Research & Article

Khrua In Khong is famous in Thailand as the first Thai artist to apply Western techniques, such as perspective and chiaroscuro, to Thai mural painting. His best regarded set of murals—those at Wat Bovorn Niwat and Wat Bovorn Niwet—feature not the traditional narratives typically found in murals of the time, such as the past lives of the Buddha. Instead, they show mysteriously shaded vistas of underground railways, clock towers and even the United States Congress building. They were indeed original in terms of artistic technique, but also extremely innovative in what they had to say.

The murals use allegories to turn scenes of Western civilization into a coded message, likely designed by the presiding abbot Vajirayan, who was later to be King Rama IV.

Placing these murals in the context of contemporary events and debates on the Buddha’s teachings in Thailand, this article argues that they constitute a visual argument about Thai Buddhism’s place in a new Western-dominated, scientific world.