The books of the Academy, the wines of the Palace,
the inkstones of Tuan, the peonies of Lo-yang, the tea of Ch’ienchou, the brocades of Shu, the porcelains of Ting, the “secret color” (wares) of Kao-li ( Korea) -- these are all to be ranked as “First under Heaven.” (1)
In particular the Kings of Goryeo loved celadon and supported its production. As a result, Korea’s ceramic artists became very skilled at producing celadon. During the reign of King Injong (ruled 1123-1147 CE) the Goryeo court was visited by a Chinese calligrapher named Hsu Ching. Hsu Ching was so impressed by Korea’s chungja that he devoted three chapters of his report to “wares and vessels”. The fancy shapes of Korean ceramics and the delicacy of their chungja glaze were most impressive. It was not the Korean inlay that some may imagine.
What were the wares the Chinese loved and why was the Gangjin ware considered better than China’s?
This simple web site is probably not the place to go into great detail about the latter question. The fuller answer should be left to the scholars and may be found in our reference books list. However, we will try to answer it in more general terms.
Ceramic artists from Gangjin were peasants and very close to nature. Many embraced a belief in mountain spirits and gave homage to them for the kneading of the clay to the firing of the kiln. Special foods and liquor were set out and placed on a shrine above the fire mouth of the kiln, a practice that many potters continue today. They understood nature deeply and in in many ways were part of it. In addition Koreans then and even today are robust, innovative and playful people. On the other hand the Chinese artisans were under much greater restrains in their efforts to please the emperor. In the beginning many Korean forms reflected those from China. But those forms and their accompanying glaze did not long satisfy the Koreans. The Koreans changed both. The Chinese glaze laying on top of the clay body, was more opaque and was very uniform. The more translucent Korean glaze allowed the clay body to play a role in the color so that the clay and glaze became one. No area of Korea, even today has mastered these aspects of celadon better than Gangjin.
When we consider that the Chinese normally believe their culture superior to all other countries, this was quite a complement. (1)
Another Sung-dynasty Chinese, author of the T’ao-p’ing Lao Jen heaped praise on the celadon of Korea. His exact words in translation were:
(fig. 4)