고등학교 공통영어2 (NE능률 민병천) 연계 글

The moon jar is a large, round jar of white porcelain that potters made during the Joseon Dynasty. Most moon jars were made from the late 1600s through the 1700s, and many stand more than 40 centimeters tall. Each one is about as wide as it is tall, so it looks almost perfectly round. They usually have no painted patterns, only a plain, smooth white surface.

A moon jar is so large that a potter cannot shape the whole body in one piece on a wheel. Instead, potters first make two large bowls. Then they join the two bowls at their rims, one on top of the other. The clay often sags or twists in the heat of the kiln, so a perfectly round jar is hard to make. Some experts believe that the potters may have accepted these uneven shapes as a natural part of the work.

Scholars are still not certain what moon jars were used for. Some experts believe that they may have held grain or liquids, and that a few might have served as flower vases.

The name "moon jar" is much younger than the jars themselves. For many years, they were officially called only "large white porcelain jars" in Korea. In the middle of the 1900s, however, artists began to compare their round shape and soft white color to a full moon. Historians are not sure who first used the name, but it may have been the painter Kim Whanki or one of his friends. Kim Whanki loved these jars so much that he collected many of them and painted them in his works. In 2011, the government officially adopted the name "moon jar" for those on its lists of National Treasures and Treasures.

Today, moon jars are loved both in Korea and abroad. At the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, one is displayed in a space of its own. In London, the British Museum shows one from the eighteenth century in its Korea gallery. The form has also become so popular that many potters today still make moon jars in the traditional two-part way. In this way, a jar that begins as two simple bowls now represents Korean beauty around the world.