Choosing to be An Artist

by Nguyen Dinh Dang

It is always difficult for me to give a short answer on why I became both physicist and painter. Hence I will give below a long answer.

School Years

      I was born in Hanoi (Vietnam) in 1958. My father was a high-school teacher of mathematics and my mother was a pediatrician. My parents were both graduated at universities in Paris. They returned back in Vietnam in 1954, just after the war with France.

      I started to draw very young, at around five year old. My parents still keep my first drawings. There had been no artist so far in my family or among my relatives. However I remember that my father drew very well, just for fun. He was a school teacher. Therefore his favorite drawing media was a piece of chalk and a large blackboard, which was always on the wall in one of rooms in our house in Hanoi. He drew Hercules fighting with the lion Neme, and other classical themes. My father was my first art teacher. He was also my first teacher in mathematics, French and English. But the most important thing, probably, was that he gave me the way to look into the life of an artists. I was sent to drawing classes, art clubs, etc. I was told that I was gifted in drawing and I believed in my artistic talent. My parents and friends of my family recalled that they used to see me standing in front of the blackboard and drawing with chalk ...

      The US started to bombard North  Vietnam. I lived for five years in evacuation in the countryside, far away from Hanoi, with my father, elder brother and sister. My mother had to go with her hospital to a mountainous area. During all these years we met with my mother only from time to time. I used for my drawings a lot of white paper, which my father's school gave to him for teaching. We were very poor at that time. Even white paper for students was not enough. My dream was to have a good 6B drawing pencil . However, we had a pile of old books, which my father took along from Hanoi and a gramophone, which could play a lot of records of French songs and classical music. I read a number of books during that time, including 13 volumes of the "Three Kingdoms", which I read from cover to cover twice, and four thick volumes of "Les Miserables" translated into Vietnamese.

      When the Americans stopped bombarding North Vietnam in 1969, we returned to Hanoi. I was 11 years old. My home town was dark during the nights because of a lack of electricity. The Central Railway Station, about 500 meters from my house, was completely destroyed later on in 1972 when the Americans resumed bombing, but my house was in full order except for some broken window glass. Now, when everything is over, I thank God that all the members of my family and my relatives remained unharmed during the war. Only once, in 1972, some jet aircrafts suddenly appeared and dropped bombs on a small town at a distance of about 400 meters from where I was. This was the only time I saw the death approaching so close to me. I was about to stop by in a small restaurant in this town, with my mother and sister , on the way to visit my father in evacuation. But we decided to postpone the lunch until we would meet my father. About five minutes after we left this place the US F4 jet crafts arrived. This town disappeared after the bombing.

      My first painting in oil color was a portrait of a European lady, which I painted on a piece of rough material cut from bag for keeping rice in, around 1970. It darkened quickly afterward because I did not know how to prime the support. The white paint wasn’t enough so I replaced it with yellow. After finishing this painting I showed it to an artist, a friend of my family. He laughed and said: "Oh! A tuberculosis dame!"

      Oil colors ware extremely expensive. I bought my first set of oil color (a box with 12 tubes made in China) with 10 Vietnamese dongs, which my mother gave me. My father's monthly salary was 70 dongs at that time. I also studied music, playing piano and cello under the guidance of music teachers. Well, I never became a musician or composer, but music remains the source for my relaxation. I do my paintings listening to some classical music. I also keep practicing piano playing everyday.

      There were two events which influenced my artistic pursuit decisively at that time. The first event was my visit to my art teacher. Her house was also destroyed by US bombs. She moved to live with her son in a very simple place surrounded by banana trees. The day when I visited her, I met her posing for her son to draw her portrait by charcoal pencil. I was impressed by how the young man skillfully caught her character without using any rubber eraser. Returning home, I put the goal for myself to draw portraits without using any rubber like him. After many sessions of practice I achieved this skill. I was around 15 years old when I realized that I could achieve the drawing skill of Leonardo da Vinci. Once a classmate lent me his new album of works by da Vinci. I was impressed very much as this was the first time I saw such a rich collection of Leonardo's drawings. For a few days I copied with a pen on paper all the drawings in this album. I was surprised when I saw that my copies were quite good and I achieved this rather easily.

