Moon jar

Moon Jar

Moon jars were produced for fewer than two hundred years, from the late seventeenth century until the early nineteenth century. They found favor among scholars and collectors during the Joseon dynasty (1392–1910). For them, moon jars embodied the aesthetics of simplicity and elegance sanctioned by Confucianism, the state ideology of the time. The specific functions of the jars have not been clearly identified, but they could have stored liquids or grains. Some may have been used as objects of aesthetic appreciation or as flower vases.

Due to its size, a moon jar cannot be made in one piece on a potter’s wheel. The clay cannot sustain the height and width of the jar, so the upper and lower halves of its body are separately shaped and then joined together at the middle, leaving a seam. As a result, no two moon jars are exactly alike or perfectly spherical. Some have blueish-white surfaces, while others are translucent white. The variations and colors among moon jars have fascinated and inspired many contemporary artists.

Whanki Kim—a prominent twentieth-century Korean artist, connoisseur, and collector—discovered the essence of Korean aesthetics in a white porcelain work, which he endearingly called a “moon jar.” He found beauty in its simple, imperfect, and irregular round form. As noted in Kim’s poem, moon jars share the same shape and white color, but each jar has its own characteristics:

I have not seen any defect in our jars.

They are round but not always the same shape.

Their white colors are not always the same white.

From their simple round form and pure white color, the mysterious, complicated, and delicate beauty of the aesthetic emerges.

—From Jar, 1963, by Whanki Kim (1913–1974)

Scholars and artists today see something new in the simple form, undecorated surface, and white color of moon jars, from which they draw artistic inspiration. The jars have been reinterpreted not only in contemporary ceramics, but also in paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, and video art like the work by Koo Bohnchang (b. 1953) adjacent to this moon-jar case.