Delftware vs Goryeo Celadon
デルフト焼 / 高麗青磁
Both sit in Ceramic Styles, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Delftware
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Longing for Chinese porcelain, Delft produced tin-glazed pottery of its own. Windmills, ships and Eastern scenes painted in blue alone fixed 'blue and white' as a Western language of table and room, chinoiserie put into practice.
Goryeo Celadon
The main ceramic style of Korea's Goryeo dynasty, built around glazes that range from green to bluish, the finest of which was called bisaek, or jade colour. The clay body carries traces of iron and fires a grayish white, which sets it apart from the pure white porcelain of the same centuries. Because the glaze stays translucent, inlaid decoration cut into the body and filled with white and red slip reads as if held under water.
| Delftware | Goryeo Celadon | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1600s– | 918–1392 |
| Family | Ceramic Styles | Ceramic Styles |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Painting in blue alone / White tin-glaze ground / Eastern motifs translated / From tiles to tableware | A translucent glaze running from green to bluish over a grayish white body / Inlaid lines of white and red slip sitting visibly below the glaze surface / Incising, relief carving and openwork used together on one vessel / Small passages of iron or copper pigment painting, dark brown or red, on the green ground |
| Best used for | Pulling tableware and walls into one room through blue painting alone · Using Eastern motifs while admitting openly that they are translations | Fixing the green range as a colour reference for an exhibition or catalogue of Korean ceramics · Translating the look of pattern sunk beneath a translucent layer into print finishing or screen layers |
| Type | Keep marks small on the underside and leave the face to painting | The vessel itself carries almost no lettering. If a mark or a label is needed, set it small in a fine serif with thin vertical strokes, clear of the ornament's empty ground. |
| Composition | Let each tile stand alone, with corner motifs linking them into a field | Run narrow bands at the rim and foot and leave the wide body largely open. Scatter motifs on a diagonal rather than symmetrically so the void carries the piece. |
| Material | Cobalt on white tin glaze, painted in one pass with no correction | Cover a grayish white body carrying trace iron with a translucent glaze between green and blue green. Cut the pattern into the body, fill it with white and red slip, then glaze over so it sinks. |
| Caution | Aiming to pass as real porcelain turns the thick earthenware body and the speed of the brush from virtues into faults. | Flattening bisaek into a generic green makes the inlay read as printed on the surface and destroys the depth the style depends on. |