Not All that glitters is Bronze

Dispersed throughout this ch’aekkado painting are several bronze ritual vessels. Inspired by Ming and Qing aesthetic guidelines and popularized by their depictions in ch’aekkado paintings, Chosŏn collectors started importing these antique wares from China.

Desired most were the actual antiques, such as fangding vessels (see figs. 1 and 3) from the Shang dynasty (1600-±1046 BCE) or the Zhou dynasty (±1046-256 BCE), tripod incense burners (figs. 2 and 4), and Xuande incense burners (see figs. 1 and 5). Not unexpectedly, these vessels were extremely hard to come by, and during the Ming and Qing dynasties, craftsmen started producing bronze wares in “ancient styles”, which basically meant they made replicas. But these replicas, too, came at a hefty price, and with sumptuary laws being implemented in Chosŏn, less affluent Korean collectors had to resort to other means to obtain the objects they so desired. In Chosŏn, artisans started producing their own replicas of bronze vessels. Not always from bronze, however, but from wood too. A perfectionist craftsman might even paint it in such a way that it is barely distinguishable from the real thing. Ja Won Lee, “Pursuing Antiquity: Chinese Bronzes in Chaekgeori Screens,” in Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens, eds. Byungmo Chung & Sunglim Kim (Seoul: Dahal Media, 2018): 43-8. Sooa McCormick, “Taste of Distinction: Paintings of Scholars’ Accoutrements,” in Chaekgeori: The Power and Pleasure of Possessions in Korean Painted Screens, eds. Byungmo Chung & Sunglim Kim (Seoul: Dahal Media, 2018): 52-5. This shows that not only did material culture inspire the genre of ch’aekkado painting, the genre of ch’aekkado painting also inspired a change in material culture.