Footnotes

Provenance
Findlay Galleries, New York
Private Collection, New York

武高談
Maternité Rose
一九六五年作

簽名：Vu cao dam 65
油彩畫布

來源
美國紐約Findlay Galleries
美國紐約私人收藏

Among all the great Vietnamese masters recognised today, Vu Cao Dam remains one of the most admired for the finesse and poetic beauty of his body of work. Born in Hanoi in 1908 into a scholarly family, Catholic but of Confucian tradition, he entered Hanoi's École des Beaux-Arts de l'Indochine in 1926 at 18 years old, a year after the school first opened. At only 23, he was selected to participate in the 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition and gained much acclaim from the local press and art critics of the time.

The subject of Mother and Child was a favourite theme often visited by Vu Cao Dam, and this work is a perfect example of his sensitive interpretation of this age-old theme. This peaceful and contemplative depiction shows a young mother seated in royal ease, leaning on one arm as she cradles her infant against her chest with the other. They are surrounded by a dream-like garden set in twilight, leaving the viewer guessing if it is night or day.

The artist integrated the colours through form with painterly strokes used to highlight the transition of the pigments. The spattered patterns suggest leaves and flowers in shifting light set in this romantic and mysterious landscape. One senses the artist's instinctive use of colour symbolism as he employed predominantly dark pigments which he contrasted sparingly with pure white, as seen in the baby's white clothing and the shimmering backlit glow.