The cultural beauty of Viet Nam
Vietnamese people buy Tet paintings every year, and it makes waiting for the special occasion very exciting. At this time, people are eager to find a painting with vibrant colors, unique drawings, and meaningful messages. The paintings represent everyone’s wish for a lucky and happy new year.
Tet paintings are diverse in types, such as religious paintings, congratulatory paintings, historical paintings, satirical paintings, or landscape paintings, with images such as chicken paintings and pig paintings that represent everyone’s wishes for joy, happiness, and prosperity for their family. Lion dance paintings and dragon paintings will represent luck and happiness in particular. “Tố nữ” paintings represent the love and relationship between humans and nature. “Tứ quy” paintings express the wish that all the upcoming four seasons will be filled with joyful memories.
Types of folk painting
Dong Ho painting (Bac Ninh) originated in a village called Dong Ho in the 17th century. Dong Ho painting is one of Viet Nam woodcut paintings, as they use wooden boards to print. Dong Ho’s painting will be printed once for each color that it has on a special paper called “tờ điệp”. The colors used for Dong Ho paintings are made from natural materials, such as black is made from old bamboo leaves, yellow is made from flowers, blue is made from melaleuca leaves, and red is made from daylilys, and the white color is made from seashells, scallop shells, etc. From color to paper, all these natural materials have created the magical and unique colors of Dong Ho folk paintings.
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Hang Trong paintings (Ha Noi) first appeared 400 years ago, including two genres of worship paintings and Tet paintings, with famous paintings such as the five tigers, the king riding a tiger, Mau Thoai, etc. The special thing about Hang Trong paintings is that the craftsmen will use woodblocks to print the outlines first, and then they will draw the details and color them by hand using a colored brush. They will start with either light or dark colors, depending on what the painting is about. Hang Trong paintings are usually drawn on do paper and xuyến chỉ paper. The colors that are used in Hang Trong paintings are also made from natural materials. The natural inks give the paintings a very bright and attractive look with different shades of the 6 main colors: blue, pink, scarlet, orange, yellow, and green. In addition, the important details in the worship paintings will be embellished with silver pigments (silver), golden pigments (gold) and white chalk (finely ground from plaster).
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Kim Hoang paintings (Ha Noi) were very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. The paintings, with their slender, delicate woodcuts and bright colors, are printed on sheets of paper which are dyed beforehand with either red or yellow. The red papers are called hồng điều paper (scarlet paper) and the yellow papers are called vang tau paper (Chinese yellow paper). Kim Hoang paintings often have elegant Chinese characters written in cursive script style on the left corner, combined with beautiful drawings to create a harmonious and coherent piece of Kim Hoang painting.
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Lang Sinh paintings (Thua Thien Hue) are a famous line of woodblock prints. This unique style of painting serves the religious and worship needs of people in the ancient capital of Hue. The special thing about Lang Sinh paintings is their simplicity, instead of complex and detailed drawings. When painting, artists have to be whole-hearted and whole-minded to be able to follow their imagination. This is why Lang Sinh paintings are so different from everything else.
Vân Nhi
(Source: Vietnam Today 1.2022)