Traditional patterns are mostly symmetrical. This is seen
especially in the arrangements of floral and animal patterns, which are most
common. Some patterns appear in identical pairs or mirror images. Such balanced
patterns won wide acceptance.
The superimposing of components is avoided. Even in a repetitive design, each
component appears in full, perhaps in a radial manner around a central figure.
In folk paintings, a fish breaking the surface of the water is shown not as
half in the water and half in the air but as exposing its complete body to the
air.
Patterns do not have volume and perspective representation is often ignored.
This is because the depiction of real figures and backgrounds has little importance,
while two-dimensional depiction is emphasized. As the superposing of figures
is avoided, something in the distance is often depicted as being above the main
object in the foreground.
Another common characteristic in composition is its unrealistic sense of coloring.
No matter what the original color of objects, they are always shown in one of
the five cardinal colors: blue, yellow, black, white, and red. In East Asian
cosmology, these correspond to the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire,
and earth. This color usage was almost always found in Korean traditional patterns.
Korean patterns are usually simpler than Chinese or Japanese patterns. This
was not due to the lack of skill of Korean craftsmen, but because elaborate
and superficial representations were deemed vulgar. In this way, Korean artists
focused on expressing the essential core properties of their subject-matter
which went beyond the depiction of appearances. Beauty in simplicity was their
motto. |