Serendipitous Encounter

Choi Young Wook and His Moon Jar Painting - by Chia Chi Jason Wang

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Over the past seven years, the Korean painter Choi Young Wook (1964-) has consistently adopted the moon jar – a porcelain vessel in vogue among the general Korean public during the late Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) – as the principal subject of his paintings, gradually gaining international attention. According to Choi’s own recollections, some time ago when he was still groping to find his own style and mode of expression, he chanced upon a Joseon-era moon jar in a museum while traveling in Europe and the United States. The sight aroused in him a sense of deja vu, as if he were experiencing something intimate yet unfamiliar. This serendipitous encounter spurred him to start painting white porcelain moon jars, and also to research and collect them. In reality, long before moon jars began appearing in Choi Young Wook’s paintings, white porcelain was an important traditional artistic asset passed down from the Joseon dynasty, influencing and inspiring several well-known modern and contemporary Korean artists. Modernist pioneer Kim Whan-ki (1913-1974), who excels at abstract art, is one of the more prominent examples. Veteran contemporary ceramicist Park Young-sook (1949-) directly carries on the tradition of Joseon white porcelain, having revived the style of moon jars and their firing techniques, which at one time had been lost. In recent years and particularly since 2006, well known photographer Koo Bohn-chang (1953-) has also made white porcelain, especially moon jars, a major subject of his photos, exploring them as a possible form of contemporary artistic expression. The rise of Joseon white porcelain was actually influenced by Ming-dynasty China. By the middle of the 15th century, it had developed its own distinctive ethnic spirit and aesthetic, and had even become the exclusive purview of the royal court. According to scholarly texts, in the early 15th century, when the Joseon Dynasty was first being established as a Confucian kingdom, King Sejong (1397-1450) commanded that white porcelain replace the luxurious and exorbitant gold and silver implements the court had originally been accustomed to using. Thereafter, the king founded a royal kiln, dedicated to producing utensils for the “internal use” of the royal household, and commencing the “golden age of white porcelain.”１ From the late 15th century to the early 17th century, the Joseon royal court banned the use of white porcelain by all except royalty, and dignitaries from the Ming court. In 1616 the crown partially lifted the ban, permitting the gentry to use sang baekja (“common” white porcelain), a form of white porcelain rougher in quality than that used by royalty.