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Vietnamese
Modern Paintings - The Pioneers
By Quang Phong,
Quang Viet and H.C.
Vietnam
is moving forward. The Vietnamese are not only looking
ahead to their future, however, but also making an
effort to sort out their past. Recently they have come
to terms with the origin of their modern art. For many
years, this has been a sensitive topic as Vietnamese
modern art began as a joint product of French liberalism
and Vietnamese traditionalism during a period of brutal
French colonialism and strong Vietnamese patriotism.
Before
doi moi (renovation) began in 1986, the origin of
Vietnamese modern art was little discussed in Vietnam
because such a discussion would necessarily touch upon
the role of the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de
l'Indochine (Indochina Fine Arts College) founded by the
liberal- minded French artist Victor Tardieu. During its
20 years of operation (1925-1945), the Ecole trained
more than 100 Vietnamese painters, sculptors and
architects who formed the core group of pioneers in
Vietnamese modem art. Even though the Vietnamese
pioneers were primarily inspired and driven in their
artistic creation by Vietnamese tradition, the Ecole was
thought to be too closely associated with French
colonialism to deserve mention.
Recent
events, however, have pointed to a conscious effort to
put things in balance, recognizing both the catalyst
role of the Ecole and the crucial contribution of the
Vietnamese pioneer artists in the development of
Vietnamese modern art. In 1996, the Government awarded
the Ho Chi Minh Prize, the most prestigious recognition
in Vietnam, to seven Vietnamese artists, all of whom
graduated from the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de
l'Indochine. On 9 May 2000, the Hanoi College of Fine
Arts and other local art institutions sponsored a large
reunion of former students of the Ecole and their
relatives to mark the Ecole's 75th anniversary. In the
atmosphere of greater openness, local art researchers
have agreed on the foundation of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in 1925 as the starting
date of Vietnamese modem art. Up to 1925, Vietnamese art
had relied on its centuries-old graphic tradition such
as the creation of Dong Ho wood prints and pictures in
pagodas by anonymous authors, but it had never formed
part of the global art trends. Being cut off from
well-known art schools in Europe, Vietnamese art could
only speak its own language.
Recognizing
the beauty of Vietnamese artistic traditions, Victor
Tardieu and his colleague Joseph lnguimberty were
determined to help the indigenous students to better
exploit their heritage by exposing them to standard
examples of both Vietnamese and French art. The two
French artists placed greater emphasis on Vietnamese
tradition for fear that their students might be
otherwise Westernized. However, Vitor Tardieu and Joseph
Inguimberty pointed out that this return to the past
could only be effective if it served as the starting
point for further developments better suited to today's
world; therefore the Vietnamese students were also well
taught about Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet,
Camille Pissarro and Pierre Auguste Renoir among others.
Silk
painting with Vietnamese style
Vietnamese silk painting began, paradoxically, as a
result of Nguyen Phan Chanh's failure at Western oil
painting. Nguyen Phan Chanh was among the students of
the first class (1925-1930) of the Eeole Superieure des
Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine. Vitor Tardieu quickly
realized that Chanh's natural endowment was not suitable
for Western oil painting, so he advised Chanh to shift
to Oriental painting. Victor Tardieu helped Chanh to
study Chinese paintings of the Tang and Song periods so
that Chanh could develop his own style for doing
Vietnamese silk painting. Chanh became fascinated by the
beauty of Chinese silk paintings because he found in
them the expression of the soul of the objects rather
than the mere depiction of their surface. He did not try
to imitate the Chinese, however. Chanh's was a simple
style, combining Oriental and Western techniques.
He
composed his paintings with a Western approach but
employed light and dark patches of the East Asian
tradition. His paintings are attractive because of the
lyricism created by the interaction of brown, soil
yellow and light grey colours with fine silk. People
praise Chanh's silk paintings as uniquely Vietnamese. At
a 1931 exhibition in Paris, his silk painting Game of
Squares was warmly welcomed by the visitors. Nguyen Phan
Chanh has become the leading representative of
Vietnamese silk painting.
