Those who choose this work often look for objects in which technical restraint and poetic ambiguity exist within the same structure.
"The chrysanthemums do not conceal the inner landscape; they teach the eye how slowly it must be found."
In this double-walled celadon vessel, ceramic artist Cho Byung-gwan constructs two distinct visual worlds within a single compact form. The outer body is transformed into an irregular field of chrysanthemum blossoms and pierced spaces. Behind it, separated by a deliberate interval, lies an inner vessel carrying plum branches, blossoms and cranes against a white-clay-treated surface.
The work can therefore be understood not as one decorated vessel, but as a relationship between two vessels.
The outer layer is encountered first. Chrysanthemum flowers cover almost the entire body, their petals modelled with enough relief to catch light individually. Against the celadon glaze, the pale centres and petals create a soft rhythmic brightness. Yet there is no immediately obvious grid governing them. Some flowers gather densely, others appear around larger openings, and the spaces between them change constantly in scale and direction.
That apparent irregularity is carefully controlled.
Regular perforation provides an obvious advantage in openwork: structural forces can be distributed predictably. Cho deliberately moves away from that visual security. As the artist has explained, the openings only appear arbitrary. Their placement must remain sufficiently balanced across the vessel, while the thickness of the surviving outer ceramic must be calculated so that the body can retain stability through making and firing.
This distinction is fundamental to the work.
The surface is not random.
It is calculated to look organic.
That decision allows the chrysanthemum motif to behave more like vegetation than ornament. A strict lattice would have emphasised pattern. Cho’s uneven spacing instead suggests growth: stems crossing, blossoms clustering, spaces opening naturally between flowers. The technical structure is made to disappear behind the visual logic of a flowering field.
At this small scale, the contradiction becomes more pronounced. Miniaturisation does not simplify the double-walled method. It compresses its difficulties. The openings become smaller, the connecting sections more delicate, the distance between outer and inner bodies more demanding, and each flower must remain legible without overwhelming the silhouette.
The vessel’s relatively simple overall profile is therefore important. A gently swelling ovoid body rises into a short neck with a flared lip. This quiet outline acts almost as a frame for the surface complexity. Without such restraint in the overall form, the abundance of chrysanthemum flowers could become visually excessive. The silhouette steadies what happens across the skin.
The inner vessel introduces a very different rhythm.
Through the openings appear sections of a pale interior surface carrying cranes, plum branches and blossoms. These images are not presented as one uninterrupted scene. They exist in fragments. A crane may appear only partly between several flowers; a red plum blossom may become visible for a moment and then disappear as the vessel is turned.
The viewer must therefore assemble the interior landscape gradually.
This is where the double-walled structure becomes more than technical virtuosity. It determines the experience of looking.
The chrysanthemum traditionally carries associations of autumn, endurance and cultivated integrity in Korean culture. Plum blossom belongs to another seasonal register: it flowers against the cold and has long evoked resilience, renewal and steadfastness. The crane, meanwhile, is associated with longevity and an elevated, auspicious existence.
Cho does not place these motifs together on a single flat field. He separates them physically.
The chrysanthemums occupy the exterior.
The plum blossoms and cranes belong to the world within.
This spatial distinction allows the symbolism to operate with unusual subtlety. The outer flowers create an abundant enclosure, while the crane and plum landscape remains partly protected and partly revealed. One might read the result as two seasons, or even two states of existence, held within the same vessel — though the work never forces a single narrative.
What matters most is the experience of partial revelation.
From one position, the outer chrysanthemum field dominates. From another, a crane suddenly becomes legible. At another angle, red blossoms appear as brief points of warmth behind the cool green surface. The interior never replaces the exterior; the two continually interrupt and complete one another.
The shadows produced by the openwork are equally important. Each pierced space has depth, and that depth darkens the interval between the two ceramic bodies. The viewer is continually reminded that these motifs are not painted upon a single surface. They inhabit different physical planes.
The irregularity of the openings strengthens this effect. Because the eye cannot predict where the next opening will occur, viewing becomes exploratory. The vessel resists being understood in a single glance. Its imagery unfolds through movement around the object.
This may be the work’s most compelling achievement.
Cho Byung-gwan has taken a process normally associated with precision and structural repetition and used that precision to create something that appears natural and unforced. Engineering remains present, but concealed beneath flowers. Measurement is translated into irregular growth. Technical calculation becomes the condition that allows visual freedom.
The chrysanthemums seem to surround another world without entirely closing it.
Within their green flowering screen, cranes and plum blossoms remain quiet presences — sometimes visible, sometimes withdrawn, always dependent upon where the viewer stands.
The vessel therefore does not merely contain an interior space.
It contains another act of looking.
Dimensions
- Diameter- 13cm (5.12 inch)
- Height- 16cm (6.3 inch)
Related Links
