Tanchong is to decorate buildings with colorful pictures and patterns.
Tanchong is one kind of architectural art of decoration which has been used in the wooden building in Korea since early times.
Harmony of colours, red and blue, is the main in decoration.
Patterns are various and scores of kinds of patterns are used in one building. Most of them were patterns of lotus, pomegranate and snail, and there are other various geometrical patterns.
Tanchong is done by painting the whole surface of a building light green and putting patterns on it before painting it with selected colors.
Red and blue painting can be divided into Kum Tanchong, Moru Tanchong and Pom Tanchong according to its structural characteristics.
Pum Tanchong is a luxurious form of decoration with the silk pattern as the main and the complicated and elaborate pattern as the additional.
Moru Tanchong is not such a monotonous or luxurious form of decoration. In Moru Tanchong most of them are patterns of anvil and rest of them are long streaks on margins.
Pom Tanchong is a simple form of decoration. It puts not so many patterns on blue ground and decorates margins with black and white lines.
In addition there is Jinmoru Tanchong or Pangum Tanchong, a compromise form of Kum Tanchong and Moru Tanchong. But it is not regarded as a different form of decoration because it is almost the same as Kum Tanchong in its decorative efficiency.
Tanchong had a certain system of decorative composition and was on the advanced level that harmonious chromatical principles were introduced already in the period of the T
The Korean people developed Tanchong into the various and skillful method of decoration with decorative composition, patterning and harmony of colour as its regular system.
It becomes the valuable cultural heritage of the Korean nation as it involves the creative wisdom and artistic talent of the Korean people.
