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From the center of Hue city, go 9 km further east and you will arrive at Sinh village with its famous folk paintings. The village is also known as Lai An, located in Phu Mau commune, Phu Vang district, Thua Thien - Hue province. Sinh village paintings appeared nearly 400 years ago, through many ups and downs and today the village has become an attractive tourist destination.
Also a type of woodblock folk painting, Sinh village paintings are different from Dong Ho paintings (Bac Ninh), Hang Trong paintings (Hanoi) because they are only used for worship and burned after the ceremony. According to the people's concept, using paintings for worship will bring a lot of luck in life. Therefore, not only Hue people, but also neighboring areas such as Da Nang, Quang Tri, Quang Nam... often choose Sinh village paintings to use during Tet.
Sinh village paintings are completely handmade down to every detail. Photo: Van Nguyen
Different in purpose but in technique and materials, Sinh paintings are not much different from Dong Ho and Hang Trong paintings with the woodblock printing method. Sinh villagers also use Do paper or mulberry-stained woodblock paper to print paintings and natural materials to create colors.
Dong Ho paintings only have 4-5 basic colors including black, blue, yellow, red, while Lang Sinh paintings have more colors. Light yellow is made from crushed dung leaves with young pagoda tree buds, blue is made from Malabar spinach seeds, pagoda tree seeds make red-yellow, water from Indian almond leaves will give dark red, brick powder will give a single color, rice straw ash is dissolved in water then filtered, concentrated to make shiny black ink.
Spring festival in Sinh village paintings.
Blue, yellow, monochrome, red, black, and green are the main colors that create the brilliant colors of Sinh village paintings. The paintings are not printed with overlapping colors for many days like Dong Ho paintings, but are only printed roughly with a black engraving, dried, and then meticulously colored in the details.
The coloring process is done in an assembly line, each person is in charge of one or two colors, and when finished, they pass them on to the next person. At this time, the artist lets himself be inspired and imagined, letting his hands dance quickly on the black and white print. Some people even hold two or three pens between their fingertips to color two or three color blocks at the same time like a circus artist skillfully performing a brushstroke.
Children in Sinh village learn to draw from a young age. Photo: Van Nguyen
The bright colors combined with natural lines and compositions have created a very unique beauty for Hue folk paintings. People often buy paintings from Sinh village on special occasions such as Lunar New Year, first birthday, groundbreaking, praying for a good harvest, building a house...
People worship paintings to pray for peace and prosperity, for women to give birth safely, for children to grow up quickly, and for the sick to recover quickly. That is why Sinh village paintings are divided into paintings for worship and paintings for burning like burning votive paper.
There are about 50 themes expressed in paintings in Sinh village, divided into 3 topics: paintings of characters, paintings of objects and paintings of animals, reflecting the ancient beliefs of the Vietnamese people. Through that, visitors can understand more about the culture of the ancient capital.
The set of Eight Sounds with 8 young girls playing the zither in fairy costumes is a typical painting of Sinh village. Although the drawings are only rough and rustic, the costumes of the young girls are elaborate in every detail, such as the brooches, the hairpins, the coin patterns, the longevity character, the shoes on the feet and the musical instruments in the hands. Depending on the occasion of the festival or Tet and the scale of the worship, customers choose paintings with different sizes, 25x70 cm, or pairs (25x35 cm), three (25x23 cm) or four (25x17 cm).
Nowadays, Sinh village is not only a place to buy paintings for Tet but also an attractive destination for many tourists to visit and print and color the paintings themselves. Thanks to that, Sinh village paintings have followed tourists everywhere.
