I dreamt about seeing a big Asian classic art collection in our part of the world and this exhibition having travelled from The National Museum of Korea in Seoul was my dream having come true. 'Splendour and Finesse. Spirit and Substance in Korean Art' is in Warsaw till 12 Jan 2020. A peak into the ways Buddhism (exquisiteness, gold and glitter) and Neo-Confucianism (understatedness, modesty and simplicity) shaped Korean arts and culture throughout centuries, with a proper cultural introduction into some of the basics of visual symbolism (i.e., the meaning of Lotus flower as a symbol of purity in Buddhism, hence Buddha seats in a lotus pose; bamboo and plum motifs as symbols of perseverance for Neo-Confucianism).
I fell for the refined beauty of the ceramics style called celadon of the Goryeo period (918-1392) - green-grayish jars, elegant in their shapes, with white and black decorations of cranes, elaborately like hieroglyphs shaped clouds, trees. These are the art objects one could contemplate for a long time. The Silla kingdom golden metalworks are fine and impressive, albeit too shiny as for my taste (I'm not a king after all, while those shiny adornments were to signify the royal status of their mighty wearers). The scroll written in the Korean alphabet hangeul which was neglected by the learned men (the intellectual elite preferred Chinese characters) and adopted by aristocratic women as the only available to them avenue to intellectually express themselves.
The ceramics and porcelain (white on white, white and blue, white and brown) of the Joseon period (1392-1897) are better appreciated after learning about the prevailing Neo-Confucianism ideas of beauty as simple and modest, otherwise without knowing it, most of the ceramics of this period look aesthetically inferior to the previous one, both in terms of shape and decorations, craftsmanship overall.
Other significant themes of the exhibition cover the ritual wares to respect the memory of ancestors; women in the Neo-Confucian society; highly protocolized life of the royalty; the scholars and their portraits, artefacts from their studies.
Audioguide is only in Polish, there's unfortunately no English version for the temporary exhibition of Korean art. Captions in English along with Polish. I'd write a separate review about the permanent exhibitions of the museum elsewhere because having spent 7.5 hours in the museum (extended working hours on Thursday) it's a big subject to cover.