Seoul Metropolitan Museum of Art

Seoul Metropolitan Museum 

of Art

It was a bit cold that afternoon but I have nothing to do. Due to my boredom, I grabbed my copy of Seoul’s Best 100 and started to scan the pages. An art fanatic, I got amused and interested on what’s inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I immediately called some of my friends and one of them said he can accompany me in this sudden excursion. Off we went to the place and we did enjoy the whole area.

The inaugural exhibition in the new permanent Arts of Korea Gallery at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, opening June 9, will  feature the finest examples of Korean art in all major media, including 22 national treasures, many of which have never before been displayed in the West.  Drawn from the extraordinary collection of The National Museum of Korea in Seoul as well as from important private collections in Korea, Japan, and the United States, and including works from the Metropolitan’s collection, it is the first comprehensive display of Korean masterpieces to be seen in the United States in nearly 20 years. 

The Facade

Got a picture of this painting without knowing that taking pictures is not allowed.

Bringing together 100 works dating from the Neolithic period through the 19th century, this exhibition examines four major areas of traditional Korean art -- ceramics, metalwork and decorative arts, Buddhist sculpture, and painting.  Together with the catalogue and educational programs, the exhibition highlights the distinguished cultural and artistic legacy of Korea and the historical context in which the objects were created.  The 512-page catalogue -- which introduces significant developments in the history of Korean art and presents important new findings in Korean art studies to the public and to scholars -- is one of the few volumes on Korean art to be published in the English language. . 

     The Korean ceramic tradition has long been admired in China and Japan, and more recently recognized in the West. Forty ceramics on view -- ranging from the earthenware of the Neolithic period to the celebrated celadons of the Koryô dynasty (918-1392) and the white porcelains and punch’ông ("powder-green") ware of the Chosôn dynasty (1392-1910) -- demonstrate the skill and ingenuity of the Korean potter.  Among these objects are an imposing bird-shaped vessel of the late 2nd to 3rd century, which represents one of the earliest known Korean ceramic sculptural forms; a mid-12th-century celadon bottle (kundika) with an incised and carved design of waterbirds and willows (Treasure no. 344); a 12th-century celadon maebyông (prunus vase), embellished with an underglaze iron-brown and inlaid design of ginseng leaves (Treasure no. 340); a 15th-century punch’ông bottle with an incised design of fish; a striking 17th-century porcelain jar (National Treasure no. 166) that has an underglaze iron-brown design of bamboo and plum; and a large porcelain jar produced in the second half of the 18th century that is decorated with a lively design of a tiger, magpies, and haet’ae (mythical lion-dog) painted under the glaze in cobalt blue and copper red. 

      tricky sculptures outside the museum.

Spectacular gold ornaments -- such as an elaborate crown and delicate earrings produced from the late 4th to the 6th century, in the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C.E.-668 C.E.) -- reflect the sumptuous lifestyle and authority of royal families of Korea’s first centralized states.  The exhibition also includes a wide variety of bronze objects that were created using a technology imported from northern China around the 10th century B.C.E. 

     Buddhism, introduced from China in the 4th century, flourished throughout the  peninsula in the Unified Silla (668-935) and Koryô periods, when Korean artists produced some of the world’s most sophisticated and technically accomplished Buddhist works. The importance of Buddhism in daily life and its pervasive influence as a creative and spiritual force in early Korean society are seen, for example, in silver-inlaid bronze incense burners and vessels, as well as bronze bells and gongs made for use in temples.  Among the monuments of Buddhist art is a large gilt-bronze image of the bodhisattva Maitreya, from the late 6th century, whose contemplative expression epitomizes the powerful presence of Korean Buddhist sculpture.  Portable shrines and reliquaries exquisitely crafted in gilt bronze are evidence of the increasingly personal expression of Buddhist devotion in the Koryô dynasty. Although suppressed by the state, Buddhism continued to find expression in the arts of the Chosôn period. 

     Elegant yet restrained lacquerware, furniture, and other scholars’ accessories became popular in the 14th century with the rise of the yangban, the members of the "two orders" of civil and military officials who dominated the political, economic, and cultural life of the Chosôn dynasty.  
 While there is evidence of a diverse painting tradition in Korea, most of the earliest surviving paintings are Koryô Buddhist devotional icons.  Prized in China and Japan, where many of them were preserved in temple collections, these works include images of Buddhist deities and illuminated manuscripts.  The inaugural Arts of Korea exhibition includes: an early-14th-century hanging scroll, Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara, depicting one of the most popular Buddhist deities of the Koryô period wearing beautiful robes and sashes; a hanging scroll dating from the first half of the 14th century, Amitabha and Kshitigarbha (Chijang), which combines the Buddha Amitabha and the bodhisattva Kshitigarbha in one composition and represents the only known example of this iconography in Koryô Buddhist painting; and the 14th-century Illustrated Manuscript of the Lotus Sutra, a folding book with elegant calligraphy written in silver pigment and a frontispiece executed in gold portraying popular tales from the sutra. 

     In addition to court-sponsored secular painting, works attributable to individual artists became more numerous in the Chosôn period.  Among them were the preeminent court painter An Kyôn (active ca. 1440-70) and the literati artist Chông Sôn (1676-1759), who saw themselves as heirs to a long tradition of scholar-artists in China.  While deeply indebted to the themes, techniques, and critical tradition of Chinese painting, Korean artists sought to create individual stylistic vocabularies, especially in landscape painting.  This new interest culminated in the so-called true-view landscape movement of the 18th century, which advocated the depiction of actual Korean scenery as an alternative to the classical themes of Chinese landscape painting.  The 18th century also saw the emergence of a unique tradition of genre painting, whose acknowledged master practitioners, Kim Hong-do (1745-1806) and Sin Yun-bok (ca. 1758-after 1813), portrayed the daily life of all classes of Korean society -- from carpenters and iron forgers to aristocrats and scholars -- in all its variety and liveliness.  An album painting of a dancer performing to the accompaniment of a small troupe of musicians, Dancer and Musicians, demonstrates Kim’s remarkable talent in conveying sensitive observations of narrative detail. 

     Cameras were not allowed at the exhibition halls so you should really visit this point of interest where modern and ancient art meet.

for more photos pls click here: http://mjse.multiply.com/photos/album/310/Seoul_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art