A GLANCE AT KOREAN ART.
“Far Eastern art draws its inspiration from Nature, not from
man. It thus stands, in the objects of its endeavour, in
striking contrast to what has ever been the main admiration and
study of our own, the human figure. A flower, a face—matter as
it affects mind, mind as it affects matter—from such opposite
sources spring the two. Art, or the desire to perpetuate and
reproduce the emotions, must, of course, depend upon the
character of those emotions. Now to a Far Oriental Nature is
more suggestive and man less so than with us.”—PERCIVAL LOWELL.
The subject of Korean art is vast, intricate, and difficult. It could
not possibly be covered, even in the most superficial way, in one
chapter, or in a series of several chapters. But it would be
preposterous to altogether exclude it from any book whose pages are
devoted to Korea generally. For perhaps the most really interesting
thing about Korea, and certainly one of the most interesting things to
be said about Korea is this:—Korea was the birthplace of a great deal
that is finest and highest in the art of that wonderful art
country—Japan.
A great deal that is most distinguished in Korean art, past and present,
is undeniably indigenous to Korea, but, on the other hand, the Korean
artists have borrowed or absorbed a good deal from the arts of other
countries. In the early days of its prosperity Korean art seems to have
owed a great deal to China. But, even in its infancy, through the long
years of its magnificent splendour, and in these days of its decay or of
trance, Korean art always has had, and has, a marked individuality, and
bears the indubitable hall-mark of genuine originality.
In the beginning, then, Korean art was probably a mingling of the
national expression of an intensely artistic people, and what was most
striking in the rich, but less graceful art of China. Under the Sung
dynasty, between the years 960 and 1333 A.D., lay the most brilliant
period of China’s literary existence, and perhaps the most brilliant
period of her art life. And it was also between these years that Korean
art reached, and for some time maintained, its highest perfection.
No careful art student who visits both countries, or has access to
typical collections of the art productions of both countries, can fail
to observe that apparently either Persia has distinctly influenced the
art of Korea, or Persia’s art been distinctly influenced by Korea.
Probably both are true. Persian embassies and Korean embassies were wont
to meet in Pekin. Very probably showed each other the presents sent by
their respective masters to the Chinese Emperor. These presents were
always largely made up of works of art. And their inspection probably
led to an interchange of presents between the embassies themselves, and
later on, to reciprocal studies, between Persia and Korea, of the art
methods of the two countries. Korea has excelled in fret-work, in
scroll-work, and in a great variety of arabesque decorations, and in all
of these has very largely followed Persian lines.
The key-note of Korean art, as the key-note of all Far Eastern and,
indeed, of most Oriental art, is the inferior place held in it by the
study of the human figure. Far Eastern art is a study of nature and of
decorations. This is even more true of Korea than of China or Japan,
though the Koreans excel both the Chinese and the Japanese in their
drawing of animals. The chief characteristic of Korean decorative art is
its chastity. One cannot fail to be reminded by it of the severe
simplicity of old Grecian art. A good specimen of Korean pottery or
porcelain is never heavily covered with decoration. A Korean vase, or a
Korean bowl, is simple and elegant of outline, and the surface is finely
finished, but probably three-fourths of that entire surface is
undecorated. The old specimens of Japanese Satsuma (the Koreans taught
the Japanese how to make Satsuma) are usually distinguishable from the
new and cheaper, because the former are touched with decoration, and the
latter are hidden beneath it. The Koreans use colour very lavishly when
they use it at all. But conventional design, conventionalized
decorations, and decorations which are more exact copies of nature,
whether in black and white or in colour, they use very carefully, and
never crowd them together. Their porcelains are not so glazed as those
of Japan, and the usual, or favourite colour is a creamy white. The
dragon, which is so conspicuous a personage in all Far Eastern art, is
perpetually drawn by Korean artists in colour, and by Korean artists in
black and white, but is rather sparingly used on the Korean pottery;
which in this differs from the potteries of China and Japan. The
mythical animals and the symbolical animals, though they all figure
largely in Korean art, are not often found on Korean porcelain. The
Koreans value highly all sorts of crackle ware, and have been excelled,
I fancy, in its manufacture by no other people.
