Rough Waves Tsunami by Nguyen van Minh, lacquer
February 12, 2010
This lacquer art painting was conceived in 1996 by a private collector who commissioned the master lacquer artist Nguyen van Minh and directed the evolution of the piece to completion in 1997. The work is currently available.
by Nguyen van Minh
This reinterpretation of Korin’s masterpiece was finished in 1997 by the internationally renowned master lacquer artist Nguyen van Minh. It is a three panel painting on wood comprised of 22 layers of colored lacquer, gold and silver leaf. This reinterpretation differs from the original in that the arch of the great wave is more pronounced. The complexity of the medium required six months for completion. Its dimensions are approximately 60″ x 60.” Due to the large size and delicacy of the lacquer medium, the artist divided the work into three panels. The juxtaposition of the panels became a masterpiece in itself.
The implicit natural abstract theme of this work is impending annihilation and the struggle of forces for survival, note the smaller waves in the lower left panel fighting to counter the deluge – all frozen in time. While tsunami and other natural abstract subjects have been classical themes in Asian art for centuries, no known work captures wild drama of a tsunami through such a deeply luminous layered medium as does this painting. Rough Waves Tsunami is not just a representation of the destructive forces of nature, but rather analogous to the struggles of the human soul – the essence of art and the imperative of high art.
The Medium: Lacquer, gold and silver leaf. These too are organic and elemental components of nature – thus a doubling upon the visual theme of the painting. Moreover, lacquer is the only natural medium of the applied arts which “evolves” over time. The colored layers in this work will mature over the years and the silver leaf will oxidize and develop a patina.
Lacquer resin is produced by the Chinese conifer Rhus verniciflua and is an extract deemed so precious that its manufacturing process was kept secret in Asia for centuries. Lacquer, a substance akin to solidified amber, is so impervious to heat and moisture that it was the medium of choice of Chinese emperors for coating their coffins. Its first known use in the high arts was approximately 2000 B.C. in China. Natural lacquer is a toxic substance. The artist must use a gas mask and gloves during application, thus adding another interesting analogy to the prospect of death in Rough Waves Tsunami. Further, the lacquer must be applied in a humidity and temperature controlled environment and the artist must wait up to ten days or more for each layer to dry. As each crashing wave is obliterated by its successor, so each new layer of lacquer obscures the prior layers. Once dry, the lacquer is then sanded, burnished and polished to reveal the layer(s) below depending upon which the artist intends to bring visible, yet even the artist can not be precisely sure what will ultimately be revealed. Consequently, the artist must maintain great patience and vigilance while remaining in a state of constant uncertainty as to the result of his art. This uncertainty is also an inherent component explicit in the theme of Rough Waves Tsunami; therefore this great work could never be exactly reproduced. It is due to the time consuming difficulty of this medium and the many years of experience required for its mastery, that the great lacquer paintings are an art of the past.
Artistic Intent: While the surface image of this painting is of a tsunami, the viewer is asked to look more deeply. In many works of great art, the “beauty” therein is at the fore and the darker aspects hidden elsewhere. Consider the sublime Mona Lisa. The vanishing point behind the enigmatic beauty lives in the craggy, dark doom of the mountains. Here, the portent of annihilation by the tsunami is inescapable, yet swirling throughout are 22 layers of peacock-colored luminosity, each area revealing different layers of the artist’s mastery. Sadly, this artist succumbed to lung disease due to the toxicity of his lacquer creations. Indeed, Ogata Korin’s famously beautiful Irises have been termed sinister by critics. In great art, profound beauty is always to be found in the darkness as past, i.e. the death struggle (a la the Laocoon) and the portent of death in the transience of obvious beauty. Herin, we have a fugue upon this theme, both visually as well as via medium.
The Artist:
Nguyen van Minh, born 1934, Saigon, South Vietnam, died 2005, Centreville, VA
Kyoto trained as was Ogata Korin (Kyoto was, and is, the greatest classical school of lacquer art)
Pope Paul VI portrait, awarded Honor Medal by Vatican, 1962
Received congratulatory note from Jacques Chirac, France, 1989
Blossoming Cherry Tree was purchased by Oleg Cassini, designer to Jacqueline Kennedy
Recipient winner of the Yves St. Laurent “Opium” Perfume Bottle Design Competition
Regarded as “The Prince of Lacquer” by editor of Le Dauphine Vaucluse, Toulon, France, 2001
Gold Medal recipient from Academy of Fine Arts, Sciences and Letters, Paris, France, 1982
Silver Medal recipient from International Fine Arts Exhibition, Rome, Italy, 1963
Photography: Fergusonstudios.com
Inquiries: Inquiries regarding the purchase of this artwork may be made at roughwaves@gmail.com
Minh van Nguyen, 1934-2005
February 12, 2010
From The Washington Post, January 13, 2005
Minh Van Nguyen, 70, a master lacquer artist whose work has been shown around the world, died Jan. 6 of metastatic lung cancer at Inova Fairfax Hospital. He was a resident of Centreville.
Mr. Nguyen was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and graduated with honors from the National School of Superior Fine Arts in Saigon in 1958. He received a teaching degree in fine arts in 1959 and studied lacquer techniques in Kyoto and Sendai, Japan, in 1961-62.
He mastered a form that dates to the early 12th century B.C., when Chinese artisans applied sap from trees as decorative sealants on wood objects. Mr. Nguyen’s technique was to apply layer upon layer of lacquer, sometimes up to 120 coats, to wood panels and surfaces. He often took six months to a year to finish a work.
It’s a technique that’s fast fading, because it’s time-consuming and, thus, expensive.
From 1962 to 1965, he was director of the Creation Department of the Vietnam Arts and Handicraft Development Center in Saigon, an art school he set up to teach the trade to poor children. He was owner and director of Me-Linh Vietnam Arts and Crafts Ltd. in Saigon from 1965 to 1975, employing more than a hundred people in the production of his lacquer pieces.
He escaped war-torn Vietnam in 1975, a week before Saigon fell. “He left everything behind to literally start his life over,” his daughter Chi Nguyen said.
He brought his family to the Washington area and, in the mid-1980s, operated a gallery in Georgetown.
His works include a 1964 portrait of Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba and his wife; the interior of the Vietnam Independence Palace, which now serves as a museum in Ho Chi Minh City; and large lacquer panels for the Vietnam Credit and Commercial Bank of Saigon done in 1971-72. He also created a portrait of Pope Paul VI.
He held exhibitions in Japan, Europe and the United States. In the Washington area, his work has been shown at the World Bank, the French Embassy, the University Club, Alliance Francaise de Washington and Neiman Marcus.
In 1963, he was awarded the silver medal by the International Fine Arts Exhibition in Rome and in 1982, the gold medal from the Academy of Arts, Sciences and Letters in Paris.
Survivors include six children, Nga Thai of Alexandria, Nhat Nguyen of Centreville, Tri Nguyen of Alexandria, Chi Nguyen of Roswell, Ga., Diep Nguyen of Arlington and Thai Nguyen of San Diego; his mother, Chinh Nguyen of Houston; and five grandchildren.
Inquiries regarding the purchase of Nguyen van Minh’s lacquer art Rough Waves Tsunami may be made at roughwaves@gmail.com
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