Tuesday, May 15, 2012

National Art Museum of Korea

Previous to entering the National Art Museum, I expected to see grand paintings, large sculptures and the like. Instead, I saw a range of elaborately detailed to quite simple ceramics, scrolls with various depictions of nature, carefully drawn calligraphy, and a painting and sculpture here and there. While different than I had expected, I enjoyed the museum because it represented the flow of history of Korea through it's different exhibits. I also appreciated the museum's incorporation of other cultures, such as containing an exhibition on India. I believe other visitors, and myself included, enjoyed the fact that exploring the museum is a different experience from the rest of Seoul; whereas Seoul is very technological and things happen very fast, the museum is a nice break in which one can move at their own pace and slowly explore the history and culture of Korea.

The museum is a prime example of how art and culture come together and benefit from one another. I believe art and culture are intertwined; culture guides the way art is made, and artists create art to depict the cultural aspects of the environment surrounding them. Through this mutually beneficial relationship, museums can collect and display generations of artwork to tell a visual story of the history and culture of a society.

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