In October 1914 The Chosun Hotel, under the ownership and direct management of Railway Bureau of the Government-General of Korea, opened its doors on the very site of destroyed Wongudan Altar where the enthronement ceremony of Emperor Gojong (1852- 1919) had taken place. From its establishment until dismantlement in the 1960s, the Hotel has featured wall paintings by Yamashita Shitaro (1881-1966) and Yuasa Ichiro (1868- 1931), modern Japanese painters specialized in Western-style painting, in the central and the reception halls on the first f loor of the main building. This study examines these hitherto understudied murals, aiming to illuminate the public function that modern mural paintings have carried out in Korea’s colonial period. Given a mural painting not merely adorns a wall surface but also represents and emblematizes the space to which it belongs, its production involves public and social functions far more than an individual artist’s creativity. Paying particular attention to the public aspects, this essay attempts to disclose political implications underpinning the murals in The Chosun Hotel. For this purpose, I will first reconstruct a general view of the murals in the hotel from photographs, art magazines and reports, and then connect the choice of subject matters with both Japanese “interests in Joseon” and the management and operation of railways in Korea that the Japanese Governor-General controlled. It seems, in fact, that the choice of subject matters was inseparable from the government’s railway enterprise: the places depicted in the central hall, such as “Suwon, Gyeongju, Jeolla northern province, Geumsan mountain temple, Gaeseong, Biwon (Secret Garden) of Changdeokgung palace garden in Gyeongseong (Seoul), Ui-dong, and Mount Geumgang,” are in line with a rail route completed in around 1914 and include those that Japan newly “discovered.” Since they differ fundamentally from the traditionally renowned places of scenic beauty and historical significance, the “nature colors of Joseon” that embellished the interiors of the hotel refer ultimately to new discoveries by Imperial Japan, the colonial landscape of Joseon. The above findings lead to a conclusion that the murals in The Chosun Hotel, while standing on the space of Joseon royal authority, has played a public role in f launting the power of modern Japan and its ownership of colonies.