National Museum of Korea

_hyogeun_

Walking down the exhibition hall aisle, contrasted with the outside, media pieces illuminate the dark hallway. Whether it's water or mist, it's hard to distinguish, but the artwork capturing the eye with the contrast of black and white feels like stepping into a dreamy world. The red wall that extrudes a settled scent, coated with mixed soil, cypress, and cinnamon, is tilted. That tilted wall, the floor rising subtly, and the ceiling filled with 20,000 bungs evoking countless stars, at the end of converged gazes, sits our national treasure Basking Buddha. Viewers are free to walk around without lines catching their gaze, appreciating the Buddha from any direction. Depending on your location, you can observe the changing form and proportion of the two Buddhas. You may find yourself immersed in the aura exuding from far away, or shocked by the detail as you get close. Despite everything in the exhibit drawing the eye to the center, the aslant and multi-leveled elements encourage visitors to roam about. Through these movements and experiences, visitors gain understanding and return to the real world. The museum that only presents two pieces in an ample space is commendable with its courage and challenge. Unlike Louvre that did not put only the Mona Lisa in a room, this place devoted the entire room for our national treasure and developed a solid storyline from start to end. They minimized explanatory letters for deeper focus. It's better to see once than hear a hundred times. You can understand its value only by nostalgic experience. You cannot grasp its essence through reading, thus I recommend you definitely experience the place.