By To Ngoc Van
The Fine-Arts School, in the first year of its founding, was situated in Dufeur
garden, that is to say, within the limits of the present-day school. That
was a repository of the Public Works Service, roofed with zinc, in 1925, where
were put shovels and pickaxes. It was both the residence of the director,
Mr. Tardieu, and the gathering place for successful candidates. In this cradle
of the modern Fine Arts school may be seen some large pictures by Mr. Tardieu,
now shown at the lecture-room of the University of Indochina. By that time,
they were not moss-grown and covered with mould as they are today. They always
sparkled with red light of ripe oranges. In front of them stood a very long
ladder that reached the top of the pictures. It used to crackle under Mr.
Tardieu's heavy footsteps each time he climbed up to work on a picture. Every
day, we crowded together at the foot of the ladder, with both sympathy and
mischief. All day long, the ladder watched a very aesthetically unkempt hair
of Le Pho who frequently wore a starched collar with a long black necktie.
It mischievously witnessed the young Nguyen Phan Chanh's ill luck that occurred
twice a day, in the morning and the afternoon. The reason for this is that
he never parted from his discolored umbrella, which he always kept beside
him, even when he worked on a painting. The first day Mr. Tardieu saw it;
he carried the umbrella away and hung it on a rung of the ladder without scrupling
to offend Nguyen Phan Chanh. However, the next day, then the day after the
next, it rested with Phan Chanh to keep his umbrella beside him, and with
Mr. Tardieu to hang the umbrella on the ladder. As for the towering ladder,
it crackled each time the umbrella was hung on it, as if it poked fun and
counted up once again. Over there is Mai Trung Thu with his lips hung and
his wide opened eyes that seemingly wanted to run onto the posing naked model's
body which he was perseveringly sketching in. At this little place was sitting
Le Van De who was also absorbed in his work, also persevering in his efforts.
Now and then, he busted out laughing at something unknown, like a firecracker,
which suddenly breaks out.
Were there not the Fine-Arts School, a lot of ardent hearts devoted
to Fine Arts would have been wasted in a certain unrighteous art. The God
of this art is Mr. Tran Phenh, an artist we have formerly admired and have
considered a hardly available lofty target. His art consists in dexterity;
his talent consists in forging gaudy colours to be applied to figures copied
faithfully from photos without taking into account the artist's emotion.
Mr. Phenh has been present at the first entrance examination to
the Fine Arts School. We took a covetous glance at him, thinking that he came
there not to be a student of the Fine-Arts School, but to become a teacher.
During the execution of academy figures, everybody opened wide his eyes to
watch the motion of Mr. Phenh's hand on the paper. He took out successively
from behind his ears lots of pencils of all sizes, unrolled sheets of glossy
paper of every format, as cleverly as a coiffeur cleaning the customer's ears.
He added finishing touches to the eyelashes or the wrinkles on the lips of
the "model" in the picture.
The examination result was quite astonishing: Mr. Phenh was failed.
He himself and his art ceased to be sacred. Joyful, passionate, confident,
we entered the Fine-Arts school to reach the palace of the "Beauty"
which very soon we were attracted to. Are there any young people having such
a passion for the human beauty as ours for the "Beauty"?
In the world of such passionate hearts, people talked about well-known
Chinese, Japanese or European painters of this century or the past one. People
delved into their characters, their talents as if the latter are their old
acquaintances, although they knew the artist only through publications or
through colour or black-and-white photos of the latter's works. One loves
the work only after understanding it. These works have something sympathetic,
a certain ambience in which our Fine-Arts school students feel at ease.
Do not ask them why. They can give only a reply after Montaigne:
"Since it is Hokusai, Manet. Cezanne, Van Gough... Since it is we..." The collision between the Fine-Arts School and the public began
in the first exhibition in about 1928-1929, at the very Fine-Arts School.
There was the painting, "A maiden with tangled hair" with a sorrowful
physiognomy by Le Pho, the "Maiden sitting on camp bed" with tears
in her eyes by Mai Trung Thu. There was the soft "Old man" by Miss
Le Thi Luu, some pictures painted with dark-brown colours by Nguyen Phan Chanh
describing the countryside. Silk-paintings had not come into being yet. They
were only uneven and rough canvases, and not smooth and shiny ones like photos
to the public's liking. The press made cautious remarks. People blamed pictures
by Le Pho and Nguyen Phan Chanh for their mud-like colours... Did they think
these remarks to be merely a praise? A daily newspaper was even ironical about
the "?asciviousness" of Mai Trung Thu's painting, because the artist
painted a young woman wearing satinet trousers and a bodice without outer
garment... The then general tendency among painters was to refine the figure
of a maiden that looked dreamy, innocent, and melancholic... Is that a sign
of the times? Who may be compared to Mai Trung Thu in depicting eyes wet with
tears? Every maiden pictured by Le Pho had dim eyes without living glints.
People liked their pictorial works to look Chinese, Japanese. People used
to append lots of red seals to lengthy Chinese inscriptions, picture rocks,
trees, silhouettes that are seen only in Chinese paintings. 'Quite Chinese!
', that is a praise for a painting warm-heartedly received by the author.
This risible spectacle has betrayed a mannerism, a preference given to the
routine over the sincere emotion, as if the pictorial work has merely an outward
look without sheltering a soul.
In 1931, the colonial fair held in France has put the French public
in touch with Vietnamese painting. I would like to mean silk-paintings which
look neither European nor Chinese by the young Nguyen Phan Chanh who formerly
kept jealously his umbrella beside him, the young man who has launched a movement
for special Annamese silk-paintings that he himself and all others have never
thought about.
(This article by To Ngoc Van appeared in "Xuan Thu Nha Tap"
in 1942).
