Beginning with the continuation of the Circle of time series - presented in this exhibition at VCCA, I’d like to share a few words about the influences inspiration from images and nature of ancient poetry in my recent works, in particular these four verses from the four great Chinese poets that I admire:
 

The moon shines over my bed
As if night mist covers the ground
(Quiet Night Thoughts - Li Bai, Vietnamese translation by Nam Tran)

Jade dew falters over the maple groves
Wu Mountain quietly sits in the dreary Autumn
The wind sweeps over soaring waves
At the distant frontier, clouds join the earth in darkness
(Autumn Meditations - Du Fu, Vietnamese translation by Nguyen Cong Tru)

The hometown fades away as night fall
The smoke-shrouded river burdens one’s heart
(The Golden Crane Tower- Cui Hao, Vietnamese translation by Tan Da)

Boats near and far engulfed in stillness
Only the Autumn moon gleams over the river
(The Song of the Pipa - Bai Juyi, Vietnamese Translation by Phan Huy Vinh)

Each of these verses paints a different landscape and context, which I consider deeply relatable to the paintings in The Circle of Time. In these ancient poems, I find a direct and phenomenal sense of space, light, imagery and time. These fleeting senses appear swiftly and suddenly, and bear a synoptic quality. The lines may seem short, but the poetic space they deliver is vast and comprehensive - one that makes way for an extensive segment of time and space. This poetic space folds and unfolds quickly, and as we wander inward, it opens up an all-encompassing view. All of the presented elements are equal and supplemental to each other: poetic schemes hint at spatial qualities, scenic depictions convey inner emotions, illusions of light indicate infinity and the boundless scenes of nature reveal each and every lonely microcosmic human existences deep within it. Thus, what our eyes are drawn toward becomes the focal point.
The ephemeral space clears our mind of burden, allowing us to stroll through it - akin to the layers of time, the dusts and ashes of the past, across which we traverse. It hastily appears before
us, then vanishes from our sight and our desperate grasps. Such is the nature of lyrical imagery, it sweeps through one's mind with the speed of lightning.
Within nature, where the poet retreats and find liberation, exists the scene of a ground covered in night mist - a leeway for surging emotions in moonlit nights. Li wrote these verses in the year he turned 25, during the rule of emperor Xuanzong of Tang (685-762). Since his departure from Sichuan, Li never had the chance to return to his hometown. Each and every time that I revisit the verses in Quiet Night Thoughts, my mind is gripped by the sensation: veils of moonlight enshrouds a tranquil night in a misty haze, evoking in the poet a heartfelt loneliness, a yearning for his hometown which he could only see in the shadow of memories.
From any angle within the layers of the poetic space, we can see every details with great clarity, and as we step backwards, the layers become more and more expansive. When we’ve reached a viewpoint that’s ample enough, they become neither close to us nor distant from us; their proximity to our grasp manifests through words and hidden meanings. The misty haze paints a luminous expanse, in which scenes whisk by, and our vision becomes blurred and overwhelmed. Wherever our mind finds its rest, there lies the poetic inspirations, the sights, and the sentiments. Perhaps, that is the excitement I find in the usages of panoramic perspective in classical Asian paintings and poetry.
Du Fu, after a life in exile, wrote these line in a somber Autumn afternoon:

Jade dew falters over the maple groves
Wu Mountain quietly sits in the dreary Autumn
The wind sweeps over soaring waves
At the distant pass, clouds join the earth in darkness

(Autumn Meditations - Du Fu, Vietnamese translation by Nguyen Cong Tru)

Personally, I find this to be the finest manesficient and solemn verse about Autumn scenery in all of Tang poetry. Each line in the verse depicts a different aspect of the view in a different tone, from the autumn atmosphere, the autumn sky, to the vibrant hues and the earth in autumn. These scenic aspects compliment each other, hinting at inner sentiments. The astounding moment is then recounted: as Du Fu passed by the grandiose scenery on an arduous walk in Qinzhou, he was seized by the soaring waves of time and found the inspiration to write such splendid lines. Alongside the outstanding Vietnamese translation by Nguyen Cong Tru, we can see in the poem (and its translation) the spirit and temperament of both the poet and the translator.
Comparably, Cui Hao depicts the smoke-shrouded riverscape in the dusk in a more romanticized manner. A melancholic, homebound pondering hums through the cloak of mist that emanates like thin smoke, enveloping the river surface. The scenic depiction becomes one with personal
thoughts - the fading afternoon and the wistful nostalgia. A boundless space then emerges from the words, one where the water meets the sky in the distant horizon, making way for the sensational closing lines:

The hometown fades away as night fall
The smoke-shrouded river burdens one’s heart

On the other hand, Bai Juyi’s Song of the Pipa portrays a sudden change in the scenery, when the former officer of Jiujiang encounters the sound of the pipa at night by the Bon river. As the pipa player ceased her song, the chilling air and the frozen water stood still in time. The poetic structures of picture/sound /light/time/space within the poem abruptly shift:

Boats near and far engulfed in stillness
Only the Autumn moon gleams over the river

Bai Juyi brilliantly portrayed the swift halt of the Pipa player’s song, capturing every visual and aural sensation within a single, gentle motion of the hand, then opening up an entirely different segment of time and space. In the 616 lines of Song of the Pipa, I find these two the most magical and phenomenal.
I have always held a belief that artistic values, whether in the arts or poetry, are always concerned with the crucial factors of time, space and distance. Standing in front of a painting, skimming through a few poetic verses, the sentimental remnants within ourselves and the dense layers of time sweep through our eyes and mind, like fleeting shadows from the past passing us by in a winter afternoon.

English translator by Nghia Pham
Hanoi, Autumn 2018

Ha Manh Thang