Peircean Visual Semiotics for Tertiary Level Students on Storytelling of Lanna Mural Paintings at Wat Phumin, Nan Province, Thailand
Tawipas Pichaichanarong
Abstract
Most temples throughout Thailand have mural paintings upon their inner walls. Founder of Silpakorn University, Prof. Silpa Bhirasri, highlighted 13 temples in Thailand as having exceptional mural paintings. With its original Lanna Mural paintings, Wat Phumin in Nan is one such temple. These mural paintings depict three stories:the Buddha; the previous life of the Buddha and the ordinary lives of local people. In general, mural art is considered a medium designed to convey messages to the audience. Therefore, this study is designed to examine the capability of tertiary level students to comprehend the storytelling of the Lanna mural paintings at Wat Phumin. However, the target group of this study coincided with the data from the questionnaires which collected the data from a field trip onsite, which is tertiary education. Various methodologies were used to explore the comprehension of the storytelling of Lanna mural paintings among the tertiary students via Peircean visual semiotics. As a result, the report of this research has been shown in this study. Finally, the knowledge from this study can be used to enhance teaching in various education fields related to visual semiotics and mural paintings. In addition, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the volume of visitors to Wat Phumin has been reduced. As the situation gets better, this study can educate anyone who plans to visit this temple.
Keywords: Peircean visual semiotics, tertiary level students, storytelling, Lanna mural paintings, Wat Phumin
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