The East Lake Painting Village in Bac Ninh has long been famous for its valuable and unique products. It is also a place that attracts thousands of tourists every year. Learn a little about the traditional craft village in Bac Ninh – Dong Ho painting village.
Every year, the painting market is only the busiest and busiest in December, meeting for 5 sessions on the 6th, 11, 16th, 21st and 26th. Visitors from all over the world flock to buy paintings crowded and bustling. Thousands and millions of paintings of all kinds are brought out to be folded up and sold to wholesalers, or retailed to families to buy to make Tet hangings to bring wealth and glory to their homes. After the last painting market (December 26 of the lunar calendar), families who still have paintings are wrapped and stored until next year’s painting season and then bring them to the market to sell. Coming to Ho village’s picture market, there are not only customers who trade and buy paintings, but also fans of folk art who enjoy visiting, viewing paintings and going to spring festivals.
Dong Ho painting village is open to visitors
Dong Ho painting village in Bac Ninh is a famous craft village of folk paintings, located in Song Ho commune, Thuan Thanh district, Bac Ninh province, about 35 km from Hanoi. Dong Ho village (sometimes just called Ho village by locals) is located on the south bank of Duong river, next to Ho wharf, now Ho bridge.
In the past, Dong Ho village was also called Mai village. The folk songs from the past about this craft village are still handed down to this day:
O lady with a green belt, If you go back
to Mai village with me, you will come back to
Mai village with a scheduled schedule.
Have a cool bath in the river, have a painting job.
Or Tu Xuong’s poem about Dong Ho paintings on New Year’s Day has the sentence:
Flickering in the yard with rat cannons
Flickering on the wall of a chicken picture
Dong Ho village is located right next to Duong river, in the past, only a dike from the river, that is the meaning of the saying “There is a river to cool off, there is a profession of painting”. Today, due to the sedimentation of the river, it is quite far from the dyke to the water’s edge.
Dong Ho painting, or full name is Dong Ho folk woodcut painting, is a line of Vietnamese folk paintings originating from Dong Ho village (Song Ho commune, Thuan Thanh district, Bac Ninh province). In the past, paintings were sold mainly for the Lunar New Year, rural people bought paintings to stick on the wall, at the end of the year they removed them and used new paintings.
Famous mouse wedding painting
In addition to the features of lines and layout, the folk features of Dong Ho paintings are also in the printing paper and color. Dong Ho painting paper is called scallop paper: people crush the shell of a scallop, a type of thin-shelled clam in the sea, and mix it with lake (the lake is cooked from plain rice flour, or glutinous rice, sometimes cooked with tapioca flour) The paste used to sweep the canvas is usually diluted from plain rice flour or tapioca, the paste made from glutinous rice flour is often used for pasting) and then sweeps the surface of the do paper with a pine needle brush.
The pine leaf brooms create streaks running along the sweep line and the natural scallop shells give a white color with sparkles of small scallops under the light, which can be added to the lake in the process of making the scallop paper. The colors used in the paintings of Bac Ninh lake are natural colors from plants and trees such as black (coal pine or bamboo leaves), green (copper rust, indigo leaves), yellow (flowers), red (orange, wine wood). ), etc. These are fairly basic colors, do not mix and because the number of colors corresponds to the number of woodblock prints, usually Dong Ho paintings only use 4 colors.
In addition, what makes Dong Ho paintings unique is the painting material, which is handcrafted from materials available in nature: paper made from do tree, red from young bricks, color yellow from yellow scallops, black from burning bamboo leaves, white from crushed seashells, snails…
On the basis of those basic colors, people have created many different colors from mixing colors to paint wonderful works. In order to complete a product, excluding engraving on woodblocks, with available paper and color, the painter must be very meticulous and careful in each stage: painting the glue on the paper, drying the paper to dry the glue, buffing the message. then dry the paper again to dry the message layer, when printing pictures must print each color in turn, if there are 5 colors, then 5 times to print, each print is a time of exposure… Like that, under the sparkling sunlight each image, The contours of the natural scenery, the people’s living habits, the images of daily life … like “lighting up” on do paper. Every stage is very elaborate, so it requires the painter to be careful, picky, pay attention to every little detail to get a beautiful picture.
