Of course, to identify the first of these, “vital rhythm”, you have to adhere to the Taoist concept on which it is based, but the other 5 are obvious to the objective eye, and the 6th requires a good knowledge of Chinese painting…

But are these same principles present in Mai Thu’s work?

Better still: does their specificity suit him?

Let’s take another look:

The “vital rhythm”?

Mai Thu, like any ambitious painter, has the ambition (almost the mental necessity) to represent one’s world. But, among all the artists he’s been meeting in Paris for the past 9 years, who’s been rubbing shoulders with Taoist cosmology (François Cheng, ibid, pp 147-149 )? Who evoked it at the Hanoi School of Fine Arts during his schooling in 1925-30? Who since?

No one.

We can also imagine the painter’s care in seeking inspiration from the ancients and using them as models. But which elders and which models if not Westerners, those Westerners whom Mai Thu, after Vu Cao Dam and Le Pho, would come to confront directly in 1937?

We also see the importance of resemblance sublimated in a kind of assumed naivety.

Of course, Mai Thu assumes the two principles of the list, which are the restitution of the essential structure of the line and the meticulous manipulation of color and ink (essentially for the hair). Also to be noted is his use of gouache in limited (but unmixed) colors and flat tints with lighter touches, dilution of ink and subtle scrapings of the same gouache.

This desire to ” Asianize ” (in this case…artistically) can be found in Waldemar George’s Le Pho (1970):

“Until 1943, 1944 Le Pho practiced an art of Chinese expression tributary of the past. He paints with watercolors on silk and paper supports.

His well-trained hand is alert and docile. His brushes are narrow and slender, or take on the appearance of small brooms. His touch is delicate, sensitive and quivering. His works can be compared to silent poems. Like his ancestors, when unable to express himself in verse, Le Pho resorts to color and line. He defines form through elliptical signs”(unpaginated).

Comme une essentialisation, à outrance et à distance, fondée sur un cliché élaboré en deux étapes: le présupposé qu’un “Asiatique” peint comme en Asie et qu’un Vietnamien n’existe pas sans la Chine. Et surtout l’incapacité à comprendre l’acculturation et son effet miroir.

At the same time, contemporary Chinese artists residing in France since the early 1920s, notably Xu Beihong (1895-1953), Sanyu (1995-1966), Pang Xunquin (1906-1985), Lin Fengmian (1900-1991) and Pan Yuliang (1895-1977), also demonstrated artistic preoccupations that took them far from Xie He (see Francesca Dal Lago, “Un corps sans ombre ? Le dessin à l’encre chez les premiers artistes actifs en France” (A body with no shadow Ink drawings by early French artists) in  Éric Lefebvre and Maël Bellec Dirs) “L’encre en mouvement, une histoire de la peinture chinoise au XXe siècle” (ink in motion, a history of Chinese painting in the 20th century), Paris 2022 (pp 100-117)

Like an essentialization, excessive and remote, based on a cliché elaborated in two stages: the presupposition that an “Asian” paints as in Asia, and that a Vietnamese does not exist without China. And above all, the inability to understand acculturation and its mirror effect.

The real subject is the meaning of this very large (78 x 62 cm) gouache and ink on silk, dated 1946.

It features a woman and two children. Let’s assume it’s a mother and her children.

The young woman, her hair down, wearing comfortable home clothes, is surrounded by two little boys. The painter reinforces the union of the 3 characters by the strong ink-black of the hair, applied in a triangular pattern.

The woman is leaning against a large pink-blue-yellow pillow placed on what could be a bed. The horizontality of the bed, the verticality of the back wall, a fine drapery above and an openwork door carved with geometric motifs physically centre the group, enhancing its mental cohesion.