Wood carvings - an art form with a unique painting language, under the creative hands of Quang Ninh artists have become impressive works of art, not only preserving traditional values but also having a contemporary color.
In recent years, woodcuts have undergone a dramatic transformation. In addition to traditional forms, contemporary artists are no longer limited to old patterns but have created new works that reflect the breath of modern society.
When it comes to wood carvings in Quang Ninh, people immediately think of artist Vu Tu Khang (Quang Yen Town). He has worked hard to create an art treasure with nearly 100 wood carvings and lacquer paintings imbued with traditional folk colors.
Woodcuts by artist Vu Tu Khang depict in great detail images of festivals, such as fishing village weddings, Yen Tu festival, Coc village rowing festival, early spring ceremony, and daily life from boats, wharves, rice flowers, fields, etc., in a style very close to Vietnamese folk paintings.
For Vu Tu Khang, engraving has been with him throughout his life. Through his painstakingly created works, we can see his persistent artistic labor to create a unique and valuable quality for engraving - a "rare commodity" among the painting materials of artists in Quang Ninh as well as the whole country.
If artist Vu Tu Khang represents the traditional folk-themed woodcut paintings, artist Le Hai Thanh (Uong Bi City) mainly exploits this genre with contemporary themes, infusing it with the beauty of modern life. Choosing woodcut paintings as the main material in his works, up to now, artist Hai Thanh has had more than 30 woodcut paintings, from monochrome to color, with many different themes...
Besides the two artists Vu Tu Khang and Le Hai Thanh who specialize in woodcut paintings, a number of other artists from Quang Ninh also have scattered woodcut paintings, such as artists Dao The Am, Nguyen Van Hiep, Vu Van Hung, Pham Hai Yen...
To make a woodcut, the artist is both an artist and a craftsman. Because the process to create a woodcut product must go through many steps, from sketching on paper, carving on wood to printing on paper..., in which the most elaborate step is the engraving stage.
With the traditional method, black and white woodcuts only need one block. With color prints, each color in the picture is a separate block and the line is usually black, printed last. Therefore, in a color print, if we see how many color blocks there are, there will be as many blocks for that color block.
Another technique for making color prints is destructive woodcut. With this technique, the artist only needs one wooden block for all the colors. After printing a color block, it is destroyed on the wood block. Each color is pressed on top of the previous color, creating many layers of color blocks. Usually, the light or pale color is printed first and the dark or bold color is printed later, and finally the black line is left.
Painter Hai Thanh said: The principle for creating engravings is that what needs to be embossed will be left intact, and the sunken part will have to be engraved. The process of printing woodcuts also requires certain techniques so that the printed lines are sharp, not blurred or faded in ink, and not overlapping. With color paintings, if the destructive printing method is applied, that is, printing each layer on a mold, it requires the artist's ingenuity and very good visual thinking.
For modern artists, choosing wood carving as a material for their creations is not simple, and the time it takes to create a work is long because it has to go through a time-consuming process of carving lines. However, the good news is that recently, the trend of creating wood carvings has started to return and artists in Quang Ninh are also more enthusiastic about experimenting with this genre of painting.
Wood carvings in Quang Ninh today not only preserve traditional cultural values but also integrate with contemporary art trends, bringing viewers surprising aesthetic experiences, demonstrating the value and timeless beauty of wood carvings.
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