By Kim Hyun

From a picturesque embroidery screen to a mother-of-pearl jewelry box and a tea tray, representative traditional handicrafts by masters from South and North Korea are being displayed side by side in a Seoul exhibition, demonstrating how they came from the same cultural roots but developed in a different style.

Hwalot, or woman’s embroidered ceremonial robe, by Pak Chang-ok of North Korea is one of 200 handicarfts by 60 North Korean state-recognized artisans, being displayed at the exhibition at the Seoul Museum of History .

The exhibition that opened at Seoul History Museum this week shows North Korean masters pursue a simple and thick-lined design and use traditional materials for their works, while their southern counterparts prefer them to be decorative and slim, organizers say.

A celadon featuring blusih-green with crane and pine tree patterns show unique style of North Korean pottery.

"Here we could see the esthetic sense of pureness from northern works, while ones from the South become decorative and delicate — possibly under the influence of commercialization," said Oh Won-tack, chairman of the Korean Craft Promotion Foundation that organized the event.

The exhibition presents 200 handicrafts by 60 North Korean state-recognized artisans and 250 by 90 South Koreans designated as intangible assets.

In a woman’s embroidered ceremonial robe, the most exquisite type of Korean traditional embroidery, northern artisans put heavy stitches, make the sleeves wide and emphasize the outline with a thick line on the brim. Southern robes are slim, some curved at the waist, and glisten with gilt patterns.

Also, main northern pottery feature bluish-green with crane and pine-tree patterns like the works of the Koryo Dynasty (918 1392), while southern works are mostly white and have no patterns.

Northern masters seem to be influenced by the esthetic value of the Koryo Dynasty, whose capital Kaesong now belongs to North Korea and whose people had a strong, progressive temperament, while Southern artisans follow the tradition of the subsequent Joseon Dynasty (1392 1910), whose Confucian civilization was centered in Seoul, organizers said.

An ornament for women produced by Kim Eun-young is among 250 handicarft items produced by 90 South Koreans designated as intangible human assets being displayed at the exhibition.

Organizers said they were working together with a North Korean state organization on folk craft art to display the works overseas, hoping to benefit from the boom of South Korean movies and dramas in Asia.

"Craft works are a good way to exchange. They have differences in techniques and colors, but they do not have ideology. North Korean works have nothing to do with their leaders in their presentation and they are commercially viable overseas," said Jang Kyung-hee, a professor of cultural properties preservation at Hanseo University and main organizer of the event.

The United Nations has invited the inter-Korean exhibition to be held at the U.N. Gallery at its headquarters in New York in August next year. Organizers hope the international presentation can pave the way for North Korean works to get recognized.

About 30 of the participating artists will get together in the North’s scenic resort at Mount Geumgang from July 10-13, they said. The event is the second annual inter-Korean craft exhibition, with next year’s exhibition planned to be held in Pyongyang.

A rectangular inkstone (byeoryu) produced by South Korea’s Shin Keun-shik.

(Yonhap, July 4, 2006)