Hoang Thu Trang

Lacquer Paintings

Vietnamese Fine Arts represent a combination of different Western and Eastern cultures.
Each has arrived, left, and contributed to Vietnam's wealth of art. And among such
"wealth," lacquer paintings are not to be forgotten.

Vietnamese Craftsmen and Artists initially utilized lacquer to decorate and preserve
artworks. However, during the French Colonizing period, art masters have transformed
this "material" handicraft into actual paintings. Thence, art pieces are born from the same
natural plant extracts - same brown, black and vermilion colors. They are famous for their
complexities, enabled by different techniques, including chiseling – a method that poses a
richer mix of colors and adds a sense of size and distance to the paintings. In addition,
materials such as eggshells, gold, and silver embellish such "creations."

Specifically, this paper studies three different lacquer paintings, which are:

Landscape (Nguyen Gia Tri)

Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac (Phan Ke An) From the darkness (Le Quoc Loc)
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Although the three paintings above are all lacquered, there remain many differences, such
as techniques utilization, subject depiction, painting's compositions, and art styles. We
address each issue below.

Subjects:

At first glance of the three paintings, one may recognize that subjects depicted in
each piece greatly vary from one another.

"Landscape" of Nguyen Gia Tri:

This artwork reflects a popular trend in the 1900s, known as "Art is for art's
sake." Thus, the painting portrays a beautiful garden with plants and animals,
whereas there is no human.

Most of the painting's objects are still-life. The only movement was from the little
birds in the upper parts of the painting. But whether they are movable or not,
depictions are still lacquered in details, which create a feeling of differences in
the materials that make up various leaves, flowers, and birds.

Somehow, this artwork describes the pure beauty of natural life.

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"Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac" of Phan Ke An:

Unlike the above horizontal lacquered board, Phan Ke An's work does not
attribute itself to detailed depictions. Instead, it is a wide-screen, capturing the
overall picture of an evening in the mountains.

And as a stress for the painting, images of Vietnamese soldiers appear. They
relieve Phan's art piece from an ordinary landscape depicting "photograph."
More likely, it is a memoir, as suggested by its name.

"From the Darkness" of Le Quoc Loc:

The subjects of this painting are quite different from the other two. Most of its
surface is covered in darkness, which reduces the work's detailed characteristics
and shadows the art piece with a sense of blankness – a desert without a human.

However, Le Quoc Loc's central theme is not blankness. On the contrary, it is

perhaps the stand-out bright part of the painting, where the guerilla stands under
the flag of Vietnam. The subject is more or less a symbol of socialism.
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Styles:

All three paintings are modern artworks and, of course, influenced by different
trends developed over the past centuries. We will look at each piece and find out
which styles impact them most.

"Landscape" of Nguyen Gia Tri:

"Landscape" is an excellent painting of nature. And as one may observe, the artist
has utilized numerous sharp lines and borders to make figures in the painting
clearer and create a more profound impression inside each viewer:

The water-taro leaves' veins, for example, show up as thick and brown-red lines,
whereas the birds and bamboo leaves are covered in red, depicting the tiniest
details, such as the nightingales' sharp-pointed beaks. Perhaps, "Landscape" is a
masterpiece of Japonism with all its sharpening standards.

In addition, the colors in the painting are slightly overstated:

Red leaves and golden veins exaggerate the natural colors, if not falsifying them.
This use of colors can be because the original lacquer sap cannot create the
shades of green and the sap turn darker after being dried. But more or less, this
piece of art contains fauvism's characteristics.

In other words, both Japonism and fauvism have appeared in Nguyen Gia Tri's
Work.
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"Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac" of Phan Ke An:

From certain distances, anyone, who looks at this painting, will have the feeling
of looking at a photograph:

However, if they move their eyes closer to the artwork, they may only find
different paint strokes, which create a sense of reality:

For instance, dark-green and black strokes describe the mountainside's frictions,
while the golden and gray ones describe the clouds' flexible shapes in the late
afternoon.

From such evidence and the usages of natural lights' contributions, we can infer
that this painting belongs to impressionism.

Furthermore, this is also a work of Romanticism since it contains strong emotions

of remembrance.
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"From the darkness" of Le Quoc Loc:

Le Quoc Loc's painting is also affected by impressionism. But, more likely, it is a

post-impressionism masterpiece.

Light is still spreading naturally from the back of the painting, but the space
perspectives are perhaps modified and applied to the roof above, making it stand
up on the wall and express the door diagonally.

Such figures show the painting's symbolism characteristics: "In the darkness,
houses are dilapidated, and life is unaffordable."

And the dilapidation of life is the background for Romanticism, which emphasizes
the light of the revolution in another part of the art piece.

