The exhibition “Ban nghe” (colleagues) at the Vietnam fine arts museum introduces symbolizing lacquer paintings, attached to the fame of two artists Ly Truc Son and Trinh Quoc Chien such as: Dong chay (The flow), Anh sang tam linh (The spiritual light), Thanh am mua Thu (The autumn’s sound), Ca dua duoi trang (fish playing under the moonlight), song Hong (The Red river), Ngay va dem (Day and night)…
Artist Trinh Quoc Chien does not desire lacquer to be a souvenir item, also does not want to repeat the fancy, glossy, deep effect. He lines on the lacquer boards, piled into each box, as the Nguyen dynasty’s decoration did, each box is a sketch that had its own place in the whole letting him close to his Buddhism mine and worldly life.
The critic Phan Cam Thuong consider: “The lacquer art in Vietnam is being in a peculiar stage, either standstill and developing. It is deadlocked and develops in both traditional and innovative trends, considering lacquer as just a means of expressing any idea, any artist’s writing, perhaps even without being an artist, because the surface itself is very aesthetic. Ly Truc Son and Trinh Quoc Chien are two typical painters of this process ”.
