makes me wanna find pre ww2 visual art from there

Same here. I looked it up after I saw this. This collection is only from approved art by the communist regime formed after WW II.

some starters here https://www.nguyenartgallery.com/history-of-vietnamese-fine-...

Rude.

I wouldn't say it like that, but it represents basic communist-style propaganda until the 80s where they replaced everything with half-naked ladies. It's still interesting from a historical point of view.

What a ridiculously narrow perspective. Of course the art is massively influenced by a) Soviet propaganda, and b) communist hegemony, but at the same time every stroke of the pen is a decision by a conscious, thinking individual.

And several of the items—"Love Poems of Hue"—aren't overly propagandistic. So really, you're just dehumanizing an entire people, which is disgusting.

+1

Also, this collection spans much more time than communist Vietnam? 1900-2020s? Weird take.

Yes it does cover more time, but did you look at what's available in non-communist time periods? Did you click through the site? Not much else is there.

It's not like communist art is so abundant in the word that it's so boring to have another collection of them.

Also a lot of these are stamps and explicit propaganda posters, right? Like what do people expect. Stamps are… I mean, it is cool when a nice picture is used but it isn’t high art right? Some flora or fauna is pretty standard postage stamp fare. And they are well drawn.

Propaganda posters, of course, lean into propagandistic tropes as a language. For propaganda posters they are pretty creative and well drawn. Better than a dozen pictures of Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves.

This collection is dehumanizing, not my comment. There is much much more to Vietnamese design and art than what is shown here. There is also a modern design culture from the diaspora that is not reflected here. This is an overwhelmingly political body of work, dominated by state control. By definition it is not from individual creative expression. I completely stand by my original statement.

> This collection is dehumanizing, not my comment.

Put up or shut up.

Such a wild take after looking at, for example, a propaganda poster captioned “Work together to develop pig breeding and new varieties of rice” where the artist has decided to make the pigs in question bright purple with yin-yang signs on their backs.

That caption is a state mandated edict. It is compulsory and at the service of government goals. Making the pigs purple is not exactly a strong manifestation of individuality.

the irony is that such a style itself contributes to the diversity of art, by its mere existence

almost made me wonder if url changed to something completely different between the time this was posted and now

The link hasn’t changed since I submitted it.

I find it quite expressive to be honest. But I get your point about the absence of creative freedom.

Most art, anywhere, always, had to comply with some power. I don't believe it's very different today in the west, although it manifests diferently.

The most stringent exemple of this may be rennaissance painters who've spent a great part of their talent painting portraits for aristocrats. Yet, even in that case of very narrow use case and vital necessity to please the power, the art can be creative, can't it? Once you manage to set aside that violent scrumbag looking down at you.

About 1/4 of these are advertisements for American companies in South Vietnam ;)

Please don't start ideological (or, god help us, nationalistic) flamewars on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html