Griffis says: “Decoration is the passion of the Orient, and for this,
rather than for creative or ideal art, must we look from this nation, to
whose language gender is unknown, and in which personification is
unthought of, though all nature is animate with malignant or beneficent
presences. Abstract qualities embodied in human form are unknown to the
Korean, but his refined taste enjoys whatever thought and labour have
made charming to the eye by its suggestion of pleasing images to the
imagination. His art is decorative, not creative or ideal. His choice
pieces of bric-a-brac may be rougher and coarser than those of Japan,
but their individuality is as strongly marked as that of the Chinese,
while the taste displayed is severer than that of the later Japanese.”
Perhaps the design that they most often employ, in their decorative art,
is the well-known “wave-pattern.” We find it on their porcelain, on
their bronzes, in the most conventional of their pictures, and even on
their coins. Some one has suggested that it is perhaps used on the small
copper coins to symbolize their circulation and fluctuation in value.
The wave-pattern symbolizes successive and interminable wave-motion. The
love of the Korean artist for water in nature, and for conventionalized
water effects in decoration, amounts to a passion. Water in some form or
phase is introduced into almost every Korean picture, and on to the
majority of the porcelains, bronzes, the lacquers, and into the
carvings. We find the wave-pattern beautifully executed on curtains and
panels, on armour and on weapons. It often circles the columns of a
building, and is conspicuous in interior architectural decorations. A
strand of twisting, turning, curling waves is commonly the handle of a
fine Korean teapot, and many a Korean dish, or vase, or bowl rests upon
a porcelain or bronze bed of seemingly angry waves. The Japanese have
seized upon the wave-pattern, and have vastly improved it. It is
doubtless through their much exported, and much copied wares that we
have become very familiar with it; and I have not infrequently seen it
mingled with incongruous European patterns, in fancy printing, both in
London, on the Continent, and in America—used for the background of
decorative initial letters, or introduced into fancy tail-pieces.
The chrysanthemum was the favourite, the most favoured, and the most
studied flower in Korea long before it became the imperial flower, the
badge of Japan. The Koreans have always been, and are, wonderfully
skilled in rearing it; and in reproducing it in colour, in black and
white, in relief, and in conventional designs. We find it whenever we
turn our eyes toward Korean objects of art. We find it, or some design
suggestive of it, in Korean brocades, and in Korean carvings, and many
of the most beautiful Korean borders have been designed from ingenious
arrangements of its petals. In several ways the chrysanthemum lends
itself with peculiar facility to Korean art ideals. It is rich,
splendid, and varied in colour, and the Koreans have a passion for
colour. It is interesting and noble in shape, and comes out splendidly
in relief, or in half-relief. It is beautiful, but unique, and sometimes
even grotesque in outline, and all the Eastern peoples admire the
grotesque. Certainly the artists of Korea and of Japan understand the
grotesque’s usefulness in art above all other artists, and employ it to
relieve gentler, simpler forms of beauty, which might grow monotonous if
used perpetually. Clouds and stars and the sun are utilized in a variety
of ways by the Korean decorative artist. And a conventional pattern,
called “the dragon’s tooth,” is extremely striking, and is nicely
adaptable to vases or dishes that are big at the base, and small at the
top.
Lacquer has been for centuries as commonly used in Korea as in Japan,
but it has never reached the perfection, the artisticness in the former
country that it has in the latter.
Korea was once the store-house of innumerable and invaluable works of
art; art treasures of great variety, fine in design, excellent in
execution, and rich in symbolism. To-day there are comparatively few art
treasures in Korea. The nobles and the rich men probably each have a few
hidden away. The king has a number. And some are still to be found in
the ostracized monasteries, in the nunneries, and in other unexpected
places. But Chosön is no longer the great art treasure-house she once
was. In the palaces and the temples of China and Japan are to be seen
many of what were once Korea’s most prized works of art. And these have
been taken as booty from Korea, or sent by Korea as tribute. But the
peninsula has not continued in her old glory of art production. Korean
art has deteriorated in quality, and in many of its branches shrunk to
something nominal in quantity, because great bodies of her best artists
and artisans have been sent to Japan, or have gone there. Keenly alive
to all that is beautiful in nature, and all that is most exquisite in
art, the Japanese readily appreciated the high degree of excellence that
had been attained by the artists of Chosön. Not content with taking to
Japan the most perfect specimens of Korean art, the Japanese offered
every inducement to the best Korean artists to settle in Japan, and
spread throughout Japan their superior knowledge of art, and skill in
art work. To the instructions of the Koreans the Japanese owed their
unrivalled skill in making the beautiful Satsuma faïence, and the almost
as beautiful Imari porcelain. The Koreans taught the Japanese how to
carve wood, and then, apparently, forgot how to do it themselves; though
there are still in Korea some very beautiful specimens of fine carving,
especially in the royal palace at Söul. The majority of Japanese
patterns for brocades and for stuffs, and many of their favourite
designs for embroidery, are purely and indisputably Korean.
