KF뉴스레터-Clay, Fire and Beauty

Clay, Fire and Beauty

Closely related to mankind’s life culture for a long time, ceramics have revealed diverse features by country and period. I think it provides a valuable opportunity to compare ceramic works from China, the ceramic center of the East, with those of Korea and Japan, and see the various forms, decorations and changes in a diverse array of ceramics from the Middle East, and ceramics made in European countries from the 16th through 20th centuries.

Old ceramics are part of a nation’s cultural heritage. They are vessels, but not just simple vessels but also a world representing the life and culture of people when they were created. At first, it is an unfamiliar and uneasy experience to try to understand and appreciate such ceramic ware. If you gradually repeat visiting the museum and observe the characteristics of ceramics, you can soon find them more familiar and find yourself happily enjoying them as time goesby.
Reading books on ceramics, you will find it helpful for your understanding about the world of ceramics, although vaguely. You will also feel deepening love for ceramics. Through this, you realize that it is important to have an eye and mind for the beauty of each piece of ceramics but it is more fundamental to understand the background and characteristics of the periods in which the ceramic works were made. I think the exhibition “Masterpieces in Ceramics from the V&A” is a very important opportunity to grasp the changes and beauty of world ceramics that have developed over thousands of years. So far in Korea, there have been ceramic exhibitions mainly on traditional Korean ceramics — earthenware, celadon, Buncheong ware and white porcelain — and only a few on Chinese ceramic art. Understanding Korean ceramics only narrows your perspective and makes you unable to have a wider understanding about yours in the world, like a frog in a well in an age of globalization. Closely related to mankind’s life culture for a long time, ceramics have revealed diverse features by country and period. There has been a demand for an exhibition to bring world ceramics together and a need for understanding about the variety of their beauty.
The ceramics collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is one of the world’s largest collections in existence.

I am very pleased that the Korea Foundation Cultural Center is the opening venue for the tour exhibition of the ceramics from the V&A. I think it provides a valuable opportunity to compare ceramic works from China, the ceramic center of the East, with those of Korea and Japan, and see the various forms, decorations and changes in a diverse array of ceramics from Egypt, Iran and Turkey in the Middle East, Greece and the Roman Empire, and ceramics made in European countries, including Spain, France, England, Germany and Russia, from the 16th through 20th centuries.
Personally, I have long aspired to see the Yuan dynasty’s flask with dragon and cloud painted in underglaze blue, currently on display, more than anything else. Potted with kaolin, burned at over 1300℃, and decorated with cobalt blue imported from the Middle East in around 1350 during the Yuan dynasty, it is one of the earliest examples of blue and white porcelain. A product of exchanges between East and West, it is a very valuable and important artwork evoking dynamic and strong feelings. White and blue porcelain has long been loved both in East and West since it was first introduced. This exhibition that fills the galleries with ceramic masterpieces offers a very meaningful opportunity to understand various cultures of the world through ceramics.

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Clay, Fire and Beauty

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