In the middle of the unclear "darkness," the "light" is detailed with all the flags,
facilities, and people, representing the romance theme.

After all, we can be ensured that "From the darkness" is a mixture of post-
impressionism, symbolism, and Romanticism.
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Compositions:

The three paintings above are awe-inspiring in their compositions. Even though
each artist uses different compositing techniques, their works provide a harmony
of shapes, colors, and values.

"Landscape" of Nguyen Gia Tri

.Just like its name - "Landscapes," the painting is put in a horizontal rectangular
format, which allows the artist to screen every beautiful aspect of nature and
create an outstanding visual balance by using the golden mean.

As we can see from the above illustration, the golden ratio is developed first by
drawing the rectangle's diagonal, and afterward, from another corner of the
canvas, a perpendicular line is taken (red lines)

A vertical and a horizontal line are thence drawn from the intersection of the two
perpendicular ones. These lines divide the painting into four unequal sections,
which can help Nguyen Gia Tri distribute objects in different densities to provide
a sense of balance.

Specifically, in his work, one may observe more objects on the left of the painting
than on the right, directing the viewers' eyes to his focal point: the water-taro
bushes.

Nguyen also uses other tips to draw appreciators' attention, such as using
contrasting colors and thickening his focal objects' borders.

The artist mainly uses light colors that pop up on the darker background to keep
the viewers focused on the water-taro and banana plants. The white water-taro
stands out in the mere darkness, and warm-toned leaves and their veins attribute
themselves to the painting's stress. Anyway, the mere darkness part is not just an
open space. They are filled with plants, deemphasized by their "dead-toned"
colors.
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One may even wonder why other plants are occupying all over the space. Still, the
"dead-tone" part seems borderless enough to be called mere darkness. Simply, it
is because Nguyen Gia Tri does not give them borders. Edges of details in this
part are softened and unclear, whereas the water-taro veins appear vividly. Since
our eyes tend to be drawn to harsh notes in a pictorial makeup, it is not difficult to
understand that borderlessness only ends with sharp borders, and attentions are
led to wherever such borders are. In this painting, the artist successfully places
our eyes on the light and warm-colored plants as we leave very little attention to
other parts of the lacquered work.

Another interesting point of this painting is that Nguyen uses varied-size lines to
deemphasize the details gradually. For example, he wants us to pay the most
attention to the water-taro bushes, so he border them with very thick and sharp
lines. The leaves' veins are also exaggerated in size. (Circled in red).

The borders of the less emphasizing objects such as the banana plants and
flowers, thus, get thinner and become less visible compared to the water-taro's
(Circled in blue) but much clearer than the invisible borderless area.

In other words, compositions of this painting have achieved the artist's initial
goal – catching the viewers' eyes where he wants to – the water-taro plants.
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"Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac" of Phan Ke An:

This painting is also created on a horizontal rectangular canvas and is an even

greater example of the golden ratio. As anyone may observe, the focal point

of this artwork is located very near to the intersection of two perpendicular lines.
And such placement gives viewers a pleasing balance.

Furthermore, since the artist depicts real mountains, he has absolute advantages
when trying to avoid viewers' boredom. He simply puts the mountains in 2
dimensions because their shapes already vary significantly from one another.

Interestingly, mountains are not distributed evenly from back to front. Spacing
between layers varies and eliminates the dispiritedness of ordinary. Generally,
the painting possesses natural characteristics photographed in the artist's
memories.

Balances are also provided by the painting's unequal distributions of light and
dark masses. One may easily recognize that the color of dark green dominates all
over the painting and brings about a cooler color tone to the whole painting. On
the other hand, light comes in a smaller ratio but creates different stressed spots,
pointing viewers' eyes to the focus of the art piece.

There is a balance between stillness and motioning as well. Imagine that the
painting is created with soldiers walking by the mountainside,
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Phan Ke An's work will be "dead" tedious. One may say that it is still beautiful.
Look again. The soldiers' motions keep viewers concentrated on the focal point of
this "remembrance." In contrast, the focus is more likely to spread out in a
painting without motions. And viewers tend to look at the whole scene other than
studying a specific spot.

In other words, Phan Ke An uses this balance to impart his theme of a memoir to
the viewers and make his work different from just a landscape depicting painting.

Another fantastic aspect of this "Tay Bac" piece is that the closer you look, the
more details you find. For instance, in the dark mountainside, you can see

different houses and several soldiers wading across a stream, which you may not
see from a distance.

In summary, this painting has a beautiful composition. It first catches the eyes of
viewers to its golden focal points. Afterward, when appreciators take a closer
look at that point, they will find exciting details which cannot be seen from far
away. It is a sense of actual size and distance with the depiction of height, width,
and depth.

