Listen to the spring breeze in the paintings of Sinh village.

HNN - The cool December wind blows across the newly sown fields. Tiny green sprouts, just separating from the rice grains, lie delicately on the meticulously plowed soil. With the fields sown, the feeling of Tet (Lunar New Year) is rapidly approaching. The road leading to Sinh village is swept by the wind.

Artist Ky Huu Phuoc and the Sinh Village painting style.

Sinh Village, also known as Lai An Village (part of Phu Mau commune, now Duong No ward, Hue city), is famous for its folk art paintings for worship. Next door is Thanh Tien Village, renowned for its paper flower making. December is the "final push" month for these villages specializing in Tet (Lunar New Year) goods.

We visited the home of artisan Ky Huu Phuoc, a renowned folk painter from Sinh Village in Hue. The afternoon sun in Hue during the winter was clear and golden like honey. As soon as we saw the bamboo gate appear near the end of the road, my friend – a history student who had chosen Sinh Village as the topic for his university graduation thesis – exclaimed happily: “It’s the same old place! Back when I cycled around Sinh Village for fieldwork, I always remembered the scenery of this village. Seeing it again now fills me with nostalgia.”

Along with the bamboo gate, the cool, earthen courtyard that artisan Ky Huu Phuoc has preserved to this day, and the thatched house where he prints, colors, and displays his paintings, woodblocks, ink, colors, and earthenware teacups... all contribute to the rustic charm of this traditional craft house. Artisan Ky Huu Phuoc, working on a calendar made of do paper, smiles gently: "Making this calendar requires silence to concentrate; one wrong number means discarding an entire sheet of paper."

Still thin, dark-skinned, and sturdy, the eyes of the artisan, now 80 years old, remain sharp. Artisan Ky Huu Phuoc said he has made 50 sets of Lunar New Year calendars and sold them all; now, some people like them so much they've ordered more. His 12-page calendar, after use, leaves behind a folk painting that can be hung as decoration in the house after cutting out the dates. That's why many people order his calendars, both for family use and as gifts for friends.

Sình Village paintings are a type of folk art used for religious purposes and worship, but artisan Kỳ Hữu Phước has expanded the uses of Sình Village folk paintings. He has created many new sets of paintings, giving birth to a new line of decorative paintings. It is thanks to this creativity that Sình Village paintings have gained new vitality, not only preserving the craft but also developing it. This is most clearly demonstrated in the Sình Village calendar paintings that artisan Kỳ Hữu Phước worked day and night during the Tet holiday season to meet customer orders.

The more modern the world becomes, the more people yearn for simple, ordinary things. That's why the paintings with their rustic, innocent brushstrokes by artist Ky Huu Phuoc touch the hearts of many.

The daily life of the people of Sinh village and the natural world are the sources of inspiration for his creative work. Every year, his hometown of Sinh village holds the famous Sinh wrestling festival on the 10th day of the first lunar month. Thinking about his village's traditional festival, artist Ky Huu Phuoc painted a series of Sinh wrestling paintings depicting vivid wrestling stances – standing, lying, kneeling, and sitting. During this festival, there are also folk games, so he painted about the Bài Chòi game and tug-of-war. After attending the Hue Festival in 2002, he created a series of eight musical instrument paintings, featuring eight artists with eight musical instruments. Particularly noteworthy is his series of paintings about Hue women, with their innocent yet heartfelt depictions: mother and child, grandmother and grandchild, waiting, caring, cooking, giving gifts..., making viewers feel as if they are once again immersed in the cool waters of the loving roots of their grandmothers and mothers.

For example, his paintings of the natural world reveal the childlike spirit in the heart of the old artist. He recounts that, while attending a family ancestral worship ceremony, he saw a snail crawling on a banana leaf, next to a cricket chirping in the grass, and he "quickly went home to paint it so he wouldn't forget." Everyday scenes, such as ants crawling on branches, cicadas chirping, dragonflies and grasshoppers, ducks swimming in the river..., all are recreated on woodblocks and then become innocent and lively paintings of the countryside on traditional Vietnamese dó paper. There are also paintings that preserve the memories of the village, such as buffaloes trampling rice or plowing fields.

Artisan Ky Huu Phuoc recounted how he miraculously overcame a serious illness in 2021: “It must have been thanks to divine blessings and the visits from provincial leaders and the attentive care from doctors at Hue Central Hospital. They knew I was an artisan from Sinh village. That is a source of pride and happiness for someone in this profession.” A son of Sinh village, he has loved his ancestors' craft with all his heart and mind, with incredible willpower and creativity. He sought out and learned how to make Do paper in his old age, and now he has produced enough Do paper to print his paintings. His Do paper is entirely handmade, from pounding the Do tree to shaping and rolling the paper. The smooth, glossy finished paper makes his printed paintings sharp and vibrant.

 

I remember around 2010, artist Nguyen Quan ( Hanoi ) went to Hue to learn about Sinh Village paintings and visited artisan Ky Huu Phuoc. He was extremely impressed with Sinh Village paintings and came up with a new idea: incorporating them into his own paintings. Nguyen Quan affixed some of Sinh Village paintings to his abstract oil paintings. While many artists had incorporated Dong Ho and Hang Trong paintings into contemporary art, Nguyen Quan was the first to do so. In 2011, Nguyen Quan held an exhibition in Hanoi showcasing these innovative blends of modern and folk art, creating a pleasant surprise for art lovers.

The house of artisan Ky Huu Phuoc has now become a tourist attraction for many young people. The house has an earthen courtyard. On this courtyard, I witnessed artisan Ky Huu Phuoc practicing traditional techniques for making Sinh village paintings for artists, lecturers, and researchers who took notes, interviewed, and filmed him. These included pounding shells to make dó paper, pounding spinach seeds, dung leaves, banyan leaves, and pagoda leaves to mix colors, and making brushes from the roots of wild pineapple plants growing on sand dunes and riverbanks. His experiences have become a valuable source of information about Sinh village paintings – a traditional handicraft of Hue. Artists and lecturers from the Hue University of Arts have greatly assisted artisan Ky Huu Phuoc in creating new thematic paintings, with the most dedicated and committed person to Sinh village paintings being Associate Professor Dr. Phan Thanh Binh, former Rector of the Hue University of Arts.

At eighty years old, artisan Ky Huu Phuoc still cherishes his craft. Now, the traditional painting craft of his hometown, Sinh Village, has been revived and is thriving. Lai An – Sinh Village still boasts houses surrounded by lush, carefully trimmed tea bushes, and the roads are clean, convenient, and well-maintained. My friend was moved to see the familiar scene again, delighted that the village's vitality is still maintained, and that the elderly artisan remains healthy, passionate about his craft, and able to make a living from it.

You promised to visit the Sinh Wrestling Association this Tet holiday, and I believe that's a promise many others have made as well.

Xuan An

Source: https://huengaynay.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/nghe-gio-xuan-ve-trong-tranh-lang-sinh-162936.html