Under the snow, porcelain - a journey to Japan and Korea

In the silence of a landscape buried under snow, everything blends into absolute whiteness. Japan and Korea share these winters where the world seems to fade away, absorbed by the diffuse light of cotton skies. A long tunnel between the two regions, and here we were in the land of snow. The horizon had whitened under the darkness of the night. (Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country ).

Porcelain carries within it this quest for a perfect white, difficult to achieve. Like snow, it seems fragile, but its beauty is born of demanding mastery, of a fire that can break it as well as reveal it. In Korea, moon jars, with imperfect and soft curves, seem shaped by the winter wind. In Japan, Arita porcelain, born from the knowledge of Korean master potters, captures light in a translucent glaze, as evanescent as a reflection on snow.

“Snow is falling. On my forehead and cheeks. On my upper lip and neck. It is not cold. It is like feathers. Just the weight of a brush tip.” (Han Kang, We Do Not Part). There is in this snow the same elusive lightness as in the purest porcelain, a brilliance suspended between strength and delicacy, between fragility and perfection.

A world frozen in absolute silence, as if the snow had absorbed the slightest sound. “ In the distance, on the mountains, the snow had a creamy and tender tone and was veiled, one would have said, in a muslin of smoke. » (Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country ). Snow and porcelain share the same silence, the same light, the same suspended moment, the same softness.

Discover our rigorous selection of pieces shaped by fire, porcelain from Korea and Japan where the mastery of the gesture blends with the poetry of winter. See the selection

Photos © Atelier Ikiwa