"From the darkness" of Le Quoc Loc:

This painting has a different style from the other two. The first
difference is it possesses a square canvas, which is believed to
pose some interesting effects to "otherwise "boring" predictable
rectangular shapes."

Another difference lies in how he locates the focal point. With the "eternal
darkness" of the painting, his focal point stands out sharply. It is an abrupt
change of color – from black and gray to golden.
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One may wonder that "If he just wants to focus on the golden
point, why doesn't he just draw that part?" (Red rectangle) If
you ask me that, I will question you: "Do you
remember the name of this painting?" It is "From
the darkness."

Perhaps, Le Quoc Loc wants us to see the

contrast between the dark and the light. And
since he makes this light so bright but "so in a
little area," viewers will see the importance of
this golden room most of the time.

You may ask: "Then why wouldn't

he paint other parts black all ready? Why
leaving little details in bright colors? Isn't it better
if the viewers stay focused on just one point?"

Let's see how that works. If all the bright details turn black
like in the side picture, would viewers look at those dark
areas and try to find out what is there. If you are like most
people I've known, you would say "no."

Le Quoc Loc knows that, too. So he uses little brightness details to deemphasize
the golden room and have appreciators capture the picture as a whole before
getting to the painting's focus. As its name, the painting tells us "from the
darkness … look at the brightness."

Thus, we will take a look at the dark part of the painting first:
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As you can see, houses are fusing together, horizontal lines on the roof of each
hut represent peace and calmness. However, such peaceful sceneries are put in
black and thus represent a moment of blue. However, the horizontal straws are
balanced by diagonal hut prop, doors, and other details, emphasizing the empty
space in such an object-occupied area.

What about the bright part? Noticing that the sky in Le Quoc Loc's work also
provides light, one may find that it is pretty abnormal when the artist makes the
room even brighter than the sky. Is that unrealistic also?

I think it is genuine because even though natural light is very bright during the
day, it can still not spread widely in the house due to the frictions of walls and
ceilings. Using such fact, Le Quoc Loc can draw attention to his "brightness of
the dark." A kind of light that is greater than a natural one.

In that golden scene, spaces are occupied, and details are depicted vividly. It
contrasts the empty huts in the dark and leads the viewers' eyes straight to the
theme – the flags of Vietnam and the socialist party.
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Compositions of "From the darkness," in other words, come exactly from its
name.
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Techniques and Materials:

As mentioned above, lacquered paintings are different from other paintings

because of their unique materials and techniques. They amaze people, especially
artists, who create them with their unexpected outcomes of color masses. Every
lacquering expert tries to master this unexpectation in their own ways to give
birth to masterpieces of their lives.

"Landscape" of Nguyen Gia Tri;

In "Landscape," Nguyen Gia Tri has utilized numerous different techniques. The
most impressive of which is chiseling and using eggshells.

Chiseling: Nguyen Gia Tri uses this technique to create a sense of depth in his
work.

This leaf of banana, for example, is in low relief.

The upper side is popping up from the
other side, posing a sense of distance,
whereas the leaf veins are carved
inside, making viewers feel like they
are touching the real banana's leaf.

Another
instance of this
technique is the follower on
the right. As you can see, one may
find no difficulties recognizing that the figure
is relieved on the lacquered board, layers after
layers, making it looks more realistic to appreciators.

Eggshells: The most impressive

thing in Nguyen Gia Tri's paintings
is the manipulation of eggshells to
represent different textures.

Specifically, in "Landscape," he
cracks the eggshells into small
pieces and puts them together to
form water-taro leaves and flowers.

Beside are pieces of eggshell on a

water-taro leaf. The drains among
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different pieces become almost like the sub-veins coming from the major ones.
Nguyen Gia Tri has succeeded when using eggshells to depict the fabric of leaves.

The depiction of flowers' fabric is also brilliant. The eggshell is cracked into
smaller pieces and put closer together, making up smooth, solid, and lively white
petals.

Other techniques and materials such as lacquer sap and gold are also used. Each
attributes its own beauty to the natural look of the painting.

"Remembrance of an evening in Tay Bac" of Phan Ke An:

This painting carries another idea of materials utilization. Phan Ke An uses

numerous lacquer strokes combined with masses of gold to depict the mountains'
layers and frictions. Below are detailed techniques that the artist has put in the
painting.

Dark lacquer strokes:

Black and dark-green diagonal strokes fuse

together, depicting the steep slope and frictions of
the mountainside. The black strokes represent the
"inward" curve, where no light can touch whereas
the dark-green ones curve out and receive the
light (Circular in white).

Eggshell, as well, is added to this painting to

reflect the mountainside's textures. Notably, parts
in green and black are assumed to be covered by
plants and mosses, while parts in the eggshell's
color represent the "rocky mountains," worn by
the weather (Circled in yellow).

