Visual Methods in Social Research on Lanna Mural Painting: A Case Study of Wat Phumin, Nan Province

Abstract

According to most of tourists who have visited Thai temples and have seen Thai mural paintings with untrained eyes, they might not understand a story on walls at first sight. It may be because Thai mural paintings look confusing, crowded with colorful figures that appears similar in detail and character, leaving no place to focus one’s attention (David K. Wyatt, 2004). Thai mural painting is a disparate of the visual arts because of conventions that are entirely its own. This research is designed to study the capability of Thai and Foreign tourists in order to apprehend Lanna mural painting through visual methods in social research. For Methodology, questionnaires were used by collecting the data from the total of 411 Thai and foreign tourists who have been visited Wat Phumin, Nan province. At the same time, qualitative method was used by collecting the data form tourists who have been visited Wat Phumin, Nan province. The data then were analyzed using mean, descriptive statistics, and qualitative data. This study concludes that the comprehension of Lanna mural painting at first sight from Thai and foreign tourists at Wat Phumin, Nan province are not positive. In addition, the results reported that our respondents have verified that there is no direction in order to understand stories on Lanna mural painting from the beginning. Furthermore, the results reported that our respondents have established visual methods in social research in order to discover more effective solutions to facilitate Thai and foreign tourists to obtain the information of the storytelling in Lanna mural painting at first sight as possible.