In 1954, as peace was re-established in one half of the country with the total liberation of North Vietnam, right in 1955 a two-year secondary short course was organized under the name of "To Ngoc Van batch" in the former location of the Fine Arts College of Indochina.

It was also at this place (No 42 Yet Kieu Street, where was the back door of the Fine Arts College of Indochina, N042 former Bovet Street) that the Fine Arts College of Vietnam was set up, coming directly under the Ministry of Culture, by a decision dated August 20, 1957 taken by the Prime Minister, and aiming at training artists in two sections: painting and sculpture, at University level.

On January 29, 1981, the president of the Council of Ministers of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam signed a decision to transform the Fine Arts College of Vietnam into Fine Arts University of Hanoi and this name is valid until now.

The history of 20 years of the Fine Arts College of Indochina was in fact recognised as the history of the first stage of the Fine Arts University of Hanoi.The model for organisation and the programme for training of the Fine Arts College of Indochina exerted a great influence over the model for organisation and the programme for training of all fine arts school of Vietnam subsequently, including the National Fine Arts College of Saigon set up by painter Le Van De in December 1954, the forerunner of the present-day Fine Arts University of Ho Chi Minh City.

SADEAI is the abbreviation (in French language) of Annamese Society for the Encouragement to Art and Industry, a fine arts organisation next to the Fine Arts College of Indochina.

The Annamese Society for the Encouragement to Art and Industry was founded in May 1934. Legal capacity was recognised to it by a decision taken by the General Governor dated August 6, 1935. Its social seat was in the Fine Arts College and its president was precisely the director of the College.

The Society admitted as its members Vietnamese artists and handicrafsmen. Its intention was to contribute to the development of arts and it is impossible to make mention of a single misappreciated and miserable artist.

The French Revolution, that ended the 18th century, would not be con­tent with imprisoning or guillotining some artists. In its picture of Paris under the Directoire, the Goncourts have struck a frightful balance of the destruction of works of art in this period. Artists lost not only examples, the framework of their life, but also their material support.

Then, it was the brief interlude of the Empire and its attempts to initiate a style. Napoleon would manage to do it for decorative arts, but the "uninspired" painting dated from him, with this "jumble modelled on classical antiquity" which Chardin already denounced in the young David's works, a jumble that the Egyptian and the medieval would not upgrade. It is a significant fact that only fine portraits by this artist held out against time.

In practice, from the time of Napoleon, people in power would no longer play a role in art. Their taste would be appalling, notably during the seventy years of the Third  Republic, a system quite "poor in women and horses", as it had been described by Anatole France.

It is right to say that in Europein the 19th century as well as in the early 20th century, this derioration in taste in official circles, was common occurrence. It is France that had the honour of having been, in spite of these disastrous conditions, the only centre of resistance, of having had enough disinterested artists.

Marshal Petain, talking about the place taken by artists in his mind, has referred to this state of things in one of his first messages. Admiral Decoux displayed by signs the interest he took in those questions. But when we examine, in chronological order, the works of our best artists, from 1789 to these days: Ingres, Delacroix, Corot, Manet, Cezanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Matisse, Dufresne, R. Dufy, Oudot, we see clearly how official circles, and consequently the mob, have kept out of the way. The distorted ideas of a Cezanne, for instance, perhaps reached the mob, yet it is purchasers and success that imposed them with some delay.

The force of painting resided in the fact that it can be exerted with little cost. True painters, as one moved into the 19th century, renounced large compositions commissioned by the government. They fell back evermore upon landscapes, still life, and portraits: one tightened one's belt another hole, yet the official art also became discredited.

There from dated the long-haired, restless, conceited, often ridiculous, but courageous and, from many points of view, sympathetic "Bohemian". And if some artistic circles sometimes fell into anarchy, one should find the cause thereof in the lack of taste and incomprehension that we have

just pointed out. That does not matter for a country that had the Apelles. The Alexanders should also use them. The new Alexanders would soon have their photographs taken. The bourgeois before 1830, date of birth of photography, kept rather stingily a crowd of portrait-painters. So we would see them soon covered with disgrace and ridiculed. "Bourgeois" would even become a serious insult. From this epoch dated also the great political caricature.

The invention of photography would make rapid progress. If some impressionists were bent on competing with it by heading for colour snapshots, the best ones considered, at the very outset, the differences between production of a machine and human production. It is then an extraordinary movement of ideas, an abundance of researches in different directions.

