Vietnam Fine Arts Museum

Libby and I finally made it to the Vietnam Fine Arts Museum yesterday afternoon, and we found an interesting mixture of old and modern works.

One of our favorite displays was of The Patriachs, a series of statues from the eighteenth century that commemorated Buddhist leaders.  They were all made from lacquered wood:

This guy is cleaning his ears out:

We also some pretty impressive lacquered wood sculptures from 17th century pagodas, such as the 

Thousand-Armed and Thousand-Eyed Avalokiteshvara:

Throughout the museum we saw several pieces in traditional media such as oil on canvas, silk painting, wood cuts, and ceramics:

This one made me laugh out loud.  The title is "Effect of Wine":

These are some paintings on silk.  Libby noticed that much of the artwork on display from the last 50 years has either been political, military, or realism.  Very little interpretive work or representing other themes.

But what really drew us to the museum was the lacquer painting.  Libby is taking some private lessons to learn this Vietnamese art form, which involves painting on wood, putting on lots of layers, and using different materials like gold leaf and egg shells. We wanted to see some lacquer works in this national gallery.  

I was drawn to the historical and military pieces.  This one is entitled "Two Soldiers Getting Ready to Move Against American Aggressors."

This is entitled "Vinh Linh Youth Setting Off To Fight Against The American Invaders".  Sensing a theme?  I got a close up of the picture to see the egg shells.