      The second event consciously affected my future career. Once I had a teacher of cello, who gave me a lot of lectures on philosophy and literature rather than on music. One evening, when walking through dark streets of the post-war Hanoi, he told me: "In order to study art seriously, you had better go abroad." At that time being a creative painter was not a profession in Vietnam. Painting was considered as an instrument for political propaganda like the mass media, press etc. Some painters, who believed in pure art, lived miserably trying trading art for food. I was a good student in my school, especially in mathematics and physics. In ten years at school I was always first in my classes. At the entrance exams to national universities, I was among those who got highest scores in the country. Together with other best students I was sent by the Vietnamese government to study abroad. I was asked what subject I wanted to select and what university I wanted to go to. I chose physics and the Moscow State University. My wish was approved.

Moscow

      Moscow gave me the possibility to visit some excellent fine-art museums such as the Pushkin Fine-Arts Museum and the Tretchiakov's Gallery. Later on I also visited the Hermitage and Russian Museum in Saint-Petersburg, which was called Leningrad at that time. I also discovered that art supplies were relatively cheap for the student stipend. All my winter and summer vacations were devoted to painting. I painted directly from nature, still-lifes, portraits of my classmates and other people whom I met in my everyday life. After one year of painting in this way, I showed my works to a professor of the Moscow Surikov Art University, the most prestigious fine-arts institution in the former Soviet union. She told me that if I abandoned physics and joined her class she would make me "a great painter". Since I couldn't abandon physics, the thing I was chosen to study, I decided to become a painter by myself. I didn't care much that I should become great in order to follow my self-studying in painting since I just found a great pleasure in it. I came to the Pushkin Fine-Arts Museum at week-ends to make pencil copies from the paintings of great masters. There I also discovered for myself the impressionists and post-impressionists. I spent almost 10 years to follow their method of making masterpieces en plein-air. I discovered through my own practice all the merits and limitations of this way of thinking and painting.

Hanoi

      I finished the Moscow State university with a distinguished master diplome in 1982 and then got my PhD in 1985. I also held some solo exhibitions of my paintings in Moscow and Dubna (Moscow region).

      I came back to Vietnam in 1985 and got married. This was a rather long period of my stay in my home country (almost two years before I went back to Moscow again in 1987 and got in 1990 the highest academic degree in the Soviet union, the so-called Soviet Doctor-of-Sciences degree), so I had time to become acquaintaned with the Hanoi fine-arts circle. The first painters I visited were Mai Van Hien and the late Bui Xuan Phai. They heard about me from some Russian journals, where I was represented as a scientist who loved to paint. Later on they both nominated me to the membership of the Fine-Arts Association of Vietnam (VFAA), one of the most prestigious professional artistic organizations in my home country. I became a member of VFAA in 1987. I got a lot of friends and art colleagues during these two years. One of them, painter Le Huy Tiep, whom I considered the most experienced in oil painting technique in Vietnam at that time, recommended me to seriously study classical painting technique, and to find for myself a teacher from world masters. I spent days long sitting in the National Library to read books on classical oil painting technique in French and Russian and took notes carefully from what I read.

    It is impossible to find those books translated in Vietnamese even now. I'm now thinking to write my own book on this subject for young artists in my home country. I practiced what I had read by copying from the reproductions of Vermeer de Delf, Boticelli, Velasquez, etc. and even gave a lecture on classical oil painting technique in a fine-arts club at the Culture Palace in Hanoi. Hence I realized that many of our fine-arts students even didn't know properly how to prime a canvas, how to distinguish colors for glazing and for covering, etc. without speaking about multicoating technique of ancient masters. Just in this time I discovered for myself the surrealism and Salvador Dali. This great master helped me to find the way, in which I could express myself and my ability best, the way which combines harmoniously fantasy with hyperealistic drawing. I have been keeping this style of painting during the last 10 years until now.

