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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 |
