# Goryeo Celadon (高麗青磁) > 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. - IndexStyle No.509 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/goryeo-celadon - Kind: Style · Family: Ceramic Styles · Era: 918–1392 - Mood: Calm, Luxury, Technique - What this family collects: What a pot looks like is decided by its glaze and its firing, and each region answered those two questions differently. The reception of Chinese porcelain at the far end of the trade routes is still legible in Delft, in Iznik and in Puebla alike. ## Defining characteristics - 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 - 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 ## Composition recipe - Typography & lettering: 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. - Layout & structure: 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 & texture: 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. ## Colour Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. - Ground: #D9D2BE - The colour it is remembered by: #7E9A86 - Text and outlines: #3B3730 ## What to avoid Flattening bisaek into a generic green makes the inlay read as printed on the surface and destroys the depth the style depends on. ## Application checklist Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style. - [ ] Visible in the piece: A translucent glaze running from green to bluish over a grayish white body - [ ] Visible in the piece: Inlaid lines of white and red slip sitting visibly below the glaze surface - [ ] Visible in the piece: Incising, relief carving and openwork used together on one vessel - [ ] Visible in the piece: Small passages of iron or copper pigment painting, dark brown or red, on the green ground - [ ] The layout follows: 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. - [ ] The lettering follows: 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. - [ ] The material and surface follow: 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. - [ ] The colour relation holds: #D9D2BE as ground, #7E9A86 carrying the style, #3B3730 for text and outlines - [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly - [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed ## Related styles - **Iznik Pottery (イズニク陶器)** — The pottery reached by the Ottoman kilns, setting brilliant blue and red on a white body. Tulips and carnations turn in spirals around the curve of the vessel, and on the wall tiles of a mosque geometry and plant ornament coexist on a single surface. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/iznik - **Delftware (デルフト焼)** — 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. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/delftware ## Often mistaken for - **Buncheong (粉青沙器)** shares enough of the surface to be mistaken for it. Side by side: https://indexstyle.org/compare/buncheong-vs-goryeo-celadon ## Compose it with something else The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=goryeo-celadon+iznik ## Further study - how the glaze colour and the wall thickness change between twelfth and thirteenth century work and fourteenth century work - what colours the white clay and red clay used for inlay read as after firing - the proportions in pieces that combine carving, relief and openwork on one vessel ## Reference works - Celadon maebyeong with inlaid cloud and crane design, Goryeo dynasty, 13th century — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Goryeo%20Celadon.jpg - Celadon melon-shaped ewer with inlaid chrysanthemum design, Goryeo dynasty, 12th century — Wikimedia Commons / CC0 — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clevelandart%201917.357.jpg - Celadon bowl with stamped and inlaid decoration, Goryeo dynasty, 1150-1200 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BLW%20Bowl.jpg ## Source of record - Getty Research Institute — Art & Architecture Thesaurus: Goryeo cheongja (ceramic style) (300459698) — https://vocab.getty.edu/page/aat/300459698 ## Machine surfaces - JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/goryeo-celadon - Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/goryeo-celadon/prompt.txt - MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)