Another portrait of King Hàm Nghi

People who have rendered meritorious servicerebuildThe artist who created the portrait of King Hàm Nghi is Amandine Dabat, a doctoral candidate in Vietnamese art history at the Sorbonne University - Paris IV. Notably, she is a fifth-generation descendant of King Hàm Nghi in France.

The Vietnamese king lived a life in exile.

History tells us that King Hàm Nghi (1871-1943), whose given name was Nguyễn Phúc Ưng Lịch, was the eighth emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, enthroned at the young age of 13. He was one of three Nguyễn emperors honored by history for their patriotism and resistance against the French invaders: Hàm Nghi, Thành Thái, and Duy Tân. After three years of leading the Cần Vương uprising, he was betrayed and captured by the French colonialists and exiled to Algiers, the capital of Algeria (French territory), in 1888.

Confined to a distant foreign land, living a lonely life in the Villa des Pins (in the village of El Biar), the young former king maintained his Vietnamese way of dressing and living, refusing to learn French, considering it the language of the invaders of his homeland. However, he eventually found the French in Algeria to be kinder than those in Vietnam, and due to the need for communication, he gradually learned and became fluent in French.

In 1904, 15 years after his exile to Algeria, Hàm Nghi married Marcelle Laloe in Algiers and they had three children: two princesses, Như Mai and Như Lý, and a prince, Minh Đức. King Hàm Nghi became the first king of the Nguyễn dynasty, and also the first king in the history of Vietnamese feudalism, to marry a Western woman.

During his exile, he studied Western painting and sculpture techniques. Archival records and a few surviving works reflect aspects of this period in the king's life, which are little known today.

Solitude shapes the artist.

Hàm Nghi was one of the first two Vietnamese painters to adopt the Western style.

In the art world, former Emperor Hàm Nghi, under the pseudonym Tử Xuân, was a true painter with a great passion for art and significant achievements; he didn't simply use painting to distract himself during his years of exile.

The former emperor's journey into art was quite unique. He didn't initially show any artistic talent. In 1899, he traveled from Algiers to Paris and was captivated by an exhibition of the renowned painter Paul Gauguin, which ignited his love for painting. From then on, he gradually immersed himself in color. His closest and most direct art teacher for 15 years was the French painter Marius Reynaud, who lived in Algeria.

The main themes in the king's paintings are landscapes and still lifes. Hàm Nghi's paintings and sculptures use Western techniques but blend them with the spirit of Eastern culture, his birthplace, incorporating familiar images such as fields, trees, flowers, fruits, and egrets at sunset. This helped him relieve his longing for his homeland and also formed the essence that made his works unique.

His paintings were influenced by the Impressionist school of France and Europe, but the colors were less vibrant, tinged with gloom and sadness, and rarely featured human figures, as if to express the mood of a deposed king.

The most prominent work in his artistic legacy is "Twilight," created in 1915. Thanks to the auction of this painting in Paris on November 24, 2010, the Vietnamese public learned about King Hàm Nghi as a painter. Before that, his paintings had never been published or introduced to the public because, during his lifetime, King Hàm Nghi considered art a means of expressing his feelings and sharing them with friends and family. His paintings were not sold but given as gifts to close friends. After his house burned down during the war in Algeria in 1962, most of his paintings were lost, and today only about 100 works remain.

King Hàm Nghi's regular trips to France were always opportunities for him to visit art galleries and meet French artists. From 1904, he studied sculpture with the great sculptor August Rodin. He sculpted small statues of women and busts of both men and women. Someone would sit as a model for him in his workshop in El Biar when he wasn't studying with his famous teacher.

King Hàm Nghi's preference for sculpture and subject matter was in stark contrast to his painting style, as most of his oil paintings are devoid of human figures. When figures are present, they are indistinct, as if to emphasize loneliness. While his paintings are predominantly landscapes, his sculptures all depict human figures.

The contrast between the king's oil paintings and sculptures illustrates the distinction between two worlds: the world of dreams and nostalgia reflected in the artist's inner world through the oil paintings, and the real world of the people surrounding him, depicted through the use of three-dimensional space.

Strangely, more than half a century after the death of former Emperor Hàm Nghi, people only vaguely learned that he had once painted and sculpted. Information about his works was only known through letters he exchanged with friends, especially the catalog of his solo exhibition in Paris in 1926 under the pseudonym Tử Xuân.

CULTURAL SELF-RESPECT THROUGH THE SIGNATURE OF TU XUAN

Why did Hàm Nghi sometimes sign his paintings as Tử Xuân, instead of Xuân Tử, his original childhood name? He signed his name clearly in Vietnamese script but without diacritical marks, in the French style: Tu Xuan.

According to Amandine Dabat's explanation, when he was fighting against the French and was exiled, Ham Nghi had not yet learned the Vietnamese Quốc ngữ script, only using French and Chinese characters. Later, Vietnamese people who had studied in France taught the former emperor the Quốc ngữ script, and he used it to sign his works.

Literary scholar Dr. Tran Hoai Anh argues that the fact that Ham Nghi wrote his name using Vietnamese grammar rather than Chinese grammar demonstrates the patriotic king's yearning for cultural independence.

Furthermore, the signature Tu Xuan, or Xuan Tu, also means "Son of Spring," as a subtle message of resistance and defiance of the title "Prince of Annam" that France had bestowed upon the former emperor. The poetess Judith Gautier wrote a poem for her close friend, whose pen name was Tu Xuan, containing verses that implicitly expressed the king's spirit of resistance:

Tu Xuan! Oh! Your flowers have just bloomed!

It was shattered by the fierce storm.

Shatter, just once, hope and roses.

Overthrow the opulent palace built of sandalwood…

King Hàm Nghi's exile was an opportunity for him to inadvertently discover and develop his artistic talent. This deposed king became a passionate but quiet artist, his works largely unknown. In fact, his works can only be understood within the context of his life as a political exile.

The king's works lie at the intersection of Vietnamese and French cultures. However, strangely, it was more than half a century later that his valuable works were rediscovered. They still move us, transcending national, ethnic, or school-specific expressions. Perhaps this is the fundamental premise for establishing a worthy place for the king-artist Hàm Nghi in the history of Vietnamese art?

Amandine Dabat - the artist who recreated the portrait of King Hàm Nghi

• Anne Dabat (1985) is the maternal great-grandmother of King Hàm Nghi. Her maternal grandmother was the daughter of Princess Như Ý, the king's second child. She was born and raised in France, but spent her youth researching her roots and decided to choose the life and artistic aspects of King Hàm Nghi as her doctoral dissertation topic.
• During a visit to Vietnam to attend a seminar on the theme "King Ham Nghi: An Artist's Life," organized by the French Cultural and Cooperation Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Amandie, a fifth-generation descendant of King Ham Nghi, served as a speaker.
• With her profound and objective knowledge, she helped shed light on many surprising and interesting aspects of the artistic king. She introduced the artistic life of King Hàm Nghi, aspects that were largely unknown, and outlined his journey into art during his exile.
• As researcher Nguyen Dac Xuan noted: "Amandine's doctoral dissertation studies the entire artistic life of King Ham Nghi. Ham Nghi was a painter, a sculptor, and a photographer. Once this dissertation is completed, along with Le Van Mien, King Ham Nghi will be recognized as one of the first two Vietnamese artists to paint and sculpt in the Western style."

Huyen Chau