he Chinese influence on the furniture production in the Far East prevailed during a long period of time. However, in the middle of the tenth century an individual style took form in both Korea and Japan. The Korean furniture production has been influenced by Japan through the centuries much due to the regular waves of invasions by Japanese warlords across the Korean peninsula in their attempts to conquer China.

Zen Buddhisms’ adherence to natural and simple elements had already in the middle of the tenth century taken a strong root in Japan, and by the twelth century this impact of spontaneous and natural style had reached the trends in art and architecture. By the fifteenth century, this influence had formed a pure Japanese furniture style. This style much differed from the Chinese, which was more symbolic and elaborately decorated.

Since the Japanese lived in small houses with tatami mats (straw mats) they needed furniture only for storing their everyday valued possessions such as rice, tea and tea utensils, their clothing garments; kimonos, hair combs, documents, books and writing objects. For this reason, furniture in Japan took the form of functional storage cabinets. The often non-functional decorative furniture in the West had no application in Japan. Soetsu Yanagi, the founder of Japan’s folkcraft movement, expresses the essence of Japanese style like this:

"The particular kind of beauty found in crafts is that identified with use. It is beauty born of use. Apart from use, there is no beauty in crafts. The strong points of folkcraft are that they are never made for purposes other than use... to serve the people daily".

This way of thinking combined with the Japanese feeling for simple and natural design, has lead to the wide and varied array of antique furniture that can be found in Japan today.

Korean antique furniture is an exciting mixture of Chinese and Japanese influence. Traditionally, the Korean wooden chests were made in shapes associated with usage. However, the Chinese influence of decorating the furniture for symbolic reasons much effected the Koreans, which lead them to decorate their furniture with brass ornaments. The design and the color of the brass ornaments were all symbols of good fortune, courage, honesty and fertility. Each furniture piece carried hopes and expectations far beyond the mere storage of clothes and books. This differs the Korean style from the Japanese style. The presence of the Japanese in Korea over the years, however, introduced the Japanese trend of simplicity and natural beauty. This created a Korean furniture style which took form somewhere inbetween the Chinese and Japanese.