En Plein Air: A Dream-Like Conversation
A vision of sublime elegance and rapturing beauty, Vu Cao Dam’s Conversation is an exquisite silk painting embodying the heights of the silk painting tradition mastered by the Vietnamese French artist. Silk paintings by Vu Cao Dam are amongst the most rare and exquisite of mediums, as the artist’s early career was focused primarily on sculpture, while his later career in oil painting. Offering a glimpse into an intimate scene, Conversation embodies Vu’s signature style, influenced by Western approaches of form and perspective, Chinese aesthetic qualities, and the tradition of silk painting in Vietnam. Visually arresting and elegantly composed, Vu Cao Dam’s two maidens are rendered with such suppleness and delicacy that they appear angelic, and in full harmony within the idyllic landscape.
"his technique stays attached to the substrate of his ancestors: silk, in which Vu Cao Dam appreciates the fineness of the grain and the softness and absorption of the colour.”
Born the son of a Catholic family, Vu Cao Dam was raised with Confucian values and a strong affinity to Chinese culture. Vu Cao Dam’s father was well educated, trained in Chinese calligraphy and shared his great love and knowledge of Chinese literature with his son. Although Vu Cao Dam would only arrive in Paris 1931, having been awarded a scholarship to study in Paris, he heard stories of France from his father who established himself as a translator for the French colonial government and was sent to Paris in 1889.
Even though Vu Cao Dam graduated from the 2nd class of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Hanoi, he would come to be associated with the pioneering artists such as Le Pho, Mai Thu, and Le Thi Luu who eventually settled in France. Vu first exhibited his works in Paris in 1931 at the Exposition Coloniale, including busts in bronze, a medium in which he excelled him since the beginning of the sculpture department at the Ecole. However, silk painting came to dominate Vu’s artistic output till the late 1930s during the first 10 years of his settlement in France, partly due to the lack of available metal material for casting. He would devote himself to oil painting later– many of his paintings reflect the influence of French modernists and post-impressionists such as Marc Chagall and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
In the current work, two maidens adorned in light, airy ao dai dresses sit in elegant repose on an expansive grass field, engrossed in deep discussion. Heightened by the delicate, smooth surface of silk, Vu Cao Dam’s painting exudes an ephemeral, dream-like quality that at offers respite and stirs a deep sense of nostalgia. The artist employs a beautifully restrained palette of gentle white gouache, pastel blues, faint greens, and hints of taupe, indicative of the artist’s early period silk works. By first applying a wet wash over the silk’s surface, before using ink pigments to build specific forms and shapes, the artist skilfully creates a lucid translucency. A labyrinth of gracefully applied thin strokes, form the lush greenery that envelopes the two figures and creates a sense of movement within the scene. Vu demonstrates a mastery of the ink brush and calligraphy, not only in the details of work but also in the graceful, undulating forms and lines that accentuate the curvatures of the two women.
Barefoot and in complete ease, the ladies confide in one another, inviting the viewer into their intimate sphere and quiet, clandestine thoughts. As the maiden dressed in light blue speaks candidly with gesture, her companion lies upon the grass, resting upon her left arm and propping her bent leg. The latter’s position suggests the maiden’s relaxed, carefree disposition, as she listens intently. Vu Cao Dam’s figurative style reveals the influence of Chinese court painting, as the ladies’ small delicate facial features are rendered only by a few fine lines against the luminous skin tones. The artist’s small application of black and red ink effectively captures their placid expressions as they relish this moment of respite within nature’s seclusion. The similarity of the two maidens’ appearance, their diaphanous clothes, neat black hair, and refined tiny features, suggests they might be sisters able to share earnest conversation.
Distant mountains trace the horizon as Vu Cao Dam embraces the romance of nature, drawing the recurring motif of women lounging outdoors from the French artistic tradition. Silk painting in Vietnam prior to the opening of the École, was almost purely devoted to ancestral style portraits. Such images of leisure and play were only developed when artists began learning to paint en plein air, and studied the works of artists such as Claude Monet, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Édouard Manet. A rare and sensual work, Conversation conveys the gentle elegance of the modern woman through the eyes of a pioneering maestro, ultimately offering the viewer a captivating yet dreamlike encounter with beauty.
輕談低訴恍如夢
「他的技巧與其先祖的底蘊緊密相連：武高談明白絲絹的紋理細緻、柔軟和染墨方式。」
《對話》描畫的情境細膩親密，展現武高談的典型風格，即是集西方藝術形式及視角、中國美學、越南絹本畫傳統等各方面影響於一身。本作構圖優雅，引人入勝，畫中兩女氣韻柔順秀麗，與背後風景渾然相融，猶如仙子下凡。1931年他的作品獲邀在巴黎萬國殖民博覽會上展出，他在法國的最初十年期間，專注創作絹本畫。後來，他改以油畫為主。
畫中兩女身披輕盈的越南傳統奧黛，優雅地坐在廣闊草原上，娓娓而談，氣氛如夢飄渺，引起觀者濃厚的懷舊情緒；細滑的絹面更顯兩姝身姿曼妙輕靈。本畫採用白色水粉、粉藍、淡綠粉彩，以及隱然可見的灰褐，色澤含蓄柔美。藝術家利用墨彩建構不同形狀之前，先在絹面渲染一層水粉，巧妙營造半透明效果。
兩位女子赤足而坐，神態自若，私語之間，似在邀請觀者走進他們寧和坦然的思想空間。武高談的寫實風格流露中國宮廷畫的影響，畫中人肌膚光亮，五官僅以寥寥數筆勾勒 。畫中遠山沿地平線蔓延，只見兩女倘佯大自然中，自得其樂，此亦為法國繪畫傳統中常見的主題 。在河內美術學院成立之前，越南絹本畫幾乎僅限於祖先肖像，從未有如此般展現日常休閒生活的絹畫。二十世紀初，一眾越南藝術家開始學習戶外寫生，並研究克勞德·莫內、讓·奧諾雷·弗拉格納爾和愛德華·馬奈等法國名家的作品，此類題材的絹本畫才開始出現。本畫瀰漫一片旖旎溫柔，展現這位越南現代藝術先鋒眼中的現代女性的優雅風度，為觀者帶來一次如夢似詩的美麗邂逅。