If one examines under this angle the work of a Corot or, better still, a Degas, the scrutiny will be convincing and we promise the unbiased reader a series of remarks. They will allow him to understand better, first of all the works of these painters, and afterwards what people used to call "impressionism" or even "cubism", so as to please those who still believe in schools. People will also understand better the recent researches of a Matisse, and this simplification, this search for patches and colour arabesques, which were the preoccupations of the more recent generation and especially of the group of Roland Oudot, Brianchon, Legueult, Inguimberty. This group interests us on two grounds since it now exerts an undeniable influence upon Annamese painting.

Since we deal with this subject, how was Indochinese painting in 1924 when the Fine Arts School of Hanoi was founded? Not a single name, not a single work, everybody agrees upon this point. Indochina, in this field, was nothing. There existed a vague tuition in Chinese painting. People practised outlining, after books, with a paint brush and India ink, different kinds of rock, trees, flowers or animals. People composed with these elements imaginary landscapes. Let us say that not everything in this tuition is to be held in contempt, not everything is incompatible with European conceptions. Yet this isolated tuition is narrow. Results there were none. People went round in a circle, people fell asleep. The Chinese neighbours still produced only horrors. As the European public was excessively fond of works of the Ming period, the Chinese, as good merchants, produced them with all their might. It should be agreed that nothing can be more akin to the 1900 style, "to delirious macaroni", as Paul Morand put it, than this declining Chinese art.

We should also keep in mind that all fine Chinese works of art are found in collections or museums, in London, in Tokio, in Paris and, above all, in America. An amusing and important thing to be noted is that the Annamese will know and understand the great Chinese painting thanks to the French, and only after getting in touch with European painting.

1924, date of the founding of Hanoi  Fine  Arts  School, is thus an important date. Annamese painters are not. mistaken. So they venerate the memory of the founder of their school, M. Victor Tardieu. We have not known this first director. The photographs we have under our eyes show him tall, with a stick in his hand, gaiters of cloth on his shoes, a watch; chain across the waist-coat, his trim hair being absolutely white. The eye is lively behind a pince-nez of American bankers, that is the whole portrait of a man about to preside ever an administrational council and, in fact, he was a good manager. He was also an undeniable animator, if we judge him from all the exhibitions held since the birth of the school and all the manifestation in which the school took part.

He had a quality that is still more uncommon; he knew how to choose his collaborators. If he himself was a third-rate painter, as one can judge it from the canvas he leaves us at Hanoi  University, he at least, being in the trade, was in a position to understand its requirements. Knowing the precarious existence of his school, he was neither intimidated nor disheartened by attacks which beset all first steps.

The Fine Arts School of Hanoi began to work in 1926. The first students left school in 1931. What are fifteen years in the artistic life of a country? And nevertheless, the accomplished work is enormous. One of the professor, Inguimberty, has truly created a painting movement and brought lacquer in the service of artists. Lacquer seems destined to take a great place in the future Indochinese history of art.

Indochinese painting embarks on a good path, the one followed by all great artists of all times, the one of those who always thought that art is above all a choice and a simplification.

In conclusion, we shall say that the Annamese will not flush with the French origin of their nowadays artistic movement. Some conversations with painters from this country have made us understand that they are sometimes afraid of losing their personality when coming into contact with Europe. To fight against this childish idea that would be harmful to their talent, we will ask them to listen to this:

By a demilune sheet of water stands a two-storeyed pagoda. Some parallel sentences in Chinese characters embellish it while dedicating it to friendship. The vast castle surrounding it was full of lacquered furniture and so-called Chinese porcelains. And where is this pagoda? - Right in the middle of France. Duke Choiseul, who has made it built, lies near the place where was inhumed Leonardo da Vinci, in a tomb which calls back to mind those one sees in Tonkinor in the outskirts of Hue. The grave yard is one on the Italian pattern. What a medley! people would say. But, no! the whole thing, as well as the details of the pagoda, the graveyard and the tomb, are quite French.

Talent gives rise to forms and methods used by it, even when they are considered in most peculiar places.

The only way to be original is to have talent, and we are happy to say that Annamese artists like Nguyen Gia Tri and To Ngoc Van, not to speak of others, demonstrate it abundantly and thus perfectly serve their country.