By Applied Arts School of Thu Dau Mot/ Thanh Le Studio, A Landscape of North Vietnam, ca. 1950s, lacquer on wood, 91 x 170 cm, photo: Sotheby’s Hong Kong, December 2020. #art #arthistory #vietnam #asianart From Sotheby’s: “One of Asia's oldest artistic traditions, lacquer is an improbably medium for modern painting, as working with the material is labor intensive and expensive. The resinous material is caustic and is usually applied in multiple layers as it hardens into a highly polished, protective coating for bowls, boxes or other objects. In Vietnam, lacquer had for centuries the practical purpose of weatherproofing wooden statues and parts of temples. The 20th century marked a turning point which saw Vietnamese lacquer art rise to the height of aesthetic expression, as artist would transform the medium from functional style to poetic articulation. Training in lacquer was mandatory at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine, and artists with a high level of sophistication with this material experimented and reinvented a centuries-old art form, just as the impressionists in France had done with paint. The height of Vietnamese lacquer art shows a masterful synthesis of French and Vietnamese approaches to painting, depicting picturesque scenes of the landscapes, villages and families of Vietnam.”