A scholar, who seems to me always anxious to do Japan full justice, has
written:—
“The existence of any special traits or principles of decoration, or a
peculiar set of symbols in Korean art, has been thus far hardly known.
When fully studied these will greatly modify our ideas of Oriental art,
and especially of the originality of the Japanese designers. Korea was
not only the road by which the art of China reached Japan, but it is the
original home of many of the art-ideas which the world believes to be
purely Japanese.”
The Japanese themselves, to be fair to them, do not claim to have a
largely original art, and my attention was first called to the magnitude
of Japan’s art debt to Korea by a Japanese gentleman in Tokio.
Old Persian writers express the greatest admiration for Korean
porcelains, and for the beautiful decorated saddles that were sent to
Persia from Chosön. The Koreans still excel in the making of gorgeous
and (after once the eyes grow accustomed to their gorgeousness) really
beautiful saddles. They are inlaid with pearls, and are richly
embroidered. Bows and arms and fans are among the many things that the
Koreans used to, and still do, make. They are beautiful with pearls,
with jade, and with gold and silver and iron inlaying. The Koreans once
made splendid and beautiful bells, and were expert in all sorts of metal
work, but they have lost or laid aside these arts to a very great
extent. There are still some very fine bells in the peninsula, and some
beautiful Korean bells in Japan, but their manufacture dates back a long
time. And this is also usually true of many of the best specimens of all
kinds of Korean art-work that we find in Chosön or in Japan. It is true
of most of the beautiful images found in the temples, and many of the
vases, the braziers, the incense-burners, the trenchers, the kettles,
the bowls, the decanters, and the censors, all of which are exceedingly
graceful in form, pure in outline, and decorated with simplicity and
dignity.
The throne in the palace of Söul is a very beautiful example of
well-controlled art. It is simplicity itself, but it is as majestic as
it is simple; perfect in every detail, royal in its proportions, and in
severe but perfect taste.
Among the minor arts that still flourish in Korea is that of toy-making.
The Korean toy-makers really are artists, and the playthings of the
children of the well-to-do are so carefully designed and so faithfully
executed, that in their little way they have every claim to be
considered works of art. Armour, palanquins—indeed, all the impedimenta
of Korean daily life, and of the daily life of old Korea—are reproduced
with minute exactness, and very wonderful toys are made out of bits of
tiger skins and of the fur of the tiger and other wild beasts.
The battle-flags and the banners of Korea are interesting both to the
student of history and the student of art. The mysticism and the
symbolism that is so characteristic of all Korean art is noticeable on
almost every Korean flag.
The strange animals that we find in Korean art, animals that are like
none that ever lived, are symbolical, and, to the Korean mind, typify a
great deal that the Koreans think it important to remember.
A branch of art which is much thought of in Chinese-Asia, and is there
indeed a fine art, is pen-work or brush-work. In this art the Koreans
are as adept to-day as they ever have been—as adept as the Chinese or
the Japanese. Fine specimens of calligraphy are written with a
brush—written upon scrolls of silk or of soft paper, and are either put
away to be treasured, or are hung upon the walls as ornaments of great
interest. The last time I was in Tokio the wife of a Japanese official,
whose home is very rich in paintings, both European and Japanese, showed
me, with great pride, her collection of such scrolls—scrolls, all of
which were specimens of fine writing. Very much such scrolls form the
principal wall decoration of the study of the Chinese minister in
London, and such scrolls are among the most cherished household goods of
every well-to-do Korean. The Koreans write with the greatest ease and
elegance, and it is almost as natural for them to draw and paint very
fairly well as it is for them to write.
The making of fine pottery is almost, if not quite, a lost art in Korea,
but they still know the secret of, and still make and use, the exquisite
tints and the matchless colours that characterized their glazes in the
days when Korean art was at its greatest height. The Korean potters are
among the nomads of the peninsula. A family, or several families, of
potters choose some spot where wood and clay are convenient, and there
they build their huts, and there they live till the wood or the clay is
exhausted. All Korean pottery is fired in ovens that are heated with
wood. There are no great potteries in Korea or in Japan. Each specimen
of their art is the individual work of an individual, and in this,
perhaps, lays one of the secrets of the fascination of any genuine work
of art from these countries. The most beautiful piece of porcelain that
has ever been made in China, Japan, or in Korea, has probably been made
in some humble little hut and fired by an insignificant-looking little
oven.
