Hanji
Director's Text
On Hanji — Looking for Hanji, the traditional Korean paper
In 1966, inside the Seokgatap, a pagoda in Bulguksa, a Buddhist temple in Gyeongju, South Korea was found a sheet of yellowish paper wrapped in a patch of silk cloth. The yellowish paper scroll dated to around 751 A.D. was pretty much worn out with the passage of time, but the paper kept its basic shape after over a thousand years. This is the world's oldest woodblock print on Hanji of Buddhist Dharani Sutra called the Pure Light Dharani Sutra. This remains an important artifact in world's history of paper culture, 20 years older than previously the world's oldest Hyakumanto Darani, literally the One Million Pagodas and Dharani Prayers in Japan.
In East Asia, people have compared the impressive longevity of Hanji with the expensive silk, saying as an encomium that while Hanji lasts a millennium silk lasts a half. The excellent conservative property of Hanji derives from its unique manufacturing method. The use of alkaline solvent lye in the process of boiling paper mulberry as its material prevents the oxidation of Hanji, while the sun bleaching maintains its unique gloss and strength. And the battering of the material and the repeated battering of Hanji before its completion when it is not wholly dried creates Hanji with durability and strong vitality.
With not just such toughness and long-term duration but also air permeability, warmth retention and flexibility, Hanji is used not just for recording purpose but also as the medium for expressing artistic value as in crafts, household items, clothes and accessories.
While our forefathers developed Hanji as the nation's traditional culture, they encapsulated their wisdom and style in it. Now it would be up to the current generation of Koreans to preserve and share the wisdom and style with more and more people in the world. I hope that we will verify the possibility that Hanji is born as a cultural heritage that crosses the cultural and linguistic barriers to get shared by the world.