Arts Trends In Viet Nam ppt

Arts Trends In Viet Nam Nguyen Hung It should be first pointed out that French artists who taught "L'Ecole Superieux des Beaux Arts de L'Indochine" The College of Fine Arts of Indochina

Arts Trends In Viet Nam

Nguyen Hung

It should be first pointed out that French artists who taught "L'Ecole Superieux des Beaux Arts de L'Indochine" (The College of Fine Arts of Indochina) opened in Hanoi in 1925 were blazetrailers of contemporary arts of Vietnam European arts have had much imprint on Vietnam's Whatever "ism" have existed in Europe whether Classical Naturalism, Medieval Religionism, Post Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstractionism and even present-day Installation and Land Art , all turn up in Vietnam

It does not mean, however, that Vietnamese arts is a simplified copy of European arts since artists of any time while choosing new school for expressing select just what is most pregnant to their perception

First generation of contemporary artists like To Ngoc Van, Tran Van Can, Nguyen Gia Tri, Nguyen Phan Chanh, Nguyen Do Cung made a hard "break" with the "weight" of classical European arts to seek for their own "inspiration-generating' sources" Their search commenced with images and then with materials, techniques Soon they reached

uniform thinking in arts creation, i.e exonerative expression of their feelings and aesthetic viewpoints Present- day people when watching paintings of these "elders" have to concede that they only learned

European graphic techniques and materials Freely and naturally did they make use of the "physic" space, oil material; at the same time they

"acad-emised" folk materials like lacquer, silk, carvings Spiritually, they retained "Vietnamese nature" to the full by non- rationalization and unaffected characterization of feelings on surrounding entities - landscapes, objects and beings and of folk metaphysical concept

imbued with Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism Generally speaking,

"L'Indochine" era artists fully conceived that foreign arts schools only meant when the best parts selected, thoroughly uniform in the course of thinking which has its own settings and ways of reception

Not any significant change took place during the first period of

Vietnamese modern arts from the inception to 1980s In the North, the search for new expressing ways of some artists was just tentative and a matter of formality The Revolution Arts was, in effect, the

continuation of the one initiated by the pioneers of the "L'Indochine" Arts School with a new spirit based on "lyrical citizenship and State affairs" feelings Among Revolutionary artists Nguyen Sang may be the only (one) who dealt successfully with socialist historic realism through richly-generalised and strongly touched paintings (e.g "Giac dot lang toi - The Enemy Burned My Village", "Ket nap Bang d Bien Bien -

New Party Members addmit- ted in Dien Bien", "Thanh Nien thanh dong - Bulwark Youth") Most of the rest, though upheld Realism, were really romanticists holding social revolutionary or national outlook In the South, over this period, something quite different underlying the

"self' of the artists together with Western influence added nuances to the scene

Since 1960s, modern trends such as cubism, surrealism, expressionism, abstractionism have been widely tested Yet, it must be honestly said that Western rationalism which was brought into Vietnam under these different "isms" born different nature and had another fate-it seemed too big a "shirt" for the confusing spiritual situation either dragged on

by daily feeling or drifted with symbolic meaning of romantic

sensibility It is not at all by accident that many artists in the South, after some time's quest, reveted to symbolism; most of them "took

shelter" in some fixed means to satisfy their own petty dreams at haute salons

Never have Vietnam's arts activities become so excitingly hectic as present, In no more than ten years, the number of graphic artists has hiked significantly and exhibitions held consecutively Every artists tries to have his/her own identity resulting in quick ramification into variously shophisticated trends

It is difficult to name existing arts trends in Vietnam There has yet a uniform ground on which reliable reference and argument can be based for art criticism Moreover, Vietnamese artists do not hold fast to any trend, on the contrary, they are ever volatile For instance, a symbolist

of yesterday may now turn out an abstractionist and then symbolist again An artist that is so deft as a tribal religionists with surrealist expressions, then selling himself to the ambiguity of decoration

works In general, very few of them have dedicated to uniformly

lifetime quest so how to name their arts trend?!

