| There is nothing more beautiful than an artwork | | | | paintings. However, it is surprising to note that |
| that stimulates aesthetic pleasure. Such aesthetic | | | | modern Vietnam artists still prefer to paint in the |
| experience acts as a catalyst to enhance our | | | | age of digital images and multimedia! Yet, if we |
| happiness. Earlier, the classical works of art drew | | | | analyze closely the environment in which the |
| heavily from nature's beauty. But of late, modern | | | | Vietnam artists live and work, we would conclude |
| art work chiefly draws inspiration from the | | | | that painting suits the sensibilities of the |
| mundane life of man. In other words, modern art | | | | Vietnamese artists as it incorporates the |
| captures both material and the spiritual on an | | | | century-old cultural and religious motifs of the |
| equal plane. This trend of depicting the various | | | | people. Besides, this expression of art is most |
| aspects of human life is clearly evident in the | | | | immediately available to them. The European |
| paintings of Vietnam. From a historical | | | | touch in Vietnamese painting is by no means |
| perspective, Vietnamese painting is not a very old | | | | accidental, but deliberate. A majority of |
| art form. It's been only seventy years since the | | | | Vietnamese painters love and appreciate the |
| first official art academy of Hanoi, the Ecole de | | | | Western art and hence try to apply some of |
| Beaux Arts, opened its doors to local students. | | | | their techniques in their paintings so that the world |
| However, the cultural origin of Vietnamese | | | | would look up to them and give equal weightage |
| painting dates back much further. There has been | | | | to Vietnamese art. The West has not inspired the |
| a consistent effort on part of the Vietnamese | | | | subject matter of Vietnamese paintings; rather |
| people to devote themselves in serious artwork. | | | | the latter conveys the intricacies of the cultural |
| When the first lessons in line, drawing, anatomy | | | | and social life of Vietnam. Vietnamese artists, like |
| and landscape painting were offered in the early | | | | other artists of the world, are moved by their |
| decades of the twentieth century, the art | | | | environment and have taken recourse to a |
| students began taking inspiration from the religious | | | | delicate way to voice their sentiments through |
| and cultural background of Vietnam. These new | | | | color and poetic imagery. For a great many years, |
| learners of art sketched their native villages and | | | | Vietnamese painters struggled to give free rein to |
| fellow farmers in the canvas following the lacquer | | | | their expression on canvas. Lack of opportunities |
| and silk traditions. During the French colonial period, | | | | and adequate funds had created great obstacles |
| the students of art took to painting readily as | | | | to the success and recognition of Vietnam |
| they already possessed the materials needed to | | | | painting. Scarcity of information from the West |
| create a painting. Once the means to convey their | | | | set their imagination free and Vietnamese art |
| artwork was secured, the new generation of | | | | thrived with luxuriance. Overcoming all these |
| painters began to produce an amazing variety of | | | | obstacles, the Vietnam artists showed their skill to |
| exquisite paintings. The vision of the past has | | | | paint under any adverse circumstances. Their |
| changed but even today, artists of Vietnam keep | | | | resilience and determination are clearly mirrored in |
| on drawing inspiration from the past. Connoisseurs | | | | the originality and freshness of Vietnamese |
| of art, especially from the West, often complain | | | | paintings. |
| of the deep influence of Europe in Vietnamese | | | | |