Visitors at the exhibition house (Photo: VNA) Deputy director of the department Nguyen Van Dap said theprovincial People’s Committee approved a project on preserving and promotingheritage values of Dong Ho in Thuan Thanh district for 2014-2020, with a visiontowards 2030.
Accordingly, Bac Ninh will pay more attention to promotingthe paintings, build a dossier seeking UNESCO’s recognition of the Dong Ho folk painting genre as part of thehumanity’s intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding,and build a preservation centre.
As the highlight of the preservation centre, theexhibition house covers over 500 sq.m with more than 1,000 documents andobjects reflecting the history of the painting genre, its values and thepreservation work.
This genre had been in its prime before 1944. At thattime, local residents mainly earned their living by making paintings to sell inthe Lunar New Year (Tet) festival and producing votive papers. The village wasbusy all year round, and there were up to 17 clans involved in makingpaintings. Usually, the whole village made votive papers from the first lunarmonth to the 15th day of the 7th lunar month. From the 8th to the 12th month inthe lunar calendar, they turned to producing paintings for Tet.
Over hundreds of years of development, Dong Ho folkpaintings have become an indispensable “spiritual food” for a large number ofpeople from all social strata in the country for many centuries.
Each painting has its own meaning, reflectingaspirations of the working class, from simple to sacred and noble things. Suchpaintings as “Vinh hoa” (Honour), “Phu quy” (Wealth), “Tien tai” (Richness),“Ga dai cat” (The rooster of good fortune), “Phuc” (Happiness) and “Tho”(Longevity) show the wishes for a new year.
Meanwhile, to commemorate national heroes, artisanscreated “Hai Ba Trung tru giac Han” (Trung Sisters defeat the Han enemy), “BaTrieu danh quan Ngo” (Lady Trieu fights against the Wu troops), and “Ngo VuongQuyen danh Nam Han” (King Ngo Quyen fights against the Southern Han troops),among others. To inspire the traditional fondness for learning and the respectfor teachers, there are such works as “Hieu hoc” (Fond of learning), “Vinh quybai to” (Returning home to pay tribute to ancestors after achieving academichonours), “Muc dong doc sach” (Herdsman reads book), and “Thay do coc” (Toadteacher).
Dong Ho paintings also criticise bad habits, vices, aswell as injustice in society. Among them, “Dam cuoi chuot” (Mice’s wedding) isa profound satirical implication. The cat represents the ruling class that isgreedy and eager for bribery while the mice, representing peasants, are wise andalways stay alert to the cat. Meanwhile, “Danh ghen” (Jealousy) criticisesmen’s womanising while secretly giving advice to them to help prevent a familytragedy.
“Tu quy” (The four seasons), “Tung hac” (The pine andthe crane), “Ke cuc” (The rooster and the chrysanthemum), “Lien ap” (The lotusand the duck) imply the virtues of honourable persons. There are also paintingsdepicting traditional cultural activities of the daily life or festivals in thenorthern region like “Danh du” (Swinging), “Danh vat” (Wrestling), “Ruoc trong”(Drum procession), “Mua rong” (Dragon dancing), “Mua lan” (Kylin dancing), and“Choi trau” (Buffalo fighting)./.
VNA
