What is Dancheong?

Dancheong is the traditional Korean style of painting wooden buildings. It's one of the great decorative traditions and (in my opinion) seriously overlooked outside Korea -- hence there's a lack of English-language information on the web.

The most conspicuous and feature of dancheong is the richly decorated eaves, although the word itself refers to the painting of the whole building.

What's it for?

Dancheong is considered to serve the following purposes:

• Protect the wood from insects and weather (this was the original purpose)
• To cover up defects in the wood
• To express continuity within an architectural tradition
• Shock and awe

Of all the elements within traditional Korean royal or religious architecture, it could be argued that dancheong is the most purely aesthetic, the least concerned with polemic or superstition.

Table of Contents

Pages about dancheong are as follows:

Anatomy and Aesthetics of Dancheong

This page describes the elements that make up dancheong patterns and the reasons why they are as they are.

History and Technology of Dancheong

This page describes the evolution of dancheong and the present situation.

Photos

There is a horrible shortage of good photos of danchong on the Internet at the time of writing. I'm no photographer, so I haven't been able to change that -- but I've done the best I can.

This page contains some photos of dancheong.

This page contains some larger photos of dancheong.

This page contains more large photos of dancheong.