To continue the column ‘GREAT BOOKS—SHARING WITH ART LOVERS’, Viet Art View would like to share with you the second story from the book ‘Painter Nguyễn Phan Chánh’ by Nguyệt Tú and Nguyễn Phan Cảnh, Culture Publishing House, 1979, a collection of articles related to the life and career of painter Nguyễn Phan Chánh.
Second story:
THE TEACHER
The children of Tân Giang area those days were constantly talking about the painting teacher who had just arrived in the province. For this small and quiet town, a painting teacher who came and set up a tent on the market square, painting like real things, was enough of a stunning thing in the imagination of the children. One told five, five told ten. So the children of Tan Giang invited each other to run to see the new painting teacher.
Chánh was lounging around, drawing by a stick on the ground the shape of flower and bird, when a neighbor grabbed his arm:
– Go see, Chánh!
Chánh threw the stick and ran after the friend.
The early sunshine spreaded a gold on the grass next to the market area. The starlings jumped in search of prey on the grass. A gentle breeze blew on the lovely canvas tent. Chánh entered.
The painting teacher was almost lying on a wooden board for the floor, in front of a large sheet of paper spreaded out. The first strokes of the painting Beautiful girl appeared on paper. A young girl with chickentailed hair, graceful in a long dress, smiling with her hand over her fan. The teacher ran his hand over the paper, and a pair of arched eyebrows added to the pretty face. Just like that, the black eyes, the pretty mouth… gradually emerged. He painted on the long dress a light brown, then squinted his eyes while dipping the pen nib into the ink slab and writing a few lines of poetry on the corner of the painting.
Chánh stood staring at the painting scene, unintentionally also put out his hand to follow the painting teacher’s brush without realizing it.
In front of Kim Liên communal house. 1957. Silk. 40×54 cm. The painting was printed in the book ‘Nguyễn Phan Chánh Silk Painting’ of Vietnam Fine Arts Museum, printed in 1992.
The painting teacher sat up, took the clip, and then stood up and hung the painting on the hemp rope that hung across the door of the tent. Chánh looked around and saw that all of friends had gone home. Panicked, he ran after his friends. The sun was high. The starlings stopped dancing on the green grass.
The first was the line making the eyebrows. They arched, moved. Then the eyes flashed as if they had been blinded by the sun. Then the mouth suddenly smiled happily. The beautiful girl reached out her hand to gently lift the hem of her dress and slowly got up and walked out of the paper. As she walked, she spreaded a silk fan and raised it to cover her eyes. The sun shined through the thin silk, printed beautiful bird and flower pictures on the light brown dress…
Chánh rubbed his eyes continuously. So it was a dream!
The moonlight shined through the cracks in the leaky roof, illuminating the page of the book that the sleeping Chánh still kept on his chest. All day engrossed in the scene of the teacher painting, at night Chánh had a dream about the painting The beautiful girl. The girl wasn’t in the painting, she was lying pressed between pages of the book. Chánh missed the dream so much. Why he woke up just when the girl was about to speak? Chánh continued to busy with that thought.
The next morning, Chánh himself invited the children to run up to the market to watch the painting teacher. The sun was spreading gold on the grass, the starlings were jumping to find prey. Chánh stood silently in front of the tent door, next to the painting of The beautiful girl, on a hemp rope hanging across the door, several new paintings were hung. A carp that was very large but still glided smoothly over the entire surface of a painting. The carp’s round eyes were intently looking at the shimmering moon in the lake water. The left corner of the painting had the words ‘Carp waiting the moon’ written on it. Next to it was a painting of the god of Wealth, a man wearing a flying hat with three beards hanging around his mouth that Chánh found very funny.
That day the teacher didn’t paint. He was holding a magnifying glass with a handle attached, looked at an old photo, and in the other hand he was holding a pencil to enlarge in the hard paper stretched on an easel.
A boy, a resident of the main town, told the children of Tân Giang with an air:
– It’s portrait drawing!
Then he put his hand out to explain:
– That’s mean transmitting from the photo…
And to be more convincing, the boy added: “My father said so.”
From that day on, Chánh hung around the canvas tent of the painting teacher almost every day, there were new paintings in front of the tent door every morning, sometimes a rat wedding which was very funny, sometimes it was the four plants of Pine- Chrysanths – Bamboo- Apricot blossom, so elegant and gentle. The painting teacher began to notice this 13- or 14-year-old boy who loved painting. One day when the sun was high, only Chánh stayed to watch he painting, the teacher stopped to ask:
– What’s your name?
Chánh replied:
– Sir, my name is Chánh.
Finding the boy polite and adorable, the teacher suddenly remembered something. Looking back at the boy from head to toe, he continued:
– So where is your home?
– It’s Tân Giang, sir.
– You love painting so much, don’t you…
Chánh blushed, putting out his hand to stroke the hem of his brown blouse. The teacher was considerate, without further questioning, just turned the back of a piece of drawing paper and handed the pencil to the boy:
– Let me see your drawing.
Chief hesitated. The painting teacher removed the glasses, looked at him as if asking why.
– Sir, I can only draw on wall.
