Women, who had little opportunity to participate in social affairs due to the predominace of men over women, spent lots of time in the home and made various kinds of handicraft work. One of these works, POJAGI, has been produced widely. From common pe...
Women, who had little opportunity to participate in social affairs due to the predominace of men over women, spent lots of time in the home and made various kinds of handicraft work. One of these works, POJAGI, has been produced widely. From common people to the palace, and the expressional techniques and applied patterns are very varied.
Patterns applied to POJAGI for patch work wrapping cloth are usually straight line compositions in geometrical form and popular patterns for embroidery wrapping cloth are feminine plant designs. Patterns in DANGCHAE printed POJAGI are usually composed of geometrical forms and character forms on every side. Two quarters pattern in the border, arabesque in the background, and a chinese phoenix in the center depict a high level palace handicraft design. For POJAGI printed using a wooden plate, patterns are composed of plant and animal designs showing the mood of the common people, and in quilted POJAGI, patterns are expressed by a composition of curved and straight lines.
POJAGI mostly shows womanlike patterns. It is hard to find patterns which show or symbolize the authority of men, such as a dragon. Purpose of the POJAGI expression is to transfer the symbolic meanings of the patterns or designs to the worker and the user instead of looking for a decorative sense of beauty. The plant patterns mean harmony, fortune, fecundity, wealth and frame. Character patterns portray long life, happiness, peace, and prosperity of descendants. Animal patterns depict strong, long life and authority.
Expressive patterns in POJAGI show a form of simplicity near to reality without distorting it. Simple composition based on naturalism rather than being excessively decorative make POJAGI naturally modernized and look better in its work nature.