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• CREATIONS FOR THE HOMELAND AND THE PEOPLE
"The Mekong River in Flames - Sketches and Poems" is an art book containing sketches, watercolors, poems, and letters by artist-soldiers created right on the battlefield during the war against the US. The book was compiled by Sherry Buchanan and Nam Anandaroopa Nguyen, and translated into Vietnamese by Phan Thanh Hảo.
Amidst fierce bombing and shelling, in bunkers and makeshift camps, art classes of the Central Committee of the Southern Region were opened in the dense forests of Ca Mau, Tay Ninh, and Dong Thap Muoi... Battlefield artists were part of the cultural support troops for the Southern battlefield from the very beginning. These included Huynh Phuong Dong, Le Lam, Nguyen Van Tru, Nguyen Thanh Chau… From Hanoi , they crossed the Truong Son Mountains to the South via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Artist Huynh Phuong Dong shared: "As an artist, I went to the battlefield to record the suffering caused by war. My paintings record history through art."
Created during wartime, under a hail of bombs and bullets, in dark bunkers, with enemy tanks just meters away, each artwork is also a visual record of history. But more than that, the artists authentically captured images of soldiers' lives, the home front, and the battlefield landscapes of Southern Vietnam, from Tay Ninh and Ben Tre to Ca Mau, during the period 1964-1975.
The lyrical images of soldiers, children, mothers, mountains, forests, tunnels, and villages emerge amidst the gunfire, expressing love for their homeland, courage, and a yearning for peace . Even in the midst of war, they still "believe in beauty and life," as artist Pham Thanh Tam put it.
They captured vivid moments, brimming with love and faith in humanity. The artists passionately painted portraits of everyone from young messengers and soldiers to local guerrillas, sculpting the faces of heroic Vietnamese people in battle.
The book also features poems by Nguyen Duy and Le Anh Xuan, representative of resistance literature, such as "The Stance of Vietnam," which praises the sacrifice of the liberation army soldiers. The poems are interwoven with moving accounts, diaries, and letters sent from the battlefield.
• FROM ADMIRATION TO PRESERVATION AND INTRODUCTION: THE JOURNEY OF TWO INTERNATIONAL AUTHORS
Having first learned about Vietnamese wartime art through Tran Trung Tin's painting "Girl, Gun and Flowers," and then coincidentally admiring the painting "Crossing the Ba Thac River," American journalist and curator Sherry Buchanan was so moved that she decided to embark on a journey to research, collect, and introduce to the world works of Vietnamese wartime art. "The Mekong River in Smoke and Fire - Sketches and Poetry" is a result of that artistic journey. Together with Nam Anandaroopa Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American art researcher, Sherry traveled throughout Vietnam for nearly two decades (1998-2015), interviewing dozens of wartime artists, collecting sketches, watercolors, and previously unpublished documents.
“The Mekong River in Flames and Smoke – Sketches and Poems” is a valuable resource that helps the younger generation better understand the resistance war from an emotional, humane, and vivid perspective. Artistically, it is a unique visual heritage, recreating, through lines and colors, a tragic chapter in Vietnamese history. Turning each page, written and drawn from the sorrows and losses, from those heroic and brutal days, we become even more proud of the Vietnamese people, a heroic and resilient nation that has loved beauty since the time when “Nguyen Trai wrote poetry and fought the enemy. Nguyen Du wrote the Tale of Kieu, and the country became a land of literature” (Che Lan Vien).
Source: https://baolamdong.vn/van-hoa-nghe-thuat/202505/nhung-tac-pham-viet-va-ve-giua-lua-dan-chien-tranh-38a0b4f/
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