Dong Ho is a small village along Duong river, next to the road connecting Ha Bac with Hai Duong - the two rich lands of the Red River Delta. Dong Ho, called Ho village for short, now belongs to Song Ho commune, Thuan Thanh district, Hebei province, right next to the district capital. Everyone in Ho village knows how to make paintings. They are farmers. Along with making paintings, Ho village used to make votive and firecrackers. The people of Ho are very proud of this art product. Dong Ho girl invited guests:
O you way to the highway
Stop watching the scenery that melancholy melancholy
Buy fresh picture leaflets
Buy flock of chickens, pigs give birth more.
Dong Ho specializes in making scrambles, which are traditional Vietnamese folk paintings. Scrambled capital using all domestic materials, easy to find and cheap. Do paper is made from that bark. The color in the picture is a homemade medicine, mixed with the lake in proportion to experience, familiarity, or eyes. Dong Ho painting uses woodblock carving technique. Dong Ho picture printing board is usually small, light and convenient in hand. How many colors a picture can print, because it only prints one color at a time. For example, the picture "Piglet" has four colors: blue, white, yellow and red. When printing in green, only the green patches will be printed on the picture sheet, printed in blue, then transfer the picture to another person to print the yellow or red printed board. Normally, after printing, the artist finally prints a black board with borders.
Wood carvings line with many different content. Paintings of chickens, pigs, toads, fish ... belong to the line of compliments. The painting "The Pig" recalls a scene of country life, which uniquely displays the nuances of the nation. Artisans in Dong Ho village are farmers who are attached to their land and garden. They rely on their own experience of understanding, along with lessons accumulated from generation to generation, oral tradition among the people that shows the picture of a pig. From the mother pig to the piglet, every child is shown fat, full, belly dragging close to the earth, muzzle wide to the ears, the end of the muzzle has two curved lines that look very funny and funny, which pig looks as well as an interesting smile. On the fat, plump, plump backs of the mother piglets and piglets, they also draw two circles with two spiral plates rolled together like Japanese-moon, yin-yang symbolizes the proliferation of universe. We see on the back of the mother pig has an orange-red patch, lying on the purple background of the pig body. The boundary of two distinct color space, which is a symbol of the "belt", is an array of hairs inclined in the other direction, closed into a "ring". The two circles on the side of the pig use the meaning of two "hairs" to close the sides of the pig. The pigs that have three generals "belt, big belly, four barns closed" are good sows: eat a lot, healthy, crowded, lucky, good breed that any villager also pond to wish. The picture "Pigs" becomes a meaningful blessing, a wish of the farmers who desire for a new, healthy, prosperous and harmonious family.
The picture “Poisonous Pig” with the image of a voracious pig eating the taro tree, all of which is a rectangular shape, corrects the corners into an oval shape, swells, touches the shoulders and butt to the frame. On the pigs, there are rectangular - moon, yin - yang, crescent motifs that increase the level of movement and decoration, creating a jubilant rhythm that impresses on reproduction and prosperity.
From the image of chickens and pigs in wood carvings, to the chickens, the pigs are fat, stocky, full of garden, full of yard in the countryside, is that the close relationship between the past and the present , between the dream and the reality of the farmer's life. Every year, on Tet holiday, unique color-printed wood carvings appear in the house, contributing to the cheerful and vibrant look to celebrate the new spring.
Tet holiday remember green cake
Remember the art of mice, remember the paintings of pigs and chickens.