Hang Trong Pictures    

Others

Cultural Pictures

Cultural pictures emerge in Vietnam along with the cult of ancestors and the worship of divinities personifying natural phenomene. Tet and cultural pictures have become a demand of the cultural life, a source for popular art, and a constituent element of contemporary folk culture.

The need for numerous Tet and cultural pictures has long enabled the appearance in Vietnam of wood engraving. Some families of wood engravers were reported as far back as the Ly period (XI- XII centuries), and the subsequent Tran period already managed to put paper currency into circulation. Wood engraving was improved in the early Le period thanks to the adoption of Chinese techniques. From that time onwards, folk art began to be diversified.

The Mac period (XVI century) saw a considerable development of popular imagery. The presence of folk-paintings in the houses of high ranking officials in Thang Long royal city has been confirmed by a poem of Hoang So Khai, a then man of letters:

"Chung Quy depicts expertly
The red talismans exorcizing evil spirits and
preventing inauspicious elements
The picture of a Rooster I hang on the door will
certainly scare away ghosts and devils.
Below the verandah the flowers are blossoming out".

The Museum of History (Hanoi) still preserves a number of woodcuts dating from the 4th year of Minh Mang reign (1823). According to some family registers of wood cutters, Vietnamese folk paintings were favoured by a stability and development from XVIII - XIX centuries to the August revolution.

Folk paintings are produced throughout the country. Based on artistic styles, printing techniques, and materials used, we may classify popular pictures into some artistic currents bearing the names of localities producing them.

Most prevalent are those produced in Dong Ho, a village in Northern Vietnamese delta, that are much appreciated by peasants. The poonah paper is covered by the popular artist with a substance extracted from oyster shell which reveals supple parallel lines. The background paper also radiates a silvery light, and sometimes shows a red hue given by a liquid extracted from the sophora japonica flower or an orange tint brought about by sappan-wood, which leads to an elegant composition of colours. For some pictures, black strokes and a certain colour are enough to give the expression. Most colours used for the pictures derive from natural materials. For example, the white is taken from oyster shell, the black from charred bamboo leaves, the red from sappanwood, the blue from indigo leaves, the yellow from sophora japonica flowers. The mixture or the superimposition of colours can give rise to a number of hues. These natural colours, placed next to one another, highlight one another and look animated like in a dance.

Dong Ho pictures are aimed at offering good wishes and describing the daily life and social ralations in the countryside. On the Tet occasion, every house is decorated with a few Dong Ho pictures. The poor dwelling-house, which used to be the place of family reunion, seems to be plunged into the radiance of these popular pictures that contribute somewhat to the merry laughter of family members.

Folk-paintings from other currents show black strokes, and colours are applied within the outline. An example of this painting genre is the Hang Trong pictures which are sold especially to city dwellers. Hang Trong pictures are sometimes drawn totally by hand; not printed with a woodcut. Colouring is made after the drawing has been completed, which enables a lot of subtle nuances.

Hang Trong pictures are made with pigments and paper of large format imported from abroad. Their themes sometimes coincide with those dealt with by Dong Ho pictures, but most prevalent are cultural pictures. They are generally displayed in large sitting rooms or in sanctuaries plunged in incense smoke.

Apart from these two currents, Kim Hoang pictures are created in city outskirts. They are drawn or printed on red or yellow paper imported from China, and so they are usually called red pictures. On Kim Hoang pictures are printed black strokes and masses while figurs of other colours are drawn by hand. The picture is sometimes reprinted to bring out the strokes. For Kim Hoang pictures, the indigo blue is prepared by the artist himself while other colours are made from pigments bought in market places. Though colours are applied on pictures in a simple manner, figurs look no less vivid. Besides the themes that are similar to Dong Ho ones, we may see on Kim Hoang pictures big characters whose strokes are embellished with floral disigns symbolic of the four seasons of the year.

Sinh pictures made in Hue city outskirts are all cultural ones suitable to primitive belief, that reflects an ancient Viet thingking before a mysterious and sacred nature being incarnated by divinities prayed by humans for security and happiness. Particularly in vogue is the "Goddess image" that governs the lot of each woman. Stroles on Sinh pictures are printed in black colour with a woodcut. A few strokes in other colours may be added to the picture, but the background sometimes remains uncoloured. Only pictures made with modern printing press are polychromatic.

Each artistic current follows a characteristic style, yet on every picture are seen outlined masses of colours. With this enjoyable composition, folk paintings discard the perspective, and so they can be beheld from different angles. Large figurs of divinities are placed above and in the middle while humans are of smaller dimensions. Figurs of animals and floral paterns are either large or little according to the impression to be created.

Popular imagery in Vietnam develops the best elements inherited from preceding periods and, at the same time, adopts from other artistic genres what is suitable to it whereby to enrich its own identity.

Vietnamese popular imagery has a long process of evolution, yet the collection of images and the research into them had not been conducted until half a century ago. A rich collection made by Maurice Durand, prior to the August revolution of 1945, in association with Paul Levy, Tran Van Giap and Tran Huy Ba was exhibited in Paris in 1960. Following this, there appear in Hanoi a number of images sold to foreign tourists. The research into popular imagery has been carried out more exhaustively. From Nguyen Do Cung to us, the ranks of researchers have been swollen, many questions are already answered, but yet a lot of things are still to be discovered.

This collection will hopefully help the readers understand the mentality and the aesthetic taste of our forefathers.