'(조선 궁전의) 후원에서 인공적인 것은 정원을 둘러싼 벽과 땅이 썩는 것을 막기 위하여 여기저기에 놓은 몇 개의 돌 뿐이다…… 거기에 들어서면 감탄의 소리를 지르면서 이 창조되지 않은 창조물과 만나게 된다.'
What a Joseon garden looked like can be seen from the back garden of Chilgung Palace at the foot of Bugak Mountain in Seoul. This back garden is not really a garden at all; it is just a section of the skirt of the mountain that has been walled in and included within the grounds of Chilgung. The only thing artificial here is the wall that circumscribes the garden and some stones placed here and there for soil erosion control. And yet it is a splendid garden. Entering it, cries of admiration greet this uncreated creation. Not the sort of admiration for the skill of an architect or an expert in landscaping trained thoroughly in the modern sense. For the perfection of beauty and naturalness, explanations are superfluous; one feels such perfection intuitively. --- p.118

'(일본의 예술 평론가) 故 야나기 무네요시는 조선 자기의 세계를 아름다움과 추함이 생기기 이전의 세계라고 정의했다. 다나까 도요따로는 "조선의 자기는 만들었다기보다는 태어난 것이다."라고 말했다.' (본문 중에서)
"Simple and ordinary", were the words of
the late Muneyoshi Yanagi, the famous art connoisseur, who fell in love with Korean
art, when he was shown the best tea bowl in Japan, called Kizaemon-Ido, a 16thcentury
rice bowl of Joseon Korea. Yanagi defined the world of Joseon potters as the
world before beauty and ugliness. Go Yu-seop called it "planned planlessness".