THE THEORETICAL SYSTEM OF ART IN SOUTHERN VIETNAM DURING THE PERIOD 1954-1975: FROM MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL MODELS TO THE SHIFT IN THE SHAPE OF ART TERMINOLOGY

The explosion of arts and literature in the urban areas of South Vietnam during the period 1954–1975, especially in central Saigon, was closely linked to a powerful ideological transformation from the West. In major literary and art magazines such as Sáng Tạo, Hiện Đại, Bách Khoa, Văn, and Khởi Hành, art criticism officially moved beyond the stage of mechanical, intuitive description or the purely ethnographic identification of identity prevalent before 1945. The simultaneous emergence of Existentialism, Structuralism, Freudian psychoanalysis, and Phenomenological aesthetics provided critics with a sharp conceptual toolkit, fundamentally altering the nature of the anatomical analysis of works of art.

The critical vocabulary during this period rapidly shifted towards a more philosophical, metaphysical, and in-depth psychological approach. Prominent critics and artists such as Ta Ty, Nguyen Sa, Nguyen Hai Chi, and Dang Tien no longer viewed paintings as windows reflecting the natural world or as tools for illustrating reality. They saw the artwork as a stage for expressing mental trauma, personal rebellion, and the absurdity of existence in the face of a reality fractured by war. Terms like "obsession," "unconscious," "complex," "emptiness," "identity," and "commitment" began appearing frequently in art journals. This shift changed the standards for evaluating a work of art. Writers no longer concerned themselves with analyzing whether a painting was beautiful or ugly, whether it conformed to anatomical rules or academic perspective, but focused on dissecting the spiritual structure and the existential scars compressed by the artist onto the plane of space.

The essence of this new critical language is the viewing of the creative act as an independent testimony of human existence. Painting was viewed fairly as a means of releasing repressed unconscious energies. When analyzing a portrait or a deformed figure, Saigon critics used psychoanalysis to decipher the artist's repressed feelings and complexes. Naming artistic phenomena using a philosophical vocabulary elevated the art prose written in the Vietnamese Quốc ngữ script in the South, transforming criticism from a form of literary news reporting into a highly theoretical humanistic science capable of encompassing the most complex movements of contemporary human psychology.

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The emergence and vigorous activity of the Saigon Young Painters Association in the 1960s propelled Southern Vietnamese art into a large-scale experimentation with modern global art movements such as Abstraction, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism. To guide public taste and establish a solid theoretical foundation for avant-garde artists, the South Vietnamese press launched a campaign to technicalize and philosophically refine contemporary visual terminology.

For Abstraction, critics coined terms such as "pure abstraction," "form in itself," and "liberation from form." In the magazine "Creation," theoretical articles shattered the popular prejudice that abstract painting was meaningless coloring or a technical impasse. They defined abstract painting as the act of breaking free from the obligation of mimicking the material world through lines and colors to achieve an inherent, free rhythm. Meanwhile, Cubism was dissected through concepts such as "structural fragmentation," "spatial disintegration," "multidimensional perspective," and "the simultaneous presence of time." Critics eloquently explain that Cubist painters do not depict objects as seen by the eye at a fixed angle according to the Western law of perspective, but rather expose the entire structural cross-section of the object on a single two-dimensional plane to achieve ontological authenticity.

For Surrealism and Expressionism, critical language employs terms such as "spiritual realism," "unconscious illusion," "internal distortion," and "impulse brushwork." Brushstrokes and color blocks on canvas are no longer static decorative elements, but are theorized into biological impulses, cries of individual identity against the assimilation of urban society. The Vietnamese adaptation of these terms did not stop at merely translating vocabulary mechanically from French or English. Saigon critics incorporated existential reflections, helping the public understand that each emerging new movement was not a mere imitation of a Parisian or New York trend, but rather an inherent need of the artist to find a visual language compatible with the fragmented reality of the time.

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The greatest breakthrough in South Vietnamese art theory during the 1954–1975 period was the upgrading of the existentialist philosophical concepts of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus into core aesthetic categories to define the value of art. Painting was no longer bound to the pursuit of the transcendent "Elegance" or "Beauty" characterized by harmony and tranquility of traditional aesthetics, but became an act of affirming the individual's right to exist before nothingness.

The category of "Commitment" in painting, as defined by the Saigon press, was the artist's refusal to shy away from the harsh reality of wartime life. However, this commitment did not mean transforming the work into a mechanical illustrative tool for any political ideology. It was a profound self-awareness of the artist regarding the human condition. Along with this, the two categories of "Absurdity" and "Identity" were utilized to the fullest extent to explain the appearance of deformed forms, harsh and cold color schemes, or empty compositions in the paintings of contemporary artists. Critics strongly asserted that when artists shattered classical visual laws or distorted the figures, it was not a sign of poor skill, but rather because they realized that the surrounding reality had lost its inherent order. The deformity and chaos in the paintings were the truest reflection of a torn soul, and the act of painting was the ultimate effort for the artist to confront the absurdity of their own identity.

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Despite the adoration and rapid adoption of modern Western trends, art criticism in South Vietnam before 1975 did not fall into a state of linguistic rootlessness or chaotic hybridization. A highly intense yet creative terminological dialogue unfolded in journalistic forums between two aesthetic trends: on one side, the pursuit of modernity, vanguardism, and contemporaneity, and on the other, the aspiration to return to Eastern consciousness, roots, and indigenous identity.

