The best 20000 Dong I spent in Vietnam

I planned to kick back a bit in Hanoi and just soak in the atmosphere. However, I did make two day trips out, one to the Perfume Pagoda and one to the scenic hills of Tam Coc. In Hanoi, I have walked around the old town, had plenty of coffee, both Vietnamese and Italian. Seen a few temples and walked through a day market and a night market. I have also eaten things like Hanoi curry and Veal Cordon Bleu. And today, I visited the Temple of literature, whose main sanctuary is under renovation, you think they would mention this small point at the entrance.  I must admit though, even though the temple of learning had not revealed its full glory to me, I was impressed by a culture that had dedicated a temple to learning.  After this tourist highlight, I walked across the street right into the entrance of the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.

I have been to many museums all over the world, and outside major cultural centers, my experience with museums has been usually underwhelming. I went to an artist village in Chennai, whose work shown may have been historically significant, but was a little bland to me. I do not know what to say about the art museum in Penang, even the guard downstairs did not know if the gallery was open or not. Maybe I should not say any more. But I had done a fair amount of 'tourist' sites in Hanoi but I did not remember any recommendations for this museum. There may have been a line somewhere but it certainly did not get the full descriptions like the Temple of Literature or Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, or Dong Xuan wholesale market. But I was at the front gate, and it was a not too big three story colonial house and annex.

A female guard issued me a ticket and got me to put my cameras in a locker. I walked over to the building not expecting all that much. But the first thing that surprised me was that the building was air-conditioned, the displays were clean and the lighting really showed the work well. Some people cared about this museum. And I think I learnt a lot in the next couple of hours about Vietnam, and come to respect it a lot more.

One starts with the early art linked to the Vietnamese dynasties. The first surprising thing I learned is that the Vietnamese dragon is unique, unlike any other dragon from other cultures. And I took a closer look at the examples in the museum, and realized the head of the dragon is shaped like water. In the Vietnamese culture, the dragons bring rain, and in a rice growing nation, this is so important. I had seen and photographed a dragon in a temple in Hoa Lu, the old Vietnamese capital, but could not comprehend it as I was expecting a western or Chinese dragon. But it now all made sense.

And then I came across the figures that one would find in Vietnamese temples, Kings, Queens, guardian spirits and retainers. It is new to me, but the emphasis in Vietnamese temples is not on Buddha, but ancestors. I think that these lines from a traditional house in Ma May street explains it,

Only trees with root can grow well
Only waters with source can create deep oceans, deep rivers
Where do humans come from?
Ancestors come first, then we do.

So we sometimes think of Vietnam as a mainly Buddhist nation, but the people here worship their kings and ancestors more. There are a lot of figures of famous rulers, and less so of Buddha. But in the Fine Art Museum, there are two of the most amazing Kuan Yin statues I have seen in my life. Beautiful, serene, sensuous. I was not allowed to bring in my camera so I do not have any pictures, but I think that the two statues are alone are worth a visit to the museum. And I like the way, the female statues of the queens seem to be as well crafted as the king. There seemed to be some sexual equality here, but maybe I am reading too much into this.

On the second floor, there are lacquer paintings from the best artists in Vietnam. And I think we have all seen the innocuous lacquer paintings sold as tourist souvenirs, a little exotic colour that is pretty. But not the work in the museum. The themes of the paintings range from still life, to everyday life to images from the war. There is an intricate play of three dimensional outline and two dimensional textures that I did not understand at first. Then I found out that the artists not only use paint on the lacquer, but also materials like egg shells. The effect is somewhat like the work of Gustav Klimt, lifelike outlines filled with textured two dimensional patterns. But the results are very much unique to Vietnam. There was one particular painting of a crowd walking in Hanoi at an earlier era. The women wore traditional dresses,  and the men wore mao-looking suits. But it was a happy, beautiful scene. And somehow, it has an innocence that the t-shirt and jeans wearing citizens of Hanoi today lack.

The other thing that struck me was the war theme that kept playing through much of the art work. And what struck me was that a lot of the art work was not about triumphing over the enemy, or the atrocity of the war. Many of the images were of the people working together. And the angle of the images were not heroic in the stoic sense seen in the propaganda art, but was almost documentary. And many of the images were of Ho Chi Minh meeting children. I guess it may be propaganda, but something here tells me that for some people in Vietnam, the war was one for independence. If this ideal of community was present in Vietnam today, I do believe that it can become a great nation. But then again, there is human nature and the sin of greed.

There were some decent oil paintings on the third floor, influenced by western art. But what was more interesting was painting on silk. The paintings look almost fragile and can I say this, bourgeois? But I learned from the silk paintings that they were not afraid of the human form. And the several paintings of young women, showed healthy women, not anorexic, not Rubenesque. But I sensed an inner strength from the portraits of the Vietnamese people. A people that had endured Chinese subjugation for a thousand years, French colonialism for a hundred and a bloody war with the powerful Americans. And somehow, the work of the Vietnamese is sensual. Even a reclining Buddha, titled 'Buddha entering Nirvana', looked sensual.

In the annex building, there is a room full of tribal art from the Vietnamese minorities. And it came across that art and culture had a very vibrant in the tribes. There are also social uses for the art and dressing of the people. I only had a cursory look at this section but I made a note that I had to come back to Vietnam to visit the tribal regions in Sapa and Hue.

On another floor of the annex building was art from various Vietnamese temples, the type of art you can see in so many temples and regular homes in Vietnam. But well presented and well lit.

In the basement of the annex building was another gem, a collection of Vietnamese pottery. From simple yellow pottery from the early history, to elaborate multicolored pottery of later ages. But there is a great sense of style in Vietnamese art, a balance that sometimes is absent in more primitive work. But I remember staring at one vase, whose white, glossy floral arabesques were subtly overlaying an off white background.

I will return to Hanoi on my way to Sapa some day. And I will give the tourist highlights a miss, but I will certainly return to the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum.