After seeing the exhibit with the class we were able to branch off and see some other exhibits. I walked around a little bit and stumbled upon the Shell and Resin: Korean Mother-of-Pearl and Lacquer exhibit. It showcased the thirty works of Korean lacquerware and its long and rich tradition in Korean Art. The pieces are arranged by motif to illustrate the technical and aesthetic development of that particular art form. They also arrange to show the similarity in Chinese, Japanese lacquers. There were many cool pieces but I remember these sticking out to me the most.
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Korean. These five vessels relate to the traditional color spectrum obangsaek and connect to the cardinal directions and the five elements that are the basis of East Asian cosmology. The elements are white (west, metal), black (north, water), yellow (center, earth), red (south, fire), and blue (east, wood). Lacquer is naturally a deep reddish brown, it cannot be rendered white; so in this piece artist, Chung Haecho substituted white for green.
They had a video of Chung Haecho creating these pieces that I thought was so intriguing to see. I remember watching the video twice,.
Chinese. This technique of carving lacquer was developed for Chinese lacquerware. This kind of carving is not found in Korean lacquer, for which inlay was the preferred decorative method.
Japanese. This piece is part of a set of thirty trays with matching basins that were sent from the Kingdom of Ryūkyū to the Qing court in Beijing at least three times during the eighteenth century. The dragons chasing a pearl at center have five-clawed feet, indicating that they are imperial symbols. It is made with thin pieces of mother-of-pearl chosen for its bright colors, the dragons feature heads disjointed from the rest of their bodies, a characteristic of Ryūkyū lacquer.