Dong Ho painting village gallery
Dong Ho paintings have long-lasting vitality and special attraction for many generations of Vietnamese people as well as foreign tourists because the themes on the paintings reflect the rustic, simple, close-knit life. closely associated with Vietnamese culture. Artist Nguyen Dang Che explained the meaning of using colors to suit different topics: a red background for jealous paintings to depict the suffocating anger of the atmosphere at that time. , a yellow background for a joyful scene filled with spring colors on New Year’s Day paintings, a light pink background for a peaceful village painting…
Sometimes Dong Ho paintings are also decorated by artists with instruction words. or quatrains of love, romance,
Just dissecting each layer of cultural capsule present on each Dong Ho painting is enough to show us that the Vietnamese cultural capital is pure and clear, diverse and extremely unique.
Dong Ho artists have transformed beautiful words – beautiful ideas, and life experiences from thousands of generations into folk paintings with their very own expressions:
Those who have loved Dong Ho paintings must be familiar with chicken paintings: Mother and baby chickens, Dai Cat chickens, Da Nhat chickens, and chrysanthemums. For example, the painting “Hero Chicken”.
According to ancient history books, around 1915, Mr. Chanh Hoan married his daughter to a Mr. Phan, Mr. Dam Giac (real name Nguyen The Thuc (1882 – 1943) was a famous artist of Dong Ho. In paintings about life in the countryside, he also drew many landscape comics, female paintings…) celebrated the wedding with a new model: a chicken family consisting of roosters, hens and cubs. In conventional language, the chickens are stylized, they come to life without being realistic. Hens have a spiral layout – creating coddles. The rooster is placed in a trapezoid, with the large bottom resting on it – creating the head of the family position, protecting the hens and cubs. The picture evokes a happy, warm atmosphere in a family. On the picture, there is the phrase “Many children and many grandchildren, like wings like feathers” a very deep wish!
Artist of Dong Ho painting village is mixing colors
The buffalo is “the head of the farmer’s business”, which is also devoted to by Dong Ho artisans. The painting of riding a buffalo playing the flute has the words: “Ha Diep Cai Thanh Thanh” (Green lotus leaf umbrella). A lotus leaf train stands upright like an umbrella – interesting idea. The buffalo cranes its neck to enjoy the sound of the flute, its posture and appearance make us all hear the sound of the flute, see the clear blue sky, see the peaceful life…
A painting of a buffalo riding a kite with the words “Vu Thu Phong Nhat General” (An image of the autumn wind dancing). A boy lying on his back on a buffalo flying a kite… it’s interesting. A proverb about a child herding buffalo: “The head is covered with a hat like a veil – The hand holds a bamboo branch like a horse’s whip”. In fact, it’s hard to lie on the back of a buffalo and fly kites with a hat like that? However, looking at the picture still makes me feel good! The painting of kite flying also has two other versions, one with the word “Vu thu Phong Nhat Duc” (the wind and autumn dance, one wing), the other with the word “Nhat Tuong Phuc Loc Dien” (a farmer’s happiness). – equally interesting.
Painting Dong Ho requires ingenuity, and passion
Derived from the proverb: “The old bamboo shoots grow”, artist Nguyen The Thuc has a couple of pictures, the first one is titled: “The gesture is righteous and the bamboo shoots grow”, on which there is a verse: “The old and flexible bamboo has a time -” The rest is left to the next person.” The other picture is titled: “Golden the rule of law” with the verse: “The rule of law is the border above – Kim Ngan will surpass anyone”.
Experiencing many ups and downs, the custom of buying Dong Ho paintings to hang on Tet holiday has disappeared, the painting village has also changed a lot through the periods from the resistance war against the French until now. Up to now, thanks to the preservation of these artists, this folk painting has been restored. Along with many new creations, Dong Ho folk paintings have won the hearts of many domestic and foreign tourists every time they set foot in this charming cultural land.
Source: Collected internet.