  Lee mentions the new permanent exhibit at PAM; however, it remains unclear whether the book's title, Azaleas and Golden Bells, is also the title of the exhibit.  There is no explanation for this oddity, and one expects to find its resolution in the introduction. There, instead of putting the flower title in perspective, Lee talks about the sarangbang-room and the ondol-heating system.  In the following paragraph, entitled "Korean Aesthetics," the two flowers, the azalea and golden bell or forsythia as it is also known, are nominally mentioned, for the first and last time, as blooming everywhere along the roadside.  That's it.  No further explanation of the connection between title and contents is given.  If the catalogue was meant to be a general, themeless introduction to PAM's Korean collection, then this fact should have been pointed out so that the reader or visitor will not expect a thematic treatment of the art on display.  Probably most people will not notice the discrepancy, but it diminishes an otherwise commendable piece of work.

By and large, I have enjoyed reading the catalogue and studying the illustrations.  The book will assume a steady spot among my reference works on Korean culture.  I have been intrigued to learn more about the Korean collection at PAM, and I can't wait to see the exhibit in full the next time I am in Portland.