Buncheong vs Mingei
粉青沙器 / 民藝
Buncheong comes from Ceramic Styles and Mingei from Craft Movements. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Buncheong
Buncheong is Korean stoneware whose bluish grey body is covered with white slip, and its name shortens a phrase used by the art historian Go Yuseop. The group is sorted by how the slip is applied, through inlay, stamping, sgraffito, incising, iron painting, brushed slip and dipped slip. Because the coating is never even, the marks of the hand stay on the finished pot.
Mingei
Yanagi Sōetsu and his circle found 'the beauty of use' in the everyday wares of unnamed craftsmen. By making anonymity, repetition and utility the measure of healthy form, the movement became the bedrock of Japanese design thought.
| Buncheong | Mingei | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 14th–16th century | 1926– |
| Family | Ceramic Styles | Craft Movements |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | White slip lies over a bluish grey body, and the unevenness of the coating is the pattern / On brushed pieces the bristle tracks run in one direction as a white band / On stamped pieces small chrysanthemums are pressed edge to edge and filled with white slip, leaving rows of white dots / On dipped pieces one hard line marks how deep the pot went into the slip, with grey body showing below it | Anonymous craftsmanship / Form following use / The steadiness born of repetition / Local materials and hand habits |
| Best used for | When tableware or bottles of one shape should each carry a different surface · When stamped repetition and loose handwork have to share one pot in only white and grey | Setting the form and the reachable price of everyday wares meant for daily use · Retail and presentation that make the maker and the region the subject |
| Type | Lettering is not the subject. Put a mark or a date in as a thin incised line filled with white slip, at the same weight as the drawn lines. | Minimal marking, wording that states the use rather than the maker |
| Composition | Decorate only the faces that are seen and leave the base and footring bare. Build in three bands: one line at the rim, the main motif on the body, and white left alone. | Favor forms that line up together and avoid one piece standing out |
| Material | Throw a bluish grey clay body, then brush the white slip on or dip the whole pot. Carve, stamp and scrape the slip away to move the white around, then glaze clear and fire. Stop short of a full white so the grey body still shows through. | Local materials and standing glazes, the same form made many times |
| Caution | Even out the brush marks and the record of speed disappears, leaving a merely white pot. | The moment individual authorship is asserted the premise of anonymity collapses, and what remains is expensive craft merely performing plainness. |