I have spoken elsewhere of the famous Chinese lion, or Korean dog. It is
more grotesque than beautiful, and is chiefly interesting because it has
so strong a hold upon the affections of three so different peoples. For
a conservative Asian, he is a very great traveller, is this Korean dog.
He has found his way into every fancy bazaar, and every cheap notion
shop in Europe and America; and we really feel quite as if we had met an
old friend when we stumble upon him in Yeddo, in Pekin, or in quaint
Söul.
It is being constantly urged against Far Eastern art that it is
artificial. Mr. Lowell refutes this so clearly, so distinctly, with so
much discernment, and to my mind, so convincingly, that I feel it would
be a pity to refute it in any other words. He says:—
“Far from being artificial, Far Eastern art is emphatically natural. The
reason that it does not so appear to us at first is due to two causes.
The first is very simple—an absence with us of what the Far Oriental
sees around him at home. A picture of snow-peaks would undoubtedly
appear conventional, in the sense used above, to a man who had dwelt all
his life on the plains, and never heard of such things as white-headed
mountains. The second cause is that certain very salient features of his
landscapes have engrossed the Far Oriental attention, to the partial
neglect of other less striking but, perhaps, even more common scenes.
“Every traveller knows the effect of this in other things beside art.
Narrators insensibly, if not on purpose, pick out the salient points of
any land to give an idea of it to those to whom it is an undiscovered
country. The result is, that on acquaintance no country seems so odd as
imagination, fed on a few startling facts, has pictured it to be; and
yet, for all that, the facts may be perfectly true. Now, what we do to
give others an idea of foreign lands, the Far Oriental does to give
himself an idea of his own. His art, by reason of this strong
simplicity, is all the higher art.”
Landscape gardening holds a prominent place among the arts of Korea, and
is as well understood, and as generally practised to-day as it has ever
been in the history of the peninsula. Water forms the principal, and the
indispensable feature of every Korean garden. Indeed, the pond, which
must be in the centre of the garden, often takes up nine-tenths of the
garden’s entire area. This pond is always called a “lotus pond.” Usually
the lotus is there, but not always, and its absence only emphasizes the
title of the pond. It is interesting to notice how indispensable the
sight of water is to the Koreans, and it speaks a great deal, I think,
for their genuine love of Nature.
Korea is so surrounded by water, so intersected with rivers, and has so
many high hills from which water can be seen for some distance, and down
which rivulets and waterfalls break, that every Korean must be very
familiar with water in all its moods and tenses. But he does not tire of
it. On the contrary, a Korean who has his domain on the very sea-shore,
will dig up the larger part of his garden for the sake of having an
artificial lotus-pond; that he may sit on the artificial island in its
centre and fish and dream and watch the water. Fantastic groups of
strange rock work are put in almost every Korean garden: groups to which
European eyes have to grow very used before they can see any beauty in
them.
Korean music, like almost all Asiatic music, requires a great deal of
study before we can at all understand it or like it. Its scale differs
entirely from our gamut—differs even more than do Korean instruments
from ours. Japanese music is of Korean origin, but has changed greatly
of later years. But all classical Japanese music is still identical with
Korean music, which has changed little or not at all. Korean government
labourers are called to and released from their day’s work by music, and
to music do the gates of a Korean city close or open for the day.
When Korea was in its infancy she was thrown into intimate contact with
China. Korea had not had time to develop a literature, and so she very
_naïvely_ adopted the literature of China. Chinese literature is the
classical literature of Korea still. The great majority of Korean books
(and they are not surprisingly many), are written and printed in
Chinese. The Koreans have neglected their own language and its literary
possibilities for centuries. Still there is considerable poetry written
in the Korean tongue (but in the Chinese character almost always), and
we may consider the writing of this poetry as one of Korea’s national
arts. “Poetry parties” are a popular form of Korean picnics. A number of
friends meet at some unusually beautiful spot. They have been preceded
by servants carrying writing materials and wine. Very gravely the
competitors (for such they are) set to work. They sun and joy themselves
in the beauty of the scene, they sip the cup that cheers, but alas!
intoxicates too! and when they have enough assimilated the beauty of the
scene and the gladness of the wine, then they write verses. The verses
take the form of songs, or are ballads in praise of nature. They write
of the bamboo, of the stars, of the storm, of moonlight and of sunrise,
but never of woman!