Saturday, August 23, 2014

[Terry's Tale] Decorative Cheonan

Cheonan is a city filled with art in many forms.  The human desire to create beauty in different forms combined with the desire to bring a general order where none is perceived to exist is the motivating force behind this. It does not matter that in many ways the two desires contradict each other.  For example, people are able to see and feel the beauty in a pristine forest, untouched by the hand of man.  Yet people perceive the beauty of an area transformed into something possessing greater regularity – a well kept garden, an edifice possessing an imposing its regularities of shape, style, and size into the ambiance of its surroundings, sculptures, and so on.  And then there are transitional pieces – pieces such as rock signs designed to act as a bridge between wildness and order and regularity.  Such desire for creativity pushes the force of creation by man.  


A mural decorating a roadway wall




A sculpture with a story


A star sculpture


A rock sign (the lettering is engraved into the rock) honoring a 
US soldier who died in the fighting around Cheonan during the Korean War.


 A memorial statue


Another rock sign

Another roadway mural





Replicas of totems from Korea's cultural past


Sculptures in a sculpture park




A covered foot bridge in the style of (expensive) bridges past


A resting gazebo, a style still commonly used today


 The rocks in this pond have been purposefully placed


A dedicated monolith 


The pond and gazebo


An outdoor theater


The building for indoor venues


Below: A decorative waterfall (two views)



The sculpture next to the waterfall

The entrance gate to a museum park viewed from inside


The entrance gate viewed from the outside


BELOW: Three views of a special story telling statue arrangement at an intersection





BELOW: Three more views of sculptures and statues at another location





Below is a monument street marker for a fallen US soldier from the Korean War



 BELOW: Twelve views of sculptures that decorate 
the Shinsegae Building in downtown Cheonan



 Stacked truck axles









 BELOW: Three views of the flower sculpture



 BELOW: Three views of yet another roadway mural




A special events building in downtown


A statue in the walk area of that building



Here in Cheonan, as I stated earlier, artwork in many forms abound. Sculptures of many kinds are omnipresent, there are a large number of murals throughout the city, of course there are monuments, and rock signs are quite plentiful.  What you see in the pictures provided is but a small sampling of what is freely available on public display.

A pedestrian walkover over a busy highway

BELOW: Two views of a sculpture


A decorative ox statue

The ox's cow and calf


BELOW: Nine views of a light-decorated waterspray fountain










BELOW: Twelve views of a roadway mural that celebrates Korean 
life and culture prior to the Japanese ruled period that began in the early 1900's













I love this light decoration sign at the main entrance to the Korean Traditional market






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