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The art of silk painting in Vietnam

  • Writer: Cabinet Gauchet Art Asiatique
    Cabinet Gauchet Art Asiatique
  • Mar 25
  • 5 min read

In the history of Asian art, silk painting holds a place as discreet as it is essential, and it is undoubtedly in Vietnam that it has seen one of its most refined and singular developments. Practiced for centuries, particularly in learned and religious circles, this technique experienced a veritable renaissance in the 20th century, thanks to a unique moment of convergence between East Asian pictorial traditions and the canons of European academic art.


Le Pho (1937 - 2001), Jeune fille au perroquet, 1938, ink and colors on silk, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for Millon Auctions, sold for €315,000.
Le Pho (1937 - 2001), Jeune fille au perroquet, 1938, ink and colors on silk, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for Millon Auctions, sold for €315,000.

Vietnamese silk painting can only be understood at this intersection, between Confucian visual culture, millennia of Chinese influence and the modernizing impetus of French colonization. It is the fruit of a history, a hybridization, a slow aesthetic elaboration.


The technique, first of all, is worth a closer look. The fine, translucent silk used as a support imposes absolute rigor: once the brush is applied, there's no turning back. The pigments immediately penetrate the fiber, making retouching impossible. This technical constraint gives silk painting an aesthetic of its own, made up of fluidity, transparency and restraint. Unlike oil painting, the gesture must be light, anticipated and controlled. What might appear to be a limitation here becomes a language: colors are applied in successive washes, contours remain supple, shapes sometimes slightly blurred. The whole evokes a floating atmosphere, where the figures seem suspended between presence and effacement.


Historically, silk painting in Vietnam has long been confined to ritual, decorative or educational uses, similar to Chinese scholarly painting. But a decisive turning point came at the beginning of the 20th century, with the founding of the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in Hanoi in 1925. This institution, directed by French painter Victor Tardieu, aimed to train a Vietnamese artistic elite according to Western teaching principles, while encouraging the appropriation of local techniques. It was against this backdrop of artistic ferment and cultural openness that several artists turned silk painting into a modern language, capable of expressing a distinctly Vietnamese sensibility while at the same time engaging in a dialogue with world art history.


Nguyen Phan-Chanh, Young woman combing her hair, painting on silk, Musée Cernuschi, Paris.
Nguyen Phan-Chanh, Young woman combing her hair, painting on silk, Musée Cernuschi, Paris.

Nguyễn Phan Chánh (1892-1984) is considered the founding father of modern Vietnamese silk painting. Originally from central Vietnam, he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine and took part in the Exposition Coloniale in Paris in 1931, where his works met with great success. His sober style is characterized by horizontal compositions, a muted palette, soft lines and a silent narrative. His scenes of rural life - women spinning cotton, children at play, collective readings - capture with modesty the essence of a traditional world in the process of transformation. His deeply humanistic approach and sense of visual rhythm make him a major figure in Vietnamese poetic realism.


In a more lyrical and colorful vein, Mai Trung Thứ (1906-1980) embodies another facet of this modernized painting. Also trained in Hanoi, he settled permanently in France after his studies and embarked on an international career. His silk paintings are unmistakable: graceful female figures with long black hair, stylized children, floral motifs, symmetrical compositions bathed in nostalgia. Strongly influenced by Symbolist aesthetics and the Asian literary tradition, Mai Trung Thứ develops an intimate, stylized universe, where melancholy emerges behind every sketched smile. He is one of the few Vietnamese artists of this generation to have left an abundant and coherent body of work spanning several decades.


Mai Trung Thu (1906-1980), La jeune fille à la rose, 1967, ink and colors on silk, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for the Millon auction house, sold for €70,000.
Mai Trung Thu (1906-1980), La jeune fille à la rose, 1967, ink and colors on silk, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for the Millon auction house, sold for €70,000.

Lê Phô (1907-2001), for his part, stands out for his eclecticism and stylistic evolution. Also trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine, he continued his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, adopting a more fusional approach, blending Asian references and Impressionist sensibilities. In his early works on silk, he celebrated the beauty of Vietnamese women, lush gardens and maternity scenes - all themes reflecting a quest for harmony between the individual and nature. Later, he moved on to oils, exploring more expressive forms akin to modern European art. His long and international career has made him one of the most highly-rated Vietnamese artists on the art market.


Another important name is that of Vũ Cao Đàm (1908-2000), sculptor and painter, whose works on silk are characterized by great formal lightness, Buddhist influences and a spiritual dimension. Less prolific than his contemporaries in this medium, he nonetheless remains a figure of the first generation of Vietnamese artists to make their mark in France in the 1930s-1950s.


These artists share a desire to transcend tradition without denying it. They have turned silk painting into a space for formal experimentation, cultural memory and contained emotion. Their works bear witness to a unique moment in the history of Vietnamese art, when silk became not just a medium, but a sensitive surface, a forum for dialogue between two artistic worlds. Through them, Vietnamese painting enters fully into modernity, without losing its specificity.


Femmes musiciennes, 1933, ink and colors on silk, Vietnam, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for Millon Auction House, sold for €210,000
Femmes musiciennes, 1933, ink and colors on silk, Vietnam, appraised by Gauchet Art Asiatique for Millon Auction House, sold for €210,000

Today, this heritage continues to inspire many contemporary Vietnamese artists, even if silk painting has lost its central status in current plastic practices. Nevertheless, it remains a strong marker of Vietnamese artistic identity, and its influence, particularly at international auctions, bears witness to a renewed interest in this subtle form of expression. More than just a technique, it embodies a way of looking at things - a relationship to the world where contemplation takes precedence over narrative, where emotion emerges without ever imposing itself.


This work of rediscovering and promoting Vietnamese silk painting would not be complete without the contribution of specialists who help to make these works better known, authenticated and contextualized. Gauchet Art Asiatique, a recognized expert in Vietnamese art, plays a central role in this dynamic. Thanks to the rigorous expertise acquired over the years and the catalogs raisonnés, the firm assists collectors, institutions and auction houses in the authentication and appraisal of these delicate works. Its work is helping to establish reliable benchmarks in a rapidly expanding market, and to gain recognition for Vietnamese silk painting as a major part of the history of modern art in Asia.


By rediscovering Vietnamese silk painting through the works of Nguyễn Phan Chánh, Mai Trung Thứ, Lê Phổ or Vũ Cao Đàm, a whole little-known page of twentieth-century art history is revealed. A story where craftsmanship becomes art, where intercultural dialogue becomes fertile, where the lightness of the line becomes the depth of the gaze.



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