The cover of the book with a sketch of an old militia. (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - The wartime experiences of Vietnam in different places are depictedtruthfully and vividly in the sketches of painter Tran Huy Oanh.
His book Wartime Sketches – Everlasting Devotion was releasedin Hanoi early this month, bringing wartime memories to readers.
The book includes 189 sketches by the painter, who took noteof war scenes from 1965 to 1973 in Truong Son trail, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, QuangBinh, Quang Tri and Central Highlands battlefields.
Le Trong Lan, Chairman of the Art Council for Paintings, theVietnam Fine Arts Association, remarked that these paintings reflect anunforgettable period of time.
“It seems that I can meet in person again the old men at HamRong Bridge, militia girls, mothers of the Van Kieu ethnic group, and myself ina tough but beautiful afternoon in Truong Son range with a burnt trail and bombcraters,” he said.
“These war scenes were beautifully sketched with gentle lightcolours, yet still revealed a very strong sentiment and vibration in the soulof this talented painter.
He simply depicted life exactly as it was.”
Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Department of Fine Arts, Photographyand Exhibition, said Oanh is among the greatest painters of the war and animportant contributor to Vietnam’s art scene.
“One of the most impressive paintings by Oanh is Ham RongBridge,” said Thanh.
“It seemed painter Oanh naturally has asense of his generation’s duty: living and painting the wartime, in all of itsaspects.”
Oanh said he stayed near Ham Rong Bridge for one month topaint workers and young volunteers fixing the bridge and railroads with thedetermination not to let the US bombs destroy the bridge and block the road.
“From that day to many years later, I completed a lacquerpainting called Ham Rong Bridge, which received the top prize in the annualNational Fine Arts Exhibition in 1976,” Oanh said.
Luong Xuan Doan, Deputy Director of the Vietnam National FineArts, said Oanh’s sketches then – now historical paintings in the archives -became fossils out of the lava of war, where generations of Vietnamese came tothe front, lived their lives and died. But their souls seem to surround usstill, with the streams, mountains and trees.
“These memories do not only belong to the painter himself butalso to the next generations as ever-burning flames, an invaluable treasure ofVietnam,” he said.
Oanh was born in 1937. He is known for his great devotion toVietnamese fine arts as a painter who travelled to many battlefields todocument the wartime. He is also a lecturer who has taught many famous paintersof Vietnam during 15 years working at the Vietnam University of Fine Arts.-VNA
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