Fig. 14. Moon jar, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), second half of the 18th Fig. 15. Dragon jar, Joseon dynasty (1392–1910), second half of the century. Porcelain, H. 151/4 in. (38.7 cm). The Metropolitan Museum 18th century. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt- blue design, of Art, New York, The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, H. 171/4 in. (43.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gi昀琀 of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Purchase, 2009 Bene昀椀t Fund, 2010 (2010.368) Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gi昀琀, 1975 (1979.413.1) of porcelain, called baekja (white ware) in Korean, was cultural achievements to promulgate nationalist agen- centralized. In the 1460s, the royal court established and das, as they continue to do today.�� managed a group of kilns at Bunwon, and these were Many twentieth- century Korean painters, such as the o昀케cial court kilns until their privatization in the Kim Whanki, admired and collected Joseon decorative 1880s. By the sixteenth century, porcelain had moved arts. Kim was in particular an enthusiast of Joseon beyond the court and the elite, and white ware was being porcelains and made them a frequent subject in paint- produced in regional kilns, consumed in greater num- ings, sketches, and magazine illustrations.�� His 1954 bers, and made in nearly every shape. Large bulbous painting Moon and Jar could correctly but inadequately vessels without any surface decoration, now known as be described as a white asymmetrical porcelain jar on a moon jars, were popular in the eighteenth century tall, thin, salmon- colored pedestal against a backdrop of (昀椀g. 14). In the following century, top- heavy forms with blue (昀椀g. 18). Stylistically, the work demonstrates Kim’s high necks and round shoulders tapering to a narrow keen sense of color, adroit brushwork, and use of seg- base were favored (昀椀g. 15). mentation and shapes—characteristics that he devel- During Japan’s colonization of Korea (1910–45), oped further in his later abstract works. Kim’s images blue- and- white Joseon porcelain was instrumental to are deceptively complex. While the jar and pedestal are the theories and development of Japanese mingei (folk, immediately discernible, the multihued blue background or cra昀琀) aesthetics (昀椀gs. 16, 17). The Japanese admiration does not seem representational. But from the title, we for Joseon art was genuine, but it was o昀琀en couched in know to read the blue circle as the moon in a nighttime terms of simplicity and primitivism, shaped by imperial- sky. By making the blue moon and the white jar nearly ism, and positioned to bolster colonialist e昀昀orts.�� equal in diameter, Kim equates the two things. In fact, he Conversely, Koreans celebrated ceramics as exemplary is widely credited with giving the name “moon jar” to this 13