Korea The Ancient Kingdoms 12 November 1999 – 30 January 2000 National treasures on a visit Korean high culture – unlike Chinese and Japanese – is still largely unknown in Europe today in all its diversity and independence. However, the country’s role as one of the leading international economic powers in East Asia has aroused increasing interest in Germany in recent decades, also for its cultural achievements. Numerous loans of the highest quality from Korean museums and private collections, including works classified as “national treasures”, will be on display in the exhibition. Settlement since the Neolithic Age The settlement of the Korean peninsula, probably by Siberian-Mongolian nomadic tribes, took place in the Neolithic period. The myth names the year 2333 BC as the founding date of the Choson Empire, the “Land of the Morning Calm”. Excavation finds such as ritual implements and golden valuables from the time of this legendary period up to the historical Three Kingdoms (10th century BC to 6th century AD) document early forms of a shamanistic religion. Buddhism, which had been adopted by China since the 4th century AD, already became the state religion in the kingdoms – Koguryo, Paekche, Shilla. As a determining cultural force, it cast a spell over all the arts and experienced a high flowering, especially between the 7th and 14th centuries. Sorting by theme The exhibition deliberately refrained from a historical-chronological arrangement of the approximately 200 objects. Instead, their grouping into three large thematic areas: Shamanism, Buddhism and Confucianism, was intended to create a cultural-historical context characteristic of the development and uniqueness of Korean art. More Less Exhibition Leaflet Past exhibitions of the Kunsthalle