Critics belonging to the preservation and fusionist movement constructed a conceptual system aimed at Easternizing modern Western techniques. When analyzing paintings by artists such as Nguyen Trung and Dinh Cuong, or works in traditional materials like silk and lacquer, they proactively borrowed profound categories from Taoism and Zen Buddhism such as "emptiness," "tranquility," "illusory reality," "non-action," and "sad, harmonious colors" to engage in a direct dialogue with Western Abstraction and Expressionism. They presented a sharp theoretical argument that the pinnacle of Western abstraction was essentially already present in the expressive thinking and unpainted spaces of ancient East Asian painting. The combination of these terms created a unique dualistic style of criticism in Saigon's press, where writers used Western structural and geometric analysis to dissect the surface of the artwork, but called the soul and emotional depth of the painting by Eastern concepts of consciousness. This helped Southern art establish a distinct identity, simultaneously modern and global, while preserving the underlying cultural heritage of the nation.

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The development of Southern art theory before 1975 did not only occur in the painting and easel segment, but also faced a structural shift in traditional materials, especially lacquer. Art institutions of that era always strived to frame lacquer within the concept of flat, two-dimensional "painting" to demonstrate its purely artistic expressive capacity equivalent to European oil painting. However, the commercialization boom and the rapid development of major lacquerware companies in Saigon and Binh Duong, such as Thanh Le and Tran Ha, along with the participation of artists from the Indochina College of Fine Arts, pushed lacquer art beyond the flat surface of painting and into the three-dimensional structures of life.

The appearance of items such as modern geometric vases, lacquer-covered wooden sculptures, multi-panel folding screens, and contemporary furniture designs caused the old system of critical terminology to become ineffective. Saigon's journalistic critics could no longer use purely artistic concepts like "perspective" or "centripetal composition" to decipher an object with physical volume and practical function. From this, a new hybrid vocabulary emerged in magazines like Bach Khoa, marking a profound integration between the language of academic visual aesthetics and the language of industrial materials science.

The most radical transformation lies in the terminology used for the underlying structure supporting the lacquer layer. In flat painting, the term "vọc" (a type of wood) was the dominant concept, referring to a flat, technically treated piece of wood that the artist painted on. When lacquer art shifted to applied sculpture, this term quickly transformed and was replaced by the concepts of "sculptural core" and "self-contained form." Instead of analyzing the application of canvas and underlay on a two-dimensional surface, critics delved into the stability of the solid wood core or the load-bearing capacity of the sculptural form beneath the lacquer layer. For the convex and concave structures of vases or the curved surfaces of human statues, the terms "rounded edges" and "three-dimensional centrifugal composition" were developed. Theorists point out that smoothing a physically convex or concave surface is much more difficult than smoothing a flat canvas, requiring the artist and craftsman to master the variations in light at the actual angles of the solid form, rather than creating an illusion of light through the simulated polishing techniques of painting.

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The shift of lacquerware from flat canvas to three-dimensional structures sparked a lengthy terminological debate in the South Vietnamese press about the boundary between pure art and applied crafts. To resolve this conflict, Saigon critics proposed a highly harmonizing aesthetic category: "applied sculpture with painting characteristics." They resolutely refused to lower the solid lacquer products of large workshops to the level of everyday crafts, but elevated them to the category of "high-end fine art."

The application of deep, rich lacquer, the meticulous application of smooth eggshell inlay, or the gilding of gold and silver ingots onto carved wooden blocks depicting birds and maidens has been rationalized as the interiorization of painting. These works no longer remain static on museum pedestals or in the isolated spaces of art galleries, but directly participate in the spatial structure of the urban middle and upper classes. They are present at the Independence Palace, diplomatic reception rooms, and luxury hotels in the heart of Saigon, defining a lifestyle with a modern Indochinese identity, where art and functionality merge.

This shift also transforms the nature of the term "polishing." In flat painting, polishing is the act of using rough stones or charcoal to abrade layers of paint to reveal hidden forms beneath. But when applied to convex and concave sculptures or high-end household items, polishing must incorporate stringent requirements for durability and optical depth. Critics began using terms like "lacquer clarity" and "surface optical depth" to evaluate artworks. A sculptural structure with a standard lacquer finish had to create the sensation that the wood grain beneath was breathing through a translucent amber silk. The eggshell inlay on a vase or tabletop had to be smooth, polished, and perfectly flat to the touch. The language of art criticism in South Vietnam thus shifted dramatically from purely visual appreciation to tactile appreciation through the body.

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Looking back at the entire development process from 1954 to 1975, the system of terminology, concepts, and categories in art analysis and commentary in South Vietnam underwent a structural leap. The Vietnamese Quốc ngữ script, in the field of art theory, has fully matured, moving beyond interpretations based on literature to form a concise and independent system of philosophical concepts in art.

The integration of modern Western theories such as Phenomenology and Existentialism with ancient Eastern consciousness, along with the development of a vocabulary system with a technical and market-oriented nature, has created a multifaceted critical tool. This system of terminology is not only capable of deciphering and identifying the most cutting-edge trends in world painting, but also successfully solves practical problems of urban art life, from guiding the abstract appreciation of the public to theorizing and establishing the international status of indigenous applied lacquer and sculptural structures. The conceptual system built and tested during this period is a valuable theoretical legacy, leaving a profound mark on the structure of Vietnamese art language in subsequent historical periods.

NGUYEN HUNG

(Excerpt from the Handbook of Philosophy of Art - abridged version)

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NGUYEN HUNG

(Excerpt from the Handbook of Philosophy of Art - abridged version)