Korean art

Korean arts include traditions in calligraphy, music, painting and pottery, often marked by the use of natural forms, surface decoration and bold colors or sounds.

The earliest examples of Korean art consist of stone age works dating from 3000 BC. These mainly consist of votive sculptures and more recently, petroglyphs, which were rediscovered.

This early period was followed by the art styles of various Korean kingdoms and dynasties. Korean artists sometimes modified Chinese traditions with a native preference for simple elegance, spontaneity, and an appreciation for purity of nature.

The Goryeo Dynasty (918–1392) was one of the most prolific periods for a wide range of disciplines, especially pottery.

The Korean art market is concentrated in the Insadong district of Seoul where over 50 small galleries exhibit and occasional fine arts auctions. Galleries are cooperatively run, small and often with curated and finely designed exhibits. In every town there are smaller regional galleries, with local artists showing in traditional and contemporary media. Art galleries usually have a mix of media. Attempts at bringing Western conceptual art into the foreground have usually had their best success outside of Korea in New York, San Francisco, London and Paris.

Professionals have begun to acknowledge and sort through Korea’s own unique art culture and important role in not only transmitting Chinese culture, but also assimilating and creating a unique culture of its own. "An art given birth to and developed by a nation is its own art".

Humans have occupied the Korean Peninsula from at least c. 50,000 BC. Pottery dated to approximately 7,000 BC has been found. This pottery was made from clay and fired over open or semi-open pits at temperatures around 700 degrees Celsius.

The earliest pottery style, dated to circa 7,000 BC, were flat-bottomed wares (yunggi-mun) were decorated with relief designs, raised horizontal lines and other impressions.

Jeulmun-type pottery, is typically cone-bottomed and incised with a comb-pattern appearing circa 6,000 BC in the archaeological record. This type of pottery is similar to Siberian styles.

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Wikipedia