The teacher let out an “Ah” with a cheerful voice, making Chánh laugh as well. But then Chánh also drew on paper for the teacher to see a scene of mountains and rivers. The teacher looked at Chánh while he was drawing and nodded.
Gradually, Chánh was told by the teacher for some little works. To carry a small bucket to get water, or going inside the tent to hold the corner of the paper for him to draw.
So quickly, there had been several provincial market sessions. The photos the customers gave, the teacher had transmitted them all. Paintings had sold a lot. And the children of the town ran after the martial arts people who had just come to the province to advertise drugs, leaving behind the canvas tent of the teacher Chánh alone with the starlings and a green lawn.
Looking at the scene, the people, the painting teacher knew it was time to roll up the tent and leave. Many times he had set up then dismantled the tent, the traveler painter didn’t think that he had some attachment with the boy. The image of a boy who loved colors and strokes made him think about his childhood, about human life, about the mysterious but bitter word ‘talent’. And a pure feeling that was still hidden in the bottom of the heart, seemingly never to be expressed, rose strongly in the artist of wind and dust:
– Does it sound nice if you ask your mother then go with me as an apprentice…
Chánh’s mother saw that her child had grown up, and thought that letting her boy follow the teacher, first earn a living, then learn a trade, was also a way. When she saw Chánh taking the painting teacher home, looking at the teacher, she agreed to let Chánh follow.
Being away from home for the first time, away from his mother and siblings, Chánh kept whimpering. But then the image of people and objects in the teacher’s paintings attracted him. The fact that The beautiful girl woke up between the pages of the book made Chánh feel like he saw a carp wagging out of the picture, and then the man who wore a green, red, purple, and yellow hat that sparkled in the sun.
The teacher was a learned man, he painted by day, and taught Chánh at night. Nghi Xuân, Hương Sơn, Kỳ Anh, they stopped to set up the tent when they met a beautiful scene, making paintings and poems. From the mountain of Hồng Lĩnh which has 99 majestic peaks to Hau-hau valley with waterfalls like white silk, from a vast field of silver water to a white moon rising from the sea, all had been left strong impressions in the mind of a boy who learned painting.
In the early days of following the teacher, Chánh could only do the papers. While showing Chánh how to plaster paper, the teacher smiled:
– People said that “Sewers reduce rags, painters reduce plastering.” You have to remember to plaster the glue evenly all over the paper. That way, bubbles can be expelled, the paintings will not be blistered.”
He picked up a small bottle containing what looked like white stone:
– And remember to add a little alum to the glue so that the cockroaches don’t eat the paintings.
For the first time, Chánh was allowed to hold a brush to paint the whole part of colors in the contours drawn by the teacher. It was not an easy task to evenly fill a large piece of paper. The color must be diluted to a moderate amount, the hand holding the brush must be brought up quickly and decisively. Then Chánh was allowed to draw a whole picture according to the pattern. At first, he still had to draw with a pencil and then he could make lines, after he mastered it, he could immediately make lines.
Chánh always remembered the day when his teacher brought his painting ‘Carp waiting the moon’ and put it in his stack of paintings and sold it at the Upper market.
That afternoon, when the wind was favorable, the two teacher and apprentice followed the La river up the town. Through Cầu market, Trổ market, boats were close. The high masts on the huge sea-going boats seemed to pierce the sky. Children the same age as Chánh sat fishing for prawn on a rock embankment, with four or five tiny fishing rods around them. Each time the fishing line went up, the boys raised the rod high towards them. The prawns caught on the hook struggled and struggled, but eventually were pulled out of the water, snapping, and the antennae kept swinging all the way up. Upper market bridge was digged to make the foundation, people were busy on both sides of the river.
On the section of the river to Lower market, there was a waterfront every once in a while, looking like drawings connecting the river with the meandering dike. The water of La river was cool and clear, from the boat you could clearly see the white sand in the riverbed. The girls of weaving village almost all day without sun, patting silk by the river. The waves from the waterfront gradually spreaded out, the farther from the bank, the more blurred they became, until they merged with the waves coming from the side of the boat.
Upper market that day was crowded with people. After hanging the paintings, Chánh nervously looked at each customer. They picked one painting, put it down, and picked another. Follow his teacher for a long time, it’s not Chánh’s first time to that. But why did the choice of customers become so important this time? And when a customer chose to buy a painting by him, Chánh felt so joyous. After the customer left, Chánh noticed his teacher’s eyes. Very strange. That look Chánh had only met once before, the day he laughed cheerfully when he heard Chánh’s answer: “Sir, I can only draw on wall.” Then today.
Still too young, how could Chánh understand what was coming to the free artist’s heart: a proper pride in Chánh, mixed with a bit of pity for his fate, probably would be like the teacher’s life.
Until one autumn afternoon that year, watching the yellow leaves fell on the roof of the tent of hardships, the teacher suddenly felt a craving for a thin smoke on the poor thatched roof. He dismantled his tent and returned to his hometown.
Pointing to the unfinished painting of The beautiful girl, he said to the young apprentice who was now fully fledged:
– You finish…
(Excerpt from the book ‘Painter Nguyễn Phan Chánh’ by Nguyệt Tú – Nguyễn Phan Cảnh, Culture Publishing House, published in 1979)
