The hometown nostalgia of famous painter Le Ba Dang through his notebooks

"Through his art, Le Ba Dang has made humanity aware of his homeland and hometown in a spirit of reverence. That mission is reserved only for great souls and great talents. Of course, such people are extremely rare in each century!"

Those were the concluding lines of the article I wrote about him on the occasion of the exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the renowned painter's birth in Bich La Dong, Trieu Dong (now Trieu Thanh), Trieu Phong, his hometown, on June 27, 2021. I thought that writing like that would adequately describe his career. It turns out, he was also a man from Quang Tri with a heart deeply attached to the people and life of his hometown, and much more than that.

An exhibition by painter Le Ba Dang in Bich La Dong village to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth - Photo: L.D.D

The notebooks were silent yet bustling.

I discovered that heartfelt concern when I first encountered those notebooks, which I learned about when Mr. Le Hong Phuong, a nephew of the author, brought them back from France to his hometown. Read the first page of the notebook: “Quang Tri Province is poor, with many people but little land. Most people don't make ends meet farming. Petty trading is common. Industry is out of season. Therefore:

1. We must change our business practices. We need spirit, initiative, and the courage to abandon old habits and boldly seek new ways of doing business.

2. Besides farming and odd jobs, it is necessary to train skilled craftsmen in all intellectual and manual trades (crafts) and to seek out and utilize readily available materials from the land and trees. Identify what materials are available and, from there, find teachers and recruit skilled workers to train specialists and create goods with a new spirit and style, distinctly different from those already made in other places or regions.

"This way, we won't face competition. We'll find opportunities to trade with wealthy countries that lack new things. This is a sure path to a more comfortable life. Another aspect is finding ways to make Quang Tri province a beautiful place, with rare features, to attract domestic and international tourists . We'll create something unique, not necessarily grand or elaborate like China, France, or Egypt..."

The burning desire to lift the people of Quang Tri from poverty to a decent standard of living and prosperity was a constant thought throughout his life. From a country boy working as a laborer in a foreign land, he worked tirelessly, simultaneously working in a factory and studying fine arts at the Toulouse School of Fine Arts (France). With the prize money for graduating at the top of his class, he moved from Toulouse to Paris – the world's capital of light and art – to begin his artistic career.

After marrying Mysu, the couple endured difficult and impoverished times in a poor alley in Paris. To overcome adversity, he painted pictures of cats to sell to street vendors, such as "The Cat Fishing," to make ends meet. Those hard times eventually passed, and Lê Bá Đảng's paintings of horses helped his artistic journey take off.

But it wasn't just cats and horses; Le Ba Dang's creativity was boundless, giving rise to a painting term named after him: "lebadagraphy." Art critics have rightly described this creativity, stating that "The guiding principle explaining Le Ba Dang's extraordinary creativity is 'not imitating anyone, not imitating himself.'"

In his writings, he still acknowledges that he rose from poverty, through relentless effort to achieve a life that even the French upper class could only dream of. But the personal material possessions he enjoyed as a result of his artistic talent were insignificant to him.

How to help his hardworking villagers overcome persistent poverty by creating marketable products that could provide them with a better life has always been a deep concern in his heart. Many of his thoughts and reflections are meticulously recorded in the dozens of notebooks that Mr. Le Hong Phuong recently brought back from France.

After the artist Le Ba Dang passed away in March 2015, his wife, Myshu Lebadang, also joined him on December 26th, 2023. During their lifetime, they prepared a legacy for their homeland, consisting of 60 boxes filled with paintings, mementos, and especially his notebooks and sketches for posterity, particularly those containing reflections on how to make Quang Tri province more beautiful and prosperous.

Phuong recounted that he and his wife received 60 boxes of manuscripts in France, but couldn't bring them all back at once, so they had to sort them. The boxes took up a lot of space, and their room wasn't big enough, so many had to be left in the hallway. Every day, they would open a few boxes to sort them and choose the appropriate mode of transport. Some manuscripts were sent back by air, while others were sent by sea.

On the night near the end of the trip, Phuong recounted that after finishing processing the 58th box of manuscripts, it was very late, and he was so tired and exhausted that he dozed off. But as soon as he dozed off, as if guided by a premonition, he woke up and went out into the hallway to bring the last two boxes, numbered 59 and 60, into the room to continue processing them. It was box number 59 that contained nearly 60 of the artist's notebooks. Fortunately, he hadn't carelessly lost them (a box of the artist's paints had been lost earlier!). The artist had tens of thousands of paintings, but these notebooks were the part that contained his thoughts and feelings, which he had kept "to himself" for so many years.

I haven't finished reading all of his notebooks, only accessed a portion of his notes, but each time I close them, I hear the echo of Nguyen Trai's poem: "Only a single inch of old affection/Day and night the tide surges" (bui: an ancient word meaning "only"). The painter's affection for his homeland and country truly is "Day and night the tide surges".

Deep love for the country, homeland, and people...

Every time I visit his house in Bich La Dong village, I always linger for a long time in front of the photograph proudly displayed in the house, taken in 1946, when he was sent by Vietnamese expatriates in France to Paris to meet President Ho Chi Minh when the President was attending the Fontainebleau Conference.

On that trip to Paris, he brought with him the money that Vietnamese expatriates had collected and sent back to their homeland during those difficult times. From then on, whether it was the journey of creating art, struggling to make a living, or later achieving fame and wealth, Le Ba Dang's heart remained forever devoted to his country.

Renowned painter Lê Bá Đảng (second from the left) during his lifetime, with young artists from Quảng Trị and Huế visiting him in Paris more than 20 years ago - Photo: L.Đ.D

Listen to him recount the difficult years of the country and how his works accompanied the nation: “The war situation in my homeland led me to the image of suffering compatriots and then led me to the ‘unyielding landscape’ (1970) describing the road from North to South that Western newspapers praised every day.

Deep in the treacherous jungles, on mountains and valleys, bombs and bullets rained down incessantly; everything was against humanity. The climate was erratic, danger lurking everywhere, yet the people remained steadfast. Their blood, still flowing freely, carved paths, seeking ways to SURVIVE. These are the countless trails of my land. This is not about political leanings or factions, but about understanding the beliefs, creativity, and courage of our people who want to live, who refuse to be enslaved, and who dedicate their intelligence, strength, and faith to fighting foreign invaders.

"My compatriots opened a trail from North to South with the ingenuity and strength of the weak to find meaning in life. I built this road with color and art in a grand house in the middle of Paris, then displayed it in many countries to show my respect for those who did not hesitate to shed their blood and sacrifice their lives for this road..."

Rarely has a renowned painter, living amidst the prosperity of a foreign land, remained so deeply connected to his homeland through art projects whose names speak for themselves: Loa Thanh Cemetery, Truong Son Rice Grain, Giao Chi Footprints, Bich La Flower Village, Saint Giong Monument, Bach Dang Spiked Stakes... During the war years, he created works such as *Consequences of War* (1965) and *Indomitable Landscape* (1973 - paintings of Truong Son and the Ho Chi Minh Trail).

This exhibition by the late renowned painter Le Ba Dang is a meaningful activity to participate in the general atmosphere of his homeland celebrating the first ever Peace Festival held in Quang Tri. The works, having traveled thousands of nautical miles from the magnificent capital of France, have finally reached the artist's homeland and are displayed amidst gardens and fields, once again speaking to us of his deep affection for his country and homeland, even though he has left this world to go to the realm of white clouds.

Le Duc Duc

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/niem-co-huong-cua-danh-hoa-le-ba-dang-qua-nhung-cuon-so-tay-nbsp-186726.htm