Metropolitan Museum of Art
4 total works
Bold, sophisticated, engaging, and startlingly modern, Buncheong ceramics emerged as a distinct Korean art form in the 15th and 16th centuries, only to be eclipsed on its native ground for more than 400 years by the overwhelming demand for porcelain. Elements from the Buncheong idiom were later revived in Japan, where its spare yet sensual aesthetic was much admired and where descendants of Korean potters lived and worked. This innovative study features 60 masterpieces from the renowned Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, as well as objects from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and presents current scholarship on Buncheong's history, manufacture, use, and overall significance. "Modern Tradition" illustrates why this historical art form continues to resonate with contemporary Japanese ceramicists and Korean artists as they reclaim an ancient national tradition.
Design for Eternity
by Joanne Pillsbury, Patricia Sarro, James Doyle, and Juliet Wiersema
Published 12 November 2015
From the first millennium B.C. until the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, artists from across the ancient Americas created small-scale architectural effigies to be placed in the tombs of important individuals. These works in stone, ceramic, wood, and metal range from highly abstracted, minimalist representations of temples and houses to elaborate complexes populated with figures, conveying a rich sense of ancient ritual and daily life. Although described as models, these effigies were created not so much as reflections or prototypes of existing structures, but rather as critical, conceptual components of funerary practice and beliefs about an afterlife.
Design for Eternity is the first publication in English to explore these architectural works, providing new insights into ancient American design and how it reflected the practices of daily life. The vivid illustrations and texts focus on architectural representation, as well as the role these intriguing sculptures played in mediating relationships among the living, the dead, and the divine.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Design for Eternity is the first publication in English to explore these architectural works, providing new insights into ancient American design and how it reflected the practices of daily life. The vivid illustrations and texts focus on architectural representation, as well as the role these intriguing sculptures played in mediating relationships among the living, the dead, and the divine.
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
Exhibition Schedule:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(10/26/15–09/18/16)
Diamond Mountains
by Soyoung Lee, Ahn Daehoe, Chin-Sung Chang, and Lee Soomi
Published 27 February 2018
A dazzling exploration of the pictorial traditions inspired by Korea's legendary Diamond Mountains
The Diamond Mountains, known in Korea as Mount Geumgang, are perhaps the most famous and emotionally resonant site on the Korean Peninsula, a breathtaking range of rocky peaks, waterfalls, lagoons, and manmade pavilions. For centuries the range has inspired cultural pride and a vast outpouring of creative expression. Yet since the partition of Korea in the 1940s, situating them in the North, the Diamond Mountains have remained largely inaccessible to visitors, shrouding the site in legend, loss, and longing.
This book examines the visual representation of this remarkable landscape from the 18th century to the present day. It explores how Jeong Seon (1676-1759) revolutionized Korean painting with his Diamond Mountains landscapes, replacing conventional generic imagery with specific detail and indelibly influencing generations of artists in his wake. It also discusses the potency of these mountains as an emblem of Korean cultural identity, as reflected in literature and in exquisitely detailed album leaves, handscrolls, hanging scrolls, and screens. This magnificent volume is the first in English to survey this rich artistic tradition and bring these distant mountains into view.
The Diamond Mountains, known in Korea as Mount Geumgang, are perhaps the most famous and emotionally resonant site on the Korean Peninsula, a breathtaking range of rocky peaks, waterfalls, lagoons, and manmade pavilions. For centuries the range has inspired cultural pride and a vast outpouring of creative expression. Yet since the partition of Korea in the 1940s, situating them in the North, the Diamond Mountains have remained largely inaccessible to visitors, shrouding the site in legend, loss, and longing.
This book examines the visual representation of this remarkable landscape from the 18th century to the present day. It explores how Jeong Seon (1676-1759) revolutionized Korean painting with his Diamond Mountains landscapes, replacing conventional generic imagery with specific detail and indelibly influencing generations of artists in his wake. It also discusses the potency of these mountains as an emblem of Korean cultural identity, as reflected in literature and in exquisitely detailed album leaves, handscrolls, hanging scrolls, and screens. This magnificent volume is the first in English to survey this rich artistic tradition and bring these distant mountains into view.
Jewelry
by Melanie Holcomb, Kim Benzel, Soyoung Lee, Diana Craig Patch, and Joanne Pillsbury
Published 20 November 2018
A cross-cultural examination of jewelry spanning 5,000 years that investigates not only the objects themselves but also the bodies they decorated
As an art form, jewelry is defined primarily through its connection to and interaction with the body—extending it, amplifying it, accentuating it, distorting it, concealing it, or transforming it. But how is the meaning of jewelry bound to the body that wears it?
Establishing six different modes of ornamenting the body—Deconstructed, Divine, Regal, Idealized, Alluring, and Resplendent—this artfully designed book illustrates how these various definitions of the body give meaning to the jewelry that adorns it. More than 200 examples of exceptional jewelry and ornaments, created across the globe from antiquity to the present, are shown alongside paintings and sculptures of bejeweled bodies to demonstrate the social, political, and aesthetic role of jewelry. From earflares of warrior heroes in Pre-Columbian Peru to designs by Yves Saint-Laurent, these precious and most intimate works of art provide insight not only about the wearer but also into the designers, artisans, and cultures that produced them.
As an art form, jewelry is defined primarily through its connection to and interaction with the body—extending it, amplifying it, accentuating it, distorting it, concealing it, or transforming it. But how is the meaning of jewelry bound to the body that wears it?
Establishing six different modes of ornamenting the body—Deconstructed, Divine, Regal, Idealized, Alluring, and Resplendent—this artfully designed book illustrates how these various definitions of the body give meaning to the jewelry that adorns it. More than 200 examples of exceptional jewelry and ornaments, created across the globe from antiquity to the present, are shown alongside paintings and sculptures of bejeweled bodies to demonstrate the social, political, and aesthetic role of jewelry. From earflares of warrior heroes in Pre-Columbian Peru to designs by Yves Saint-Laurent, these precious and most intimate works of art provide insight not only about the wearer but also into the designers, artisans, and cultures that produced them.