More Asian Art For Christy (and Turtle)

Christy, first the bad news: you wanted terra cotta warriors, and I couldn't get them, because I have yet to go to Xi'an.

The worse news: While I've been to Beijing, I heard that Beijing's museums are empty, because the Nationalists took most of China's treasures to Taipei. And I haven't been to Taipei either.

The good part: I went to Seoul in late '05 for business (you really wanted to join me there, you told me on the chat back then). I went to the National Museum of Korea for the following pictures. It was a new building (barely a month old) built on what used to be a huge US Army base - the land suddenly became available because W decided to send all Americans there to other bases (over the objections of South Korean conservatives and Christians who wanted continued American presence). Don't you just love W - screwing over his most loyal puppets in the world?

A fresco typical of Goguryeo kingdom, which occupied modern-day North Korea and Manchuria for the first few centuries AD. Even in South Korea, these frescoes are rare; indeed you must travel to North Korea to see most examples.

A typical tower from a Buddhist temple, probably built 10th-14th century.

This book explains a new phonetic script for the Korean language, which was announced by the king on October 9, 1446. To this day, Korean is the only language in the world written with an artificial script. Previously, Chinese characters (which are iconographs) were used, and they simply were incompatible with the Korean phonetics.

This one is for Turtle.
An ancient tombstone, set on top of a turtle.

How to do mother-of-pearl decorations. The Japanese have similar art.

Stylistic comparison of East Asian bells. From left to right: Chinese, Korean, Japanese.

Of course, nobody leaves Korea without seeing these mysterious blue celadons. This one was unusual, at least compared to the jars and vases that tend to make up the Korean collections of most art museums worldwide.