EAT AND SLEEP WITH THE TOWERS
Paintings about Cham culture are not unfamiliar to collectors, but at the recent architectural exhibition held in the center of Da Nang City, viewers stood for a long time in front of Nguyen Thuong Hy's series of works. What made them curious was the composition that reversed all visual habits: the most prominent part of the painting was not the Cham dancer or the ancient patterns, but the technical drawing of a tower. In the hidden background, the image of the Cham dancer was softly depicted by him as if moving between the ground, height or solemn architectural lines. This unusual graphic is actually a combination of two creative lines that he has pursued for many years, including research drawings of Cham towers and art paintings about Cham culture.
Ancient patterns, bricks... appear vividly in technical drawings
PHOTO: HOANG SON
Showing me the technical drawings drawn on large-sized grid paper, artist Nguyen Thuong Hy said that it was the "asset" he had after many months of hard work at the foot of the Khuong My Cham tower (Tam Xuan 1 commune, Nui Thanh district, old Quang Nam province) in 2020. "During the Covid-19 season that year, I sat alone at the foot of the tower and drew as if I forgot the days and months. Social distancing with the ancient towers also had its interesting aspects," he recalled.
The artist continued: "This job is not something that can be done by just taking pictures and then bringing them back to draw. Sitting at the foot of the tower, you have to draw the current state yourself. How much it leans, where it has collapsed, how the brick joints are... you have to measure every inch."
Painter Nguyen Thuong Hy introduces detailed paintings of Khuong My Cham towers
PHOTO: HOANG SON
He said that when he was still participating in the restoration of the relic, he and his colleagues built more than 25 drawings for each tower. From the floor plan, elevation, each block to each chipped brick, the misaligned motifs... and finally "assembled" everything into a single axis system. It sounds purely technical, but at the construction site, just the matter of unifying the zero point between the measuring groups was enough to make the atmosphere "heated" with debate. One year, Mr. Hy and 6 architects from Hanoi went to My Son to measure and draw the group of towers. The towers were only about 2.5 - 3 m high, but 7 people divided up to work for an entire month. "This guy drew the west wall, that guy drew the east wall. Everything had to be absolutely unified. If one mistake was made, the whole assembly would break," he recalled.
To create a common benchmark, grid paper is chosen to ensure accurate proportions. For example, a ratio of 1/20 means that 5 centimeters on paper will correspond to 1 meter in reality. "Every detail must be precise so that when scanned, the machine will understand it correctly," Mr. Hy said, his voice both humorous and full of pride of someone who has eaten and slept with many Cham towers.
The painting of a dancer inside a Cham tower with a raised technical drawing makes a strong impression on viewers.
PHOTO: HOANG SON
THE DANCER HIDDEN IN THE DRAWING
The 70-year-old artist looked at me and continued: "In the past, Westerners made many mistakes when drawing Cham towers. It's not that they were bad, but they didn't have the conditions to sit in the forest for months like us." The statement sounded like "defending" the ancients, but also like a confession about the profession of patience and endurance. Behind that statement were decades of Mr. Hy eating and sleeping with Cham bricks, knowing every crack... And then, while telling the story of the days hanging on the scaffolding, he suddenly talked about the biggest turning point in his life. After many years "sticking" to the base of the tower, accumulating a series of drawings, he applied them to paintings about Cham culture.
"The dancer appears from the heart of the tower. The tower is a god, but the god also has the softness of a woman. Drawing a god is too common," he said as an explanation. For him, the technical drawing is the soul and structure of the relic, and the Cham dancer is the breath, the thing that makes the architecture come alive. That combination can only appear in the mind of someone who is both technically proficient and loves painting, and is so immersed in Cham culture that he considers it a part of his flesh and blood. From the first combination around 2017, the direction of silk painting combined with technical drawings of Cham towers began to take shape clearly. To date, he has more than 20 such graphic paintings and is preparing to organize a small solo exhibition in Quang Nam (old).
Painter Nguyen Thuong Hy quietly redraws details on ancient Cham towers
PHOTO: HOANG SON
Technical drawings can be combined with silk paintings to create unique graphic paintings.
PHOTO: HOANG SON
Technical drawings of ancient Cham towers also have many artistic values that are difficult to fully express.
PHOTO: HOANG SON
Having said that, he took out an old, long drawing, connected by many pieces of paper and concluded: "In the age of drones and 3D software, this profession can only be done manually. Broken details, chipped bricks, tilted stone pillars... machines cannot do it. Drones can take general pictures, but when it comes to details, it is impossible. In the end, we still need... an artist like me." And that is what makes his paintings unique. Because no one else owns a warehouse of technical drawings of Cham towers built by hand for decades, no one is both a skilled architect and a skilled painter, and few people are passionate about Cham culture to turn technical lines into art.
His paintings are a combination of sweat, time and his own experience of "chasing" drawings to keep up with the restoration progress. From a person who spent half his life measuring each brick, now the old artist spends the rest of his time breathing life into those drawings. So that the Cham dancers, the vivid images of Cham life step out from the heart of the tower gracefully without separating from the seemingly dry technical lines. A path that only Nguyen Thuong Hy can take because only he has enough data, enough patience, enough love for the heritage to pursue to the end. (to be continued)
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/ky-nghe-doc-la-khi-ban-ve-ky-thuat-buoc-vao-tranh-ve-185251121223827244.htm
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