Most studies on Korean craftworks have so far focused on academic interests, searching for archeological meaning and a well-ordered art history. Written by Son Yeonghak, this book is quite different from its predecessors as it centers more on the inner landscape of Korean life and basic ideas of living. This book will be a great source of understanding for the spirit and wisdom of Korean people, while helping readers realize the value and meaning of traditional Korean household objects that even many of today's Korean people often ignore or forget.

Since time immemorial, Korea has developed an outstanding craft culture. Its superior quality can be seen in everything from the beautiful and elaborate golden crowns of the Three Kingdoms era (57 B.C.-A.D. 668) to the astonishing scientific technology of the Unified Silla era's Seokguram Grotto. Even China, the birthplace of celadon, was bewitched by the magical jade greens found in the celadon of Goryeo. Simple yet sophisticated handicrafts handed down from the Joseon era continue to enjoy great popularity today among Koreans and people around the world. This book was written as an introduction to Korean handicrafts and the manner in which they have captured Korea's unique culture and way of life over the millennia. Its chapters examine the characteristics of these works as well as their history--the most representative pieces handed down from the past, along with the lives of the people who make them.

Since time immemorial, Korea has developed an outstanding craft culture. Its superior quality can be seen in everything from the beautiful and elaborate golden crowns of the Three Kingdoms era (57 B.C.–A.D. 668) to the astonishing scientific technology of the Unified Silla era’s Seokguram Grotto. Even China, the birthplace of celadon, was bewitched by the magical jade greens found in the celadon of Goryeo. Simple yet sophisticated handicrafts handed down from the Joseon era continue to enjoy great popularity today among Koreans and people around the world. This book was written as an introduction to Korean handicrafts and the manner in which they have captured Korea’s unique culture and way of life over the millennia. Its chapters examine the characteristics of these works as well as their history—the most representative pieces handed down from the past, along with the lives of the people who make them.

Korean handicrafts are often overshadowed by those of China and Japan, preventing them from being recognized for their unique charm and cultural value. Frustrated with this widespread ignorance of Korean crafts, two American authors set out to write 100 Thimbles in a Box: The Spirit and Beauty of Korean Handicrafts, hoping that an English-language book on the topic would help bring some deserving global attention to Korea s strong crafting history. The book s title draws from a tradition dating back to the Joseon Dynasty in which a bride would present handmade thimbles to her husband s female relatives to wish them good fortune and a long life. The stunning beauty of 44 of Korea s traditional crafts sorted into ceramics, fiber arts, paper, inlay, metal, wood, and painting is presented in detail with over 400 pictures found in the book. While other publications have focused on one or two of these handicraft categories, this is the first English-language guide that brings these diverse genres together in a single volume.

Almost forty years after the publication of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition, the subject of invented traditions—cultural and historical practices that claim a continuity with a distant past but which are in fact of relatively recent origin—is still relevant, important, and highly contentious. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea examines the ways in which compressed modernity, Cold War conflict, and ideological opposition has impacted the revival of traditional forms in both Koreas. The volume is divided thematically into sections covering: (1) history, religions, (2) language, (3) music, food, crafts, and finally, (4) space. It includes chapters on pseudo-histories, new religions, linguistic politeness, literary Chinese, p’ansori, heritage, North Korean food, architecture, and the invention of children’s pilgrimages in the DPRK. As the first comparative study of invented traditions in North and South Korea, the book takes the reader on a journey through Korea’s epic twentieth century, examining the revival of culture in the context of colonialism, decolonization, national division, dictatorship, and modernization. The book investigates what it describes as “monumental” invented traditions formulated to maintain order, loyalty, and national identity during periods of political upheaval as well as cultural revivals less explicitly connected to political power. Invented Traditions in North and South Korea demonstrates that invented traditions can teach us a great deal about the twentieth-century political and cultural trajectories of the two Koreas. With contributions from historians, sociologists, folklorists, scholars of performance, and anthropologists, this volume will prove invaluable to Koreanists, as well as teachers and students of Korean and Asian studies undergraduate courses.

A Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Kingdom of Beauty shows that the discovery of mingei (folk art) by Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s was central to the complex process by which Japan became both a modern nation and an imperial world power. Kim Brandt’s account of the mingei movement locates its origins in colonial Korea, where middle-class Japanese artists and collectors discovered that imperialism offered them special opportunities to amass art objects and gain social, cultural, and even political influence. Later, mingei enthusiasts worked with (and against) other groups—such as state officials, fascist ideologues, rival folk art organizations, local artisans, newspaper and magazine editors, and department store managers—to promote their own vision of beautiful prosperity for Japan, Asia, and indeed the world. In tracing the history of mingei activism, Brandt considers not only Yanagi Muneyoshi, Hamada Shōji, Kawai Kanjirō, and other well-known leaders of the folk art movement but also the often overlooked networks of provincial intellectuals, craftspeople, marketers, and shoppers who were just as important to its success. The result of their collective efforts, she makes clear, was the transformation of a once-obscure category of pre-industrial rural artifacts into an icon of modern national style.