In Korea, writing brushes were an important tool to express art and culture of the time asa symbol of study. Also, expressing freedom from political power, they were considered as amain symbol of upright integrity/mental world and achievement of fame ...
In Korea, writing brushes were an important tool to express art and culture of the time asa symbol of study. Also, expressing freedom from political power, they were considered as amain symbol of upright integrity/mental world and achievement of fame and prestige. Eventhough they were variously used as an essential tool, there have not been many researches onthem. Thus, this study attempted a general analysis on traditional brushes. Examining brushesproduced in each time period and their characteristics could be the start of understandingbrushes. Even though there are not many literary records about brushes, relics and recordsshow such active production of them. As the production/use of brushes became one of themost essential interest, it gets more important to produce better brushes by passing downand developing its techniques. For the analysis of the production technique, it is significantto examine the characteristics by dividing them into different size, material, and use with itshistorical recordsThis paper combined the field survey. Brush-making craftsmen were referred to while thefield survey strengthened the contents. The field survey targeted five brush-making craftsmendesignated as intangible cultural properties, and their activities including their productiontechniques.
The production technique of brushes can be largely divided into hair brushes focusing onhair from weasel's tail and wool, and vegetable brushes using kudzu and rice straw. As thecharacteristics of animals and vegetable are different to each other, the production processessuch as collection/selection of materials are differently shown.
Starting from collecting/sorting animal hair and vegetable materials, as the most importantprocess, such hair brushes go through the removal of oiliness while vegetable brushes gothrough the process of making fiber long and thin and then gathering hair neatly. After that,dividing hair into Simso (center), Jungso(middle), Uiche (surface) and mixing/tying them, they are connected to the stem of brushes for the completion. Such hair brushes and vegetable brushescould look like they are based on the similar production technique. However, regarding thevegetable brushes, making vegetable materials into long shape of fiber and gathering themneatly like hair to absorb ink well could be a huge difference from hair brushes.
Similar to other traditional crafts areas, the brush crafts also have many problems like supply/demand of materials, and transmission. Even though there are attempts to specialize anddevelop them for the role in modern society through researches, still there are lots of limitationsto solve such problems and to have bigger influence socioculturally. Under this condition, itwould be necessary to prevent the spread of considering brushes as a simple tool. Thus, thesignificance of this paper is to consider the future direction and task of brushes in modernsociety. Also, this study is expected to be helpful to newly understanding and researchingbrushes.