ASSEMBLING “KOREA”: PENINSULAR ARTS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JAPAN

Abstract

The Japanese reception of Korean ceramic tea bowls, called kōrai jawan in Japan, unfolded over several decades in the sixteenth century. Kōrai jawan became valuable objects sought out by Japanese warriors, merchants, and monks who participated in sixteenth-century tea practice, chanoyu, a foremost cultural forum for aesthetic discourse. The diaries kept by these men preserve their mindful and intensive engagement with Korean tea bowls. The introduction of kōrai jawan marked the beginning of Japanese interest in collecting non-Chinese objects, and this shift had a profound impact on sixteenth-century aesthetics, and later seventeenth-century artistic production. The dissertation reconstructs the historical processes that contributed to the Japanese acclaim for kōrai jawan. I intervene into ongoing debates about the place of kōrai jawan within Japanese and Korean art history by bringing them together in a reevaluation of collecting practices as a mode of artistic agency and conduit for technological transfer. Chapter One foregrounds the history of “Korea” in Japanese culture beyond chanoyu through eighth- to sixteenth-century Japanese literature, sumptuary manuals, diaries, and illustrated handscrolls. Chapter Two explores the aesthetics of these now-lost early kōrai jawan through archaeological remains and records of their appreciation in tea diaries. My inquiry begins in 1537, when the term kōrai jawan first appeared in tea diaries, and ends in 1565, when tea men introduced new, more specific terms to refer to Korean bowls. Chapter Three explores the growing acclaim for kōrai jawan through the framework of assemblage-making and display, focusing on the same period as Chapter Two. I show how patterns of kōrai jawan usage emerged over time, establishing that tea men valued an aesthetic rooted in Korean bowls as a crucial aspect of their collections. Chapter Four focuses on the terms that appear after 1565 and their relationship to now-valorized heirloom kōrai jawan. I continue my analysis of tea diaries until 1591, before the Imjin War (1592– 1598) thoroughly disrupted Korean ceramic production. By recovering the nascent stages of kōrai jawan reception, I reveal how Korean ceramics were crucial to Japanese visual culture prior to the displacement of Korean potters to Japan after the Imjin War.