We are greeted by excited meowing and a beautiful breakfast when we emerge, refreshed from our sleep. O is responsible for at least one of these. I am full of appetite and energy this morning, residual queasiness from the long journey having rendered me frustratingly unable to eat much of the truly amazing meal O had prepared for us last night. I have slept it off, though sadly we were not joined by Chiba the cat in the night (I am sure she has a boyfriend. She has been gallivanting about on rooftops a lot more recently).
We eat sticky rice with herbs and salad and spring rolls, followed by 'dessert', a creamy porridge with tapioca and sweet potato.
We walk to the Fine Arts Museum of Ho Chi Minh city. It's an interesting building in itself, with art deco stained glass windows and French style shutters. The art is divided into modern, pre 1975 and post 1975 and ancient.
The guide book has been somewhat disparaging, referring to the number of paintings which deal with the 17 year war as being predictable and propagandising. I don't agree. Obviously the pre 1975, being pre peace, deals primarily with the war, and quite a lot of the modern art does too. But art of any era, reflects the feelings, preoccupations and new ideas of the time. And any country which has been embroiled on such a long war on its soils is clearly going to be deeply culturally, emotionally and artistically affected and altered by it. Our generation was born into peace, everyone older than us will have, at least for some period, lived with it. There are plenty of Vietnamese older than us and than O. Her parents will remember it. In fact, I have read that Vietnam has a very young population. Maybe that means the majority of people do not remember the war, but they owe the fact that they are the majority to it.
However, whilst the war related pictures and sculptures are moving, the ones which really capture my interest are in the more modern sections.
A forest scene, three small silhouettes around a cooking fire in the centre of it, gives such an impression of light and life in the tree tops, rather than the figures, that I feel they are being allowed a privileged glimpse into a much deeper magic among the leaves. Or possibly they are simply oblivious to it. The artist has evoked that idea in me purely with a few lighter brush strokes among the green leaves, notably not present in the three silhouettes.
Another is painted in red and orange hues and shows a cacophony of boats, recognisable as such by the eyes painted on their prow as part of the Buddhist tradition to bring luck. Though the colours were in fact nearer to shades of green and brown, it evokes strongly in me the impression of the Mekong Delta, and the warmth of both climate and people there.
A black and white pen and ink drawing entitled 'the tree of life', depicts a mass of branches, among which are nestled various faces. It makes me shiver a little. If the tree is giving life as opposed to simply representing it, it chills me that some faces are expressing pain, some elation, some anger. Are people born into a particular emotion which will characterise their life? Or, if the tree simply encompasses life as it is, is the suggestion that life requires all of these people, all these emotions, to give it contrast, depth and breath?
A black sculpture, depicting what I think is a seated woman, in the cross legged yoga position, with her hands clasped above her head, is entitled 'cheerful'. I like that where her head would be, there is a head shaped gap. Her head instead rests on her feet. 'How nice', I think happily, 'the woman is calm and serene, so much so, she can separate her thoughts from her body and thus get away from bustling 'busy' thoughts and reflect instead on the important things, as symbolised by the detachment of her head'.
"What?" says M when I show it to him, "that's a man with his hand on his arms and his body in the air, legs crossed above him." The 'breasts' of my lady are in fact the buttocks of the man. M leads me round the back of the sculpture where there is a small carved penis. "He's naked" says M, unnecessarily.
I am deeply disappointed.
But the trouble is that we can't read what little explanation there is in Vietnamese beside each painting, and are not already familiar with the particular preoccupations of each artist. It's a guessing game.
I suppose the question is whether this matters. Assuming you haven't got anything as fundamental as the sex of a statue wrong, is it OK to interpret art how you want to? Can you get it so wrong it's offensive to the artist? Or is all art in the eye of the beholder?
There is one particular painting which really intrigues me. It shows a group of young girls, looking excitedly at an orchid. They are in black and white, as is the room they stand in. The flower of the orchid however, is in bright colour. One girl holds what looks like a letter. To the left of them is a colour scene which is clearly depicting another place. It shows an open door standing on its own in a field. Through it, is a bright blue sky with pure white fluffy clouds. It is entitled 'companions in arms'. Before I read the title I saw it as a group of young girls, the orchid representing their precious innocence, and the open door their future. After I read the title I saw it as one of the girls being in love with a soldier who had sent her the orchid, and the open door represented his impending death.
Probably, it represents neither of these. Probably also, I could look it up on the internet and find out what it means. But I sort of don't want to.
I would hate to insult an artist's work by being clueless, but isn't the creation of alternative theories in the viewer the sign of good art?
Is there a limit, a threshold at which a viewer can cross from being imaginative and inspired by the work to being insultingly misled and uninformed?
I don't know. And I don't know where exactly on that continuum I would fall. But I enjoyed the museum, was inspired by the art and came home happily to tell O about it over dinner. (Which was characteristically amazing).
If that doesn't make an artist happy, what would?
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