If European academic arts studies with widely-used concepts and

aesthetic categories were taken into consideration, it would be likely forceful and arbitrary Such use will drive current confusing situation to the worst It will be a big mistake, for example, to classify a Hanoian who draws cubic-structure paintings like Picasso's as cubist since his paintings consist only highly symbolic folk images through the means - merely form - of cubism In other words, this is only a mixture so- called "old wine in a new bottle"

Thus, an accurate understanding of Vietnam arts can be obtained

through perception integrally based on its background and ways of thinking affecting each trend It should be vigilant with deceitful forms easily led to incorrect titles

Many artists in Vietnam take to the characterization of reality Yet it is

a long way from reality depiction to realism They are not different from their "L'Indochine" elders who were far removed from social affairs just availing themselves of the method as a means to express the purely romantic feelings of surrounding beings in the forms of

impressionism, symbolism or expressionism with much romanticsm There is, for instance, one artist in HCMC who draws in details Many people put that the paintings look more like photos Yet they radiate something closer to expressionism than reality depiction Others put that his paintings are of "Zen" style - giving out internal placidity in this ephemeral world They are all, regretfully, incorrect What in all his paintings are almost uniformly expressed Even Revolutionary artists who draw in the citizenship spirit having in minds an

indebtdness to generalise historical events have yet been able to move further to social realism Prevalent are chronicles whose subjects and image structures are only selected through the artists' own feelings

In addition, there are many abstractionists, both imaging and

non-imaging Many exhibitions of this kind of paintings have been held, yet the viewers tend to be indifferent and keep a distance from them

Different opinions among Vietnamese artists' circle have been heard about abstract paintings Many of them forget that abstractionism is the result of art process in which colour, hues, expression of lines and

interaction of rhythm, even structure layout by themselves carry merits of manifestation Abstractionists are not bound with identified content of the images; but they can fully express their own feelings which may still be obscurely deep in subconsciousness It is

noteworthy that not many Vietnamese abstract paintings radiating widespread vitality Just few of Vietnamese abstractionists man- aged

to embody spiritual feelings close to those of their fellow symboists and expressionists; perception, for them, is not the problem to be taken for granted, it's simply spiritual feelings towards internal peace and tranquility in this real worry-ridden world Most paintings of this trend

do not have much colour-e.g fickling candle flame and regularly

structured strokes are more favoured Most of what remains are either confusingly or monotonously and meaninglessly made

If the paintings of each Vietnamese abstractionist are seen from a

systematic viewpoint, it can be easily found out that most present- day artists merely symbolize and try to find their own identity by a certain principle of symbolization Generally speaking, modern Vietnamese abstractionism has yet been an expression of inner feelings but, on the contrary, a concealment under what is called "style"

The "Doi Moi" (renovation) period in Vietnam has had great impact on Vietnamese arts Vietnamese artists are facing the challenge of

simultaneously integrating into the world's arts and upholding national

identity The situation together with daily temptation of world's popular painting market hit hard impatient artists who have sold themselves and lost their roots They take refuge under certain "blockhouse of forms" dubbed as "national or modern styles" and feel satisfaction with the illusion of being an artist

Vietnam 's arts is still in the quest of a breakthrough inception It can be further said that the value of arts is not based on any recognition of national or international crowds or the orientation is not determined by the movement of any "major" arts Each culture successfully flourishes

in its own way There are not higher or lower cultures but only

similarities and differences between them, Vietnam 's arts will prevail thanks to self- renovation not references to arts of another land

Individually, sensibility, purely uniform art "language", and brave

expression have built- in worth "To err is human", so artists may at times commit "ideology" faults; even in such astray moment, were the artist's thinking real touch of dignified personality, the works of art will survive with time and constantly inspire to sympathisers Truth and novelty coincide in arts provided that the novelty is the truth found out

by a sensitive, sensible and sincere being