![]() This led to a search-from colonial as well nationalist perspectives-for distinct artistic idioms that could be identified as ‘Vietnamese’. In short, this long, narrow stretch of ocean-front land has enjoyed, for millennia, a rich diversity of expressions appearing to parallel those originating elsewhere. ![]() The imposing Cham sculptures provide a Southeast Asian interpretation of mostly Indic Hindu deities and narratives (although Buddhist and Islamic themes appear as well), that were the products of a civilization of possibly Indonesian origin concentrated in central Vietnam (c. Buddhist and ceramic pieces, for instance, derive their appearances and subject matter from the Chinese, who ruled Vietnam continuously for over a thousand years (c. For example, Champa-era stone sculptures, wooden Buddhist figures from as early as the tenth century, variously dated ceramics and bronzes, and a large collection of paintings created during the past ninety years, all appear related to one another by way of aesthetic and cultural interactions with artistic production in societies outside of Southeast Asia during various historical epochs dating as far back as before the Common Era-India, China, and, in the twentieth century, France. While rich in historical material culture, much of Vietnamese art history appears to connect stylistically with developments and practices that prevailed in other regions of Asia and beyond. The present collection of Vietnamese art in the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum gives us a clue to the disparaging stance of the French towards traditional Vietnamese arts. The synthesis of these elements defined an artistic language that was confounded at times by the native ambivalence towards all things foreign and modern, and later, by a demand for propaganda art under the Việt Mình. The students’ training in European artistic styles eventually merged with East Asian and indigenous wood-based, folk craft sources, the privileging of which can be read as a rejection of French style. Thus, the school set about creating a new cultural identity that was grafted from a modernist French pictorial language of art. ![]() ![]() The French colonial view that La France d’Asiepossessed no distinctive artistic and cultural identity was central to the school’s inception. Together with other artists such as Nguyễn Vạn Thọ (1890–1973, better known as Nam Sơn), who was sent to Paris for a year of training in 1924 for his new post as an art instructor, they embarked on a mission civilisatrice to educate promising artisans ( thợ vẽ) so that they would advance to the status of “artists” (hoạ sĩ) and subsequently sign their works as individual creators. In 1925 the arts first began to evolve rapidly thanks to the creation of the École Superieure de Beaux Arts d’Indochine, a new school in Hanoi that was founded by the relatively unknown French painters Victor Tardieu (1870–1937) and Joseph Inguimberty (1896–1971). In a culture that lacked a developed painting tradition from which to draw inspiration, painting with lacquer formed a distinctive and novel medium that could be applied to fresh artistic subjects. ![]() Art at the Crossroads: Lacquer Painting in French Vietnamĭuring the last phase of French occupation in Vietnam (1887–1954), a new and unique direction for pictorial arts was inaugurated that continues to inform the country’s art scene to this day. ![]()
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