Painting description
- Material: Oil painting
- Size: 110 cm x 180 cm
- Creation year: 2023
Legend has it that a dragon has nine children (Long Sinh Cuu Pham), I drew nine dragons of the Ly, Tran, Le, and Nguyen dynasties, which had the development of culture and art in Vietnamese history.
From left to right, the Ly dynasty dragon ranks first and the dragon holds a pearl, one is the largest and one is the most obscure, one symbolizes the pinnacle of art and also lays the foundation for the formation of art in Vietnam history, 1 faded into posterity as the few remaining documents and heritage. It is easy to find and see the traces of ancestors, but it is still difficult to penetrate and popularize them.
Dragons of the Nguyen Dynasty stand at positions 2nd, 4th & 5th, 6th in the painting. As the dynasty with the least reign time among the four dynasties, the road to establishing the country was also very arduous, ups and downs, when it was independent, it "secluded the port", when it asked for foreign aid, when it was strong. Strong like Minh Mang, infamous like Gia Long. No matter what the story is, whatever the truth is, to me history is the lessons, experiences, demonstrations, proofs of a glorious time and now strongly spread in posterity, that is a cultural success.
The Dragon of the Tran Dynasty ranked 3rd, the Le ranked 7th and 8th. The art of the Tran Dynasty absorbed and developed from the Ly art. The art of Le So and Le Trung Hung developed and clearly formed its own mark, specifically sculpture and painting.
The image of dragons wrapped around columns (each column represents the dynasties' patterns) pointing towards the Ly dynasty dragon holding pearls has the meaning that although the culture and art of the periods had changes and progress, they were all looking forward to it, wants to aim for the goodness, uniqueness and prosperity of the Vietnamese people.
I use a series of similar colors in yellow tones, slightly pastel, with the purpose of both expressing admiration for our ancestors for their thousand-year history of civilization, as well as respect and nostalgia, trying to preserve and pass on the fire to the next person. Culture is like that, it will flow with the times, adapt and change continuously according to each person's way of thinking. And following nature is still the most subtainable experience for me.