The light of Gold: As you can see, the light in this

art piece is very natural. It provides actual shades and shadows that we can see
every sunny day. Therefore, we can say that Phan Ke An's Gold using technique
has reached its pinnacle when creating this "pictorial remembrance."
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Take a look at the picture below, and you may find that the gold is
spreading on one side of the mountains, whereas darkness covers
the other side. To make it even more realistic, the
artist coats gold on a darker layer. After letting
the hot lacquer sap dry, he begins the
polishing phase. The painting is then
sanded and uncovers darker layers
underneath, ascribing the uneven
surfaces of the mountainside.

The sky is a different story. I think

there is a thin black lacquer coat
above the gold one. After being polished,
the blackness, which is staying, provides random
shapes of clouds that receive light from underneath.

Phan Ke An also uses gold to create a sense of distance.

As the mountains are getting far from the sources of light, the golden coat is
getting thinner and the light becomes less observable, just like when we look at it
from far distances.

However, Phan's gold gives viewers more than just lighting distances. It also
creates fog. A skinny coat of gold covers the mountain chain in the back of the
picture. They are dusted evenly on the surface of this chain, creating a

50% foggy transparency makes us feel like that chain is too far away to be
"visibly" clear.

Other techniques are used, but the two dominant ones are still lacquer strokes
and light gold powder.
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"From the darkness" of Le Quoc Loc:

Le Quoc Loc's work is a piece of music composed of different color notes and
materials. He uses gold and silver. He uses black lacquer, and he uses ground
eggshells and glasses as well. Each of such materials poses a different surface
sense to his painting.

Ground eggshell and glasses are utilized to create a feeling of different surfaces

and lighting degree. The eggshell powder represents unsmooth grounds and a
weak light in front of houses. There are more powders on the ground as
it is getting near the golden room, representing a brighter area
closer to the light of socialism.

The grinded glasses powders are, however,

dusted all over the roofs. Since glass tends
to shine in the light whereas no other
colors can, Le Quoc Loc uses them to
reflect the fragile light on the black
roofs, as you can see from the beside
piece. The tiny dots in white are
thousands of pieces of
glasses shining
under the museum lamps.

The artist also creates a sense of power as

well. A yellow coat covers the red one and the
polishing phase. The yellow door turns out with
tiny red marks. The same techniques with
different colors are applied to the wall, posing
mosses and a feeling of old to houses around the
golden room.
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Black lacquer provides the background tone of the painting. However, it is not
"dead black." After the roofs are powdered, thin strokes run through them
horizontally, representing multiple straws of the cottage roof in weak light.

Blackness is also negated by little lighter

details, which sometimes become unclear
but eliminate the sense of absolute

blankness (Circled in red).

Gold and silver bring about the clearest parts and focal point of the painting.
Unlike those from eggshells with varied density and glasses powders, silver and
gold provide brighter variations of light, which stand out from the darkness
instead of infiltrating into it.

The sky, for instance, is made up of numerous silver leaves, nailed to the
lacquered board. After being polished, it turns out as white clouds, partially

covered in black, which is supposedly meaning darkness.

Another characteristic of such clouds is that it reflects light, become shiny, and
thus create an actual
sense of daylight.

The usage of gold,

however, poses a
higher level of
brightness. It is the
stressed point of the
painting, where the
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artist wants us to stay focused on.

Anyway, this golden color isn't just aiming to create light. It also makes a brighter
background, in which every detail becomes clear and visible. In the piece of the
painting above, for example, one may easily observe soldiers honoring their
country's flags, which had led them to light. At the same time, tables and benches
stand out significantly just every other detail included in this part.

Noticing that there are also detailed object depictions in dark parts of the
painting, one should recognize how the gold significantly boosts the

expression of such figures. They are lighted. They are clear, and they impress
viewers very profoundly.

After all, the usages of gold and silvers among all the darkest sections and
variations of light by eggshells and glasses powder keep the appreciators
concentrating on the focal point of the painting without ignoring the rest of the
scenery.

Generally speaking, with this high-valued art piece, Le Quoc Loc has successfully
transferred his "propaganda" to the viewers.

In conclusion, even though artists of the three paintings use different techniques and
materials to depict diversifying subjects in varied compositions and styles, they all
achieve their goals of having interested viewers look in their directions.

Specifically, different canvas creates different focal points but still attracts appreciators'
attention. At the same time, usages of eggshells to describe fabrics of various surfaces
have successfully captured the sensual feelings while diverse layers of gold and silver
ascribe visual effects. Spaces are, wherefore, wide-opened and pose curiosities to each
human mind.

After all, modern lacquering art is a no-boundaries mystery, which keeps us more
interested each day.