    In 1987 there was an International Exhibition of Paintings and Graphics of artists from 12 countries of the Eastern Bloc, which was held in Hanoi. Artists over all Vietnam were requested to send their works to the exhibition. Fifty works will be finally selected by a National Art Jury to be shown at the exhibition as representative art works of Vietnam. I sent two of my paintings, "Apparition of Image in Desert" and "Spring Inspiration" to the jury. Both paintings contained nude models. Until that time arts had been severly sensured in Vietnam. Paintings were alowed as long as they served as illustration of the political propaganda. All kinds of nude image were considered obscene and was prohibited to be shown openly at art exhibitions in Vietnam. The policy of "doi moi" (renovation) in Vietnam took place in around 1985, which put this tabout under debates. In the first round of confidential voting among 13 members of the jury, both of my paintings were turned down. I heard that the "Spring inspiration" got 6 votes, while 7 was the minimum for the work to pass the jury. However the first round of voting was not able to collect 50 works for the show. Actually, I heard that the number of selected works in the first round was far below 50. Therefore the second voting was held. I heard later that the late painter Tran Van Can, chair-man of the jury, who had the privilege of casting an extra vote for the work he liked most, had casted his addtional vote for my "Spring Inspiration". In this way one of my paintings was selected by 7 over 13 votes. On this painting there was an artist sitting in front of an easle. A nude model was standing next to the artist. Both were looking at a virgin canvas on the easle.

    At the inauguration ceremony of this exhibition there had been many distinguished guests and diplomats, including the cultural attaches of different embassies in Hanoi, whose countries participated in the show. The cultural attache of Csechoslovakia noticed in my "Spring Inspiration" a small book entitled "What to do?" with the portrait of Lenin on the cover under the artist's desk. The desk was at the level of the knees of the standing nude model. He shared his observation with the cultural attache of the Soviet Union, who didn't see it at all. The latter went to the organizing committee of the show and complained that the book with Lenin's portrait on the cover was left too low below the level of the nude model in my painting. One of my artists colleagues later on ran to my home and asked me to wash out the Lenin portrait from the cover of the book on my painting to avoid troubles for them, which I did in order to keep my good relationship with my artists-colleagues. I covered Lenin by a thick layer of water color. After the exhibition I wash out this layer and Lenin appeared again 'undamaged'. This was the first and the last time I had ever put a portrait of a political leader in my paintings. Should this event happen few years before, my work would not have been juried, or I would have had trouble with the authority.

    Time has changed. The once paradise of communist block is now one of the most troublesome countries, where people cannot receive their wage for months or even years. From the WWW I've learned recently that now, in 1998, in Moscow they just made a sculpture of Lenin in a form of a two-meter cake. In few minutes Lenin was cut into pieces and distributed to the mouths of hungry Moscovites. Everywhere throughout the world the statues of Lenin were removed ,including in Russia. But if you come to Hanoi you still find a bronze statue of Lenin in the center of a park, which is not far from my house. I don't know whether it is the last copy in the world.

Tokyo

    In 1991 I had a big one-man exhibition of about 70 paintings at the new exhibition hall of VFAA in Hanoi and sold a number of works just before I left for Germany. One Dutch man from Bangkok became the owner of a major part of this sold collection. Later I met him once again at his Bangkok house on my way to and back from the USA in May 1994. I was delighted to see my paintings in luxury frames hanging over all the walls of his residence and in his office. Starting from 1992, I spent the major part of my life abroad in different countries, where I was invited according to some scientific research contracts or fellowships. Just I had been living with my wife and son in Germany, Italy and since 1994 we have been living in Japan. I also traveled to USA and China for the conferences. Before we had settled in Japan, I could not have an equilibrated life to do my paintings. I resumed painting in 1995 after a four-year break. I would say that only in Japan I could establish a regular life for my painting activity.

    I realize now very well that for my dilemma : "To be a physicist or to be an artist", I had made my choice. I am both. This is the only solution for me. My work as physicist - researcher takes all the day time at the institute from around 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM. I paint in the evenings after dinner and over all the week-ends. My apartment in Japan is not as large as my house in Hanoi. I don't have here a separate studio. I use my small working cabinet or even our bedroom as my art studio. My wife and my son are my models, art critics and first visitors.

    Beside drawing, I also use a photo camera, and a computer to create my sketches for references. I found a big advantage in having such kind of possibilities, which our great Renaissance masters couldn't dream of. I can buy in Tokyo world-class art supplies made by Winsor & Newton, Bourgeois & LeFranc, or Holbein, etc. at an affordable price. I believe that modern technology can make colors of much higher quality than some centuries ago.

(to be continued)

posted October, 1999.

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Contact Information:

website: Nguyen Dinh Dang

email:  dang@rikaxp.riken.go.jp
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