Following
Chanh's lead, other students of his class such as Le Pho,
Mai Trung Thu, Nguyen Tuong Lan, Le Thi Luu, Tran Van
Can and Luong Xuan Nhi also started painting on silk
while continuing to do oil painting. Together the group
created a collection of fine silk paintings that
embodied the Vietnamese soul and tradition. In Nguyen
Tuong Lan's Blossoming Beauty, a young lady sits
gracefully on a porcelain stool against the background
of dark brown, giving the impression of musical rhythms
typical of silk. Mai Trung Thu preferred studies of
young ladies with sad, tearful eyes against the dark
indigo background, suggesting a vague nostalgia. Le Van
De focused on the genteel, slender beauty of upper-class
ladies, rendering details of the hair, the face and the
hands, but leaving the rest to merge into the mystic
blurred veil of colours. Because of the nature of silk,
objects rendered on silk easily become blurred and
vague. Tran Van Can and Luong Xuan Nhi, however, were
able to make the clouds, smokes, trees, faces and hands
in their paintings stand out clearly without sacrificing
the gentleness inherent in the farbic. Nguyen Tien Chung
is said to be a born silk painter, as objects in his
paintings appear soft, gentle and rhythmic, while his
use of colours varies from simplicity to exuberance, and
his representations alternate between folkloric
stylization and academic rendition.
Thanks to
the work of these painters, Vietnamese silk painting
gradually asserted itself as a unique school, not a mere
copy of Chinese silk painting.
The
effects of traditional lacquer
Lacquer
was discovered as a medium in painting by sheer
accident, but it quickly conquered both artists and art
connoisseurs. One day, Vietnamese painter Nam Son took
J. lmguimberty to the Temple of Literature to paint.
There, the French artist was struck by the charming
colour of the lacquer paint on the centuries-old wooden
altars, boards of ancient writings, and beams. J.
Inguimberty then suggested to his students to apply the
traditional lacquer technique to painting.
Among the
many local artists that researched the new medium,
Nguyen Gia Tri was the first one to succeed. Though he
applied both Western and modem painting approaches, the
lacquer techniques he used were purely Vietnamese.
Nguyen Gia Tri set the norms for lacquer painting.
Looking at his paintings, one always has the impression
that they are reflections of objects beneath an even,
clear water surface. Amid layers of shiny amber
materials, the gentle young ladies came to life, moving,
standing, sitting, chasing butterflies, picking flowers,
or strolling by a lotus lake. The different details
combine into rhythmic undulations to create a mixed
contrast of simplicity and luxury. Some of his works
created during the early 1940s - at the height of his
success - such as By the Side of Restored Sword Lake and
Spring Garden, are still valued as masterpieces of
Vietnamese lacquer painting. Other lacquer painters such
as Tran Van Can, Nguyen Van Ty, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, Le Pho,
Nguyen Khang, Pham Hau and Tran Quang Tran were less
successful than Nguyen Gia Tri, but they all contributed
to asserting the uniqueness of Vietnamese lacquer
painting. The themes they often employed were
landscapes, temples and pagodas, bridges, bamboo groves,
rivers, the sea and mountains. Of particular interest is
Tran Van Can7s folding screen Farewell to a Candidate to
the Triennial Literary Examination which depicts a scene
of villagers seeing off a candidate to the royal
examination, using folkloric stylization and traditional
lacquer colours of crimson, black, brown and gold.
Another
group of lacquer painters including Pham Duc Cuong, Le
Quoc Loc, Nguyen Van Que, Ta Ty and Manh Quynh developed
lacquer painting into decorative art, inclining towards
dark colour, solemnity and antiquity.
Oil as
a new medium
Both V.
Tardieu and J. Inguimberty attached great importance to
training in oil painting techniques, but they never
believed that the Vietnamese could succeed in using this
difficult medium.
The
adventurous To Ngoc Van, however, did not hesitate to
take the plunge. He saw in the linseed oil a special
quality that could help him capture moments of nature in
a twinkle of an eye. He employed the highest degree of
tint to create the mystic beauty of the landscape of the
Ba Vi Mountain and the Da River. In a short period he
created hundreds of oil paintings, using the themes of
Ha Long Bay, the Perfume Pagoda, Buddhist monks in Phnom
Penh and peasants in the fields. Some of his paintings
which have become Vietnamese classics are A Girl by
Lilies, A Girl by Lotus, At Noon, A Girl Leaning against
the Gate, and Under the Shadow. To Ngoc Van used a
combination of indigo and brown that emphasized the body
lines of young girls, and a mixture of rhythm, lighting
and colour that suggests the vitality of life. In 1939,
To Ngoc Van became a lecturer at the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine and helped train a
generation of talented artists such as Nguyen Tu Nghiem,
Nguyen Sang, Bui Xuan Phai, Duong Bich Lien, Huynh Van
Gam, Mai Van Hien and Phan Ke An.
