From the publisher’s website: This highly engaging volume by one of Korea’s leading scholars of comparative mythology – the the first study of its kind in English – provides a valuable introduction to centuries-old beliefs, myths and folk tales relating to Cosmology and Flood, Birth and Agriculture, Messengers of the Underworld, Shamans, Disease, Good Fortune, … [Read More]
Booklist: Traditional arts heritage and folklore (page 3)
Korean Cuisine: An Illustrated History
Publisher description: The spicy tang of kimchi, the richness of Korean barbecue, the hearty flavours of bibimbap: Korean cuisine is savoured the world over for its diversity of ingredients and flavours. Michael J. Pettid offers here an illustrated historical account of Korean food and its intricate relationship with the nation’s culture. Over the last twelve centuries, Korean … [Read More]
Everlasting Flower: A History of Korea
Publisher description: South Korea – a democratic high-tech Asian Tiger and flamboyant host of the 2002 World Cup; North Korea – a secretive dictatorship on Bush’s notorious ‘axis of evil’, with a controversial nuclear program and a poverty-stricken population. These two Koreas seem worlds apart, separated along the 38th parallel by the last active ‘cold … [Read More]
Buddhist Sculpture of Korea
From the publisher’s website: Buddhist culture and thought have had a tremendous impact on the lives and thought of Korean people ever since the religion was introduced to the Korean peninsula in the late fourth century. Most of the time, the religion received strong state support for the construction of temples and pagodas and the … [Read More]
Buddhist Architecture of Korea
From the publisher’s website: The easiest way to learn about Korea’s Buddhist culture is to visit the temples where the traditional practice of asceticism is still carried on today. People no longer live in other examples of traditional architecture, such as palaces and Confucian schools and academies; but in temples the monks and nuns eat, … [Read More]
Seasonal Customs of Korea
From the publisher’s website: In this fast-paced, rapidly changing world, Korea has not been unaffected. Many long-observed seasonal customs still practiced just a few short decades ago have now disappeared or are quickly disappearing. (Children prefer computer games to kite-flying and top-spinning on Lunar New Year’s Day.) Although a custom may no longer be explicitly … [Read More]
Preserving Korean Music: Intangible Cultural Properties as Icons of Identity
As Korea has developed and modernized, music has come to play a central role as a symbol of national identity. Nationalism has been stage managed by scholars, journalists and, from the beginning of the 1960s, by the state, as music genres have been documented, preserved and promoted as ‘Intangible Cultural Properties’. Practitioners have been appointed … [Read More]
The Art of Korea: Highlights from the Collection of San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
From the publisher’s website: This stunning art book explores the rich visual history of Korean peninsula with dozens of Korean paintings, sculptures, figurines, porcelain, and textiles. Korea is home to one of the longest and most vibrant art traditions in the world—yet it is one of the least known in the United States. San Francisco’s … [Read More]
Maedeup: The Art of Traditional Korean Knots
Hee-jin Kim, born in 1934, attended Jin Myeong Girls’ High School in 1946. In 1963, she first developed an interest in traditional ornamental knots, maedeup, which in the aftermath of devastating social turmoil in the first half of the 20th century, was quickly becoming a dying art. Kim embarked on a quest to learn the techniques … [Read More]
Symbolism in Korean Ink Brush Painting
From the publisher’s website: With more than 200 colour plates, and for the first time available as a study in English, this volume explores the vast heritage of Korean ink brush painting, providing a rich panorama of information that stretches across the entire spectrum of Korean art – including painting, pottery, calligraphy and literature, which … [Read More]
Korean Art from the Gompertz and Other Collections in the Fitzwilliam Museum: A Complete Catalogue
From the publisher’s website: The collection of Korean art in the Fitzwilliam Museum is one of the finest outside the Far East, containing rich holdings of early unglazed ceramics, celadon stonewares of the Koryo dynasty, punch’ong wares and porcelains of the Choson dynasty as well as items in glass, jade, bronze, brass, lacquer and wood. … [Read More]
Palaces of Korea
From the publisher’s website: In “Palaces of Korea,” Kim Dong-uk, a renowned historian of Korean architecture, guides readers on a journey through the history of palaces in Korea, daily life and ceremonial events, and palace architecture. However, the author also writes extensively about the similarities and differences between palaces across East Asia, namely Japan and … [Read More]
Korean Landscape Painting: Continuity and Innovation Through the Ages
From the publisher’s website: Korean Landscape Painting: Continuity and Innovation Through the Ages discusses the art form beginning at its earliest roots two millennia ago, in the Three Kingdoms period, right up until the 20th century. Accompanied by many maps, pictures and a glossary of names and terms, this book provides a complete overview of … [Read More]
The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings: A History and an Appreciation
Publisher description: The Beauty of Old Korean Paintings originally was written in Korean under the subtitle A History and An Appreciation of Traditional Korean Paintings. As stated above the book began as an illustrated lecture by Lee Dongju 이동주 «李東洲», a self-trained art historian. The book evokes this passionate connoisseur’s acute, entertaining and at times uncomfortably frank … [Read More]
Korean Mask Dance Dramas: Their History and Structural Principles
From the publisher’s website: The Korean mask dramas have been performed by professional or non-professional players from among the common people over a long time. To correctly understand the mask dramas, both historical investigation through research materials and folkloristic investigation through field study are necessary. The author, an initiate of Bukcheongsaja-nori, a representative Korean mask … [Read More]
The Secret Spirit of Korean Architecture
From the publisher’s website: The Secret Spirit of Korean Architecture is a response to the growing international interest in Korean architecture, its tangible historical and contemporary forms, and a multidisciplinary contribution to the discourse that has resulted in new writing and audiovisual materials exploring principal features and themes, materials, techniques and methodologies particular to the genre. … [Read More]