[KS] cultural object circulation in the late Choson Dynasty query

Fri Oct 1 06:56:24 EDT 2010

Post Scriptum:

We might as well put a date on the reappearance 
in the interest in Koryô celadon in Korea: the 
year 1908.

But let me first make this claim: neither in 
China nor in Korea would anyone before the early 
nineteen hundreds have had any interest in Koryô 
ware. By then China and Korea had discovered 
blue-whites (and Europe had), and after that they 
were able to even produce fine glazed wares in 
more than two colors, e.g. with red and blue and 
yellowish-brownish tones. Why would anyone would 
want to go back to those archaic greenish wares 
once they could enjoy all those colors?

Much of the answer, I think, lies in the West--in 
European aesthetics and tastes. This is not 
exactly part of an elementary intro, so allow me 
to bridge this a little with some bold examples:
When seeing in person the Before-and-After of the 
mid-1980s Sistine Chapel restoration that turned 
Michelangelo's gracefully stale and serious yet 
already exciting frescoes into a Walt 
Disney-esque version with bright and flashy 
colors that even the Las Vegas remake can't 
surpass, I was totally stunned.

Colors MORE impressive here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sistine_Chapel_ceiling_left.png

Stunned, because it had shattered my (and that of 
most others in my and earlier generations) 
concept of pretty much everything that was out 
there in terms of "classical" aesthetics. A 
couple of years later I had to digest the fact 
that the old Greeks had actually also imitated 
Walt Disney. Neither temple facades nor vases had 
been plain marmor and/or whitish: new chemical 
analysis and new reconstructions show that Walt 
had been the mastermind behind it all.

In short: From some time after the Lutheran 
reformation and until very recently, that is 
during the centuries of the Protestant drive for 
industrialization and modernization (in the 
interpretation of Max Weber's The Protestant 
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and also, of 
course, in the spirit of Immanuel Wallerstein's 
Modern World-System analysis, Europeans have 
equated the monochrome and monotone, the 
life-less, with the classics, our admirable 
classics. The images to be published in your 
Ilias edition would not have looked like Mickey 
Mouse or The Pink Panther--they might have been 
b/w lithographs or later b/w photos of some 
color-less Greek statues or reliefs.

While 18th and 19th century Europe was so deeply 
in love with its own monochrome/monotone 
construction (rather than re-construction) of 
classical Greece and Rome, it sure also enjoyed 
the blue-white Chinawares and even the 
multi-colored wares. So far for the "exotic" 
Other. Yet, who would not also look for the 
"classics" within the "exotic" East. The 
"classics" would need to be, OF COURSE, 
monochrome and monotone! It could hardly be 
Walt-Disney-esque, not according to Max Weber, 
they would not been classics then, not in the 
pre-21st century understanding of classics. (We 
Northern Europeans still think so today, in spite 
of knowing better. Ask me.) Something like Koryô 
celadon or later Chosôn period white wares would 
fit the aesthetic bill.

Now you might say it's not the Europeans, it's 
the Japanese. Right, yes. It certainly gets 
somewhat complicated here, as many different 
factors come into play--such as the fact that the 
Japanese did have a long-standing aesthetic 
preference (or at least strong appreciation) for 
monochrome objects (of course not limited to 
monochrome, but certainly a high acceptance). 
While this is correct, the Japanese established 
in their Western-inspired modernization process 
institutions that were molded largely by the 
concepts of European institutions. From uniforms 
to art and crafts exhibitions, industrial 
exhibitions, museums, collecting and collections, 
etc., all and everything followed within this 
modernization process. As you are also aware of, 
we see parallel to this some back-to-the-roots 
movement, the urge to strengthen Japanese 
traditions and aesthetics--that already starts 
with Okakura Tenshin who reinvented Japan's own 
traditions and even brought Nihonga to places as 
far away as India, and it ends with the Greater 
East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in the 1940s. In 
very many cases, without wanting to simplify this 
too much, we see in this process a replacement of 
certain objects of desire by other objects of 
desire (as collector's items) within the same or 
a very similar institutional (originally 
European) framework. The very interesting point 
here is, that, while the objects are replaced, 
many of the formal and aesthetic attributes do 
not get replaced. Koryô celadons are a great 
example of exactly this; they have all the 
attributes a European collector wanted to see: 
classic antiquity, monochrome color, rareness, 
done in lost technique, symbolizing a lost high 
culture.

From the Korean point of view: Koryô wares start 
to become of interest again when the 
modernization process seriously begins in Korea. 
Before the early 1880s the term "misul" (art) 
does not exist in Korea, and it is not really 
being used much until the 1900s. After that we 
have "arts and crafts" and we have crafts 
exhibitions, as crafts are an important part of 
the Western modernization process:

1893: Columbian Exposition in Chicago (with Korean participation)
1900: Exposition Universelle in Paris (with Korean participation)
1907: National (Korean) Fair in Hansông (Seoul)
1907: National Inheritance School for the 
Industry established in Hansông (Seoul)
1908: Hansông Fine Arts Factory established by 
the royal government to substitute
       for the Punwôn which had heretofore been in 
charge of producing crafts for
       the royal family and the palace, thus replacing the traditional crafts
       production with a modern manufactory that would produce modern designed
       items (the royal Toan-sil, Dept. of Design, 
was now actually located inside
       that factory).
1909: construction of the Yi Royal Museum (Yi 
Wang-ga Museum) in Hansông (Seoul)
1912: opening of the Yi Royal Museum
... and so on

Please note that at the time (same as in Europe 
and the U.S.) "arts" and "crafts" went usually 
hand in hand, and so we do not only talk about 
the EXHIBITION of existing art work, or whatever 
we consider art, but also about the PRODUCTION of 
arts and crafts, and the exhibition of methods 
showing how arts and crafts are being produced. 
(This was before the invention of terms like 
outsourcing.)

In this connection we see that the production of 
porcelain and other wares becomes profitable 
again, and in 1907 and 1908 we see one American 
and several Japanese manufacturies and kilns 
opening production around Korea--some of the 
Japanese brand names are still known today in 
this industry ... and yes, it was an "industry" 
now, an industrial production. Also in 1908 in 
P'yôngyang a porcelain manufactury gets opened by 
some Korean entrepreneurs, the P'yôngyang Chagi 
Chejojusik Hoesa gets established there (note the 
"-jusik" part). Wall Street comes to P'yôngyang. 
That company produced all kind of wares, mostly 
for the Japanese market, and remakes of antique 
celadons are also part of their program (not 
really sure about Koryô porcelains at this time 
though, before 1910).

  Kyôngsang Pangnamhoejang, 1907 (entrance)

  Yi Royal Museum, 1912

Sorry to be so lengthy & bold,
Frank

-- 
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws
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