Other oil
painters including Le Pho, Mai Trung Thu, Vu Cao Dam, Le
Thi Luu, Tran Van Can, Luu Van Sin, Nguyen Do Cung and
Luong Xuan Nhi also created works of great artistic
value. Tran Van Can painted the Portrait of Little Thuy
after the style of Dutch painter Vermeer de Delft. Luu
Van Sin created Young Man and the Rose Horse in natural
light and colour. Nguyen Tu Nghiem used the contrast of
white and green in his painting The Guardian of the
Temple of Literature. Nguyen Sang mostly dealt with the
theme of the struggle for national independence. Bui
Xuan Phai charmed connoisseurs with scenes of ancient
Hanoi streets.
The period
of 1925-1945 is very short compared with the history of
Vietnamese art, but it constitutes the formative years
of Vietnamese modern art. Through their French teachers
at the Eole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine,
the then young generation of Vietnamese artists were
able to benefit from Western art techniques and knew how
to apply them in exploiting Vietnam's heritage of
traditional art. Upon the foundation the first
generation of Vietnamese artists had built, the latter
generations continued to create works of patriotic
nature during the French and then American wars. And
today's generation of Vietnamese artists is
experimenting with contemporary genres such as
installation, but they continue to reflect the tradition
of modern art so far developed in their works. In doing
justice to the pioneers of modern art, including the
French teachers at Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts de
l'Indochine, Vietnamese artists today have the roots to
nurture themselves in their ventures into the world of
modem art.
The
master of oil painting
To
Ngoc Van was able to become the master of Vietnamese oil
painting because right from the very beginning he
strongly believed that this new medium could express
well the Vietnamese soul and would define the future of
Vietnamese painting. He started to employ the themes of
women, daily life and landscape in his paintings.
Reality was always his primary source of inspiration. To
Ngoc Van paid a great deal of attention to shapes, but
he was even more concerned with colours. He introduced
to Vietnamese painting powerful, bold combinations of
colours which differed from the soft blends of colours
his contemporaries often used. His indigo shines
strikingly impressive; his red, yellow and orange
glitter brightly and move gently; and his purple and
pink glisten with freshness. Layers of oil paint
intertwine and merge to create the mixed impression of
ambiguity and concreteness, hardness and softness. With
To Ngoc Van, Vietnamese oil painting could be said to
have joined the mainstream of the world's modem arts.
The
master of lacquer painting
Born in
1892 in Thach Ha District, Ha Tinh Province and died in
1984 in Ha Noi
Graduate of the 1925-1930 class of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine
Awarded with the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Literature and
Arts in 1996
Main works: Game of Squares (silk), Meal (silk), Giong
to the Field and the Wandering Singer.
Nguyen Phan
Chanh is considered the founder of Vietnamese silk
painting. He was also the first Vietnamese modem painter
to be known outside Vietnam. During the late 1920s and
early 1930s, Nguyen Phan Chanh patiently studied the
techniques of silk painting. As a result he was able to
create masterpieces such as The Meal, The Wandering
Singer, Going to the Field, and Feeding the Bird. His
Game.of Squares was unexpectedly given special attention
at a 1931 exhibition in Paris. This painting uses strong
patches of colour often found in Vietnamese folkloric
wood prints and a coherent composition typical of
Western painting. The technique displays a perfect
combination of Oriental and Western painting approaches.
The
painter and art researcher
Born in
1912 in Tu Liem District, Ha Noi and died in 1977.
Graduate of the 1929-1934 class of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine.
Awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Literature and Arts in
1996.
Main works: The Gate of the Village (gouache, 1940), The
Gate of Hue Citadel (gouache, 1941), The Guerillas of La
Hai (gouache, 1947), and The Engineering Workers
(gouache, 1962).
Nguyen Do
Cung was probably the only artist of the first
generation who specialized in both painting and
research.
In
painting, he was the first Vietnamese to explore the
Cubism and was particularly succesful in two paintings
with this approach: The Gate of the Village (1940) and
The Gate of Hue Citadel (1941). During the French war
(1946-1954), he went to Central Viet Nam where he
focused on patriotic themes. His paintings during this
period include The Guerrillas Practicing Shooting, An
Arms-Making Factory, and The An Khe Battle. During the
1960s and 1970s he mostly did studies of workers
including Exchanging Experiences (1960) and The
Engineering Workers (1962).
His
greatest contribution to Vietnamese fine art, however,
was his research on the ancient art in communal houses
and pagodas. The marks of his work can still be seen in
the carvings of the beams, the roofs and the balustrades
at the Viet Nam Museum of Fine Art, which he himself
designed.
The
blending of folklore with modernity
Born in
1922 in Nam Dan District, Nghe An Province.
Graduate a the 1941-1946 class of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine.
Awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Literature and Arts in
1996
Main works: The Guardian of the Temple of Literature
(oil, 1944), New Year's Eve on the Bank of Restored
Sword Lake (lacquer 1957), An Ancient Dance (gouache,
1983), and Genie Giong (lacquer 1976).
Nguyen Tu
Nghiem is considered the pioneer artist in combining
folkloric tradition with the modem spirit, creating a
uniquely Vietnamese style.
Even when
he was still a student, his teachers and peers used to
admire him for his creativity, especially in his lively
oil paintings on rural themes such as Grazing the
Buffaloes in the Rain, The Cow at the Gate of the Pagoda
and The Guardian of the Temple of literature.
Together
with painter Nguyen Do Cung, he visited many temples and
pagodas familiarizing himself with each statue and
carving. These trips provided him with the material and
inspiration for the development of his artistic
language.
Nguyen Tu
Nghiem was never satisfied with himself, trying to
exhaust every single theme he embarked on with as many
paintings as he could. Accordingly, he would pursue the
same theme for many years. On the theme of ancient
dancing, it took him twenty-seven years of pondering
between An Ancient Dance (1956) and An Ancient Dance
(1983). Moreover he managed to take Vietnamese modem
painting back to the roots of the national identity with
a series of folkloric pictures including The Mid- Autumn
Festival (I 963), The Lion Dance (1962) and Genie Giong
(1976). In no other painters can the blend of
traditional culture and modernity be better felt than in
Nguyen Tu Nghiem,
Born in
1923 in Tien Giang Province and died in 1988 in Ho Chi
Minh City.
Graduate of the 1940-1945 class of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de l’Indochine.
Awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Literature and Arts in
1996.
Main works: The Enemy Have Burnt Our Village (oil,
1954), Admission to the Party in the Dien Bien Phu
Battlefield (lacquer, 1963), Landscape of the Middle
Region (water colour), and A Girl by Lotus (oil, 1972).
Nguyen
Sang devoted himself mostly to the theme of the
patriotic wars for national independence and
reunification. Out of simple compositions and solid
shapes he created melodramatic spaces in his paintings.
Some of the works on the theme of war include The Enemy
Have Burnt Our Village (oil, 1954), The Soldiers
Sheltering from the Rain (1960), and The Soldiers
Resting on the Hill (1960). Nguyen Sang also possessed a
lyrical side as evidenced in his A Girl by Lotus, A Girl
in the Banana Garden, Portrait of a Girl, and The Thap
Pagoda. Firmly grounded in the national artistic
tradition, Nguyen Sang absorbed the quintessence of the
world's art and helped to modernize Vietnamese art.
The
painter of Hanoi’s ancient streets
Born in
1920 Ha Noi and died in 1988
Graduate of the 1941-1946 class of the Ecole Superieure
des Beaux-Arts de L’Indochine
Awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize for the Literature and
Arts in 1996
Main works: Old Street (oil), The Da River (oil, 1980),
O Quan Chuong (goauche, 1983), and Before the
Performance (oil, 1983).
Bui Xuan
Phai's life has been so closely associated with Hanoi
that the city's old banyan trees, moss-covered walls,
dark red tiled roofs and ancient streets have become the
heart and soul of his paintings. So far no other
painters have been able to match Phai's talent for
revealing the charm of Hanoi's old quarter with his
large, dark and nostalgic strokes of the brush; though
more recently the outlines of his objects have become
thinner and his palette more cheerful as can be found in
his 0 Quan Chuong (1983) and Ngo Si Lien Market (1984).
Bui Xuan Phai also painted pictures of actors and
actresses of the traditional cheo theatre, and the cows,
haystacks and graceful country girls of the peaceful
countryside. Vietnamese modem painting would be
incomplete without Bui Xuan Phai. His influence on later
generations of painters can still be felt today.
From: Viet Nam Culturall Window, No 29 - August 2000 |
