Types of Thinking and Art Forms in Vietnamese Folk Culture

Vocabulary flashcards covering the types of artistic thinking, visual and performing folk arts, linguistic generalizations, and characteristics of Vietnamese folk culture before and after Western influence.

Folk Visual Art Thinking

The process of reproducing reality through color, lines, and shapes by selecting, simplifying, stylizing, and exaggerating key features rather than copying exact reality.

Đông Hồ Folk Paintings

Traditional Vietnamese paintings featuring familiar animals like pigs and chickens, which symbolize community wishes for abundance and prosperity.

Folk Performance Gestures

Stylized and conventionalized movements in folk performance that represent character states and actions rather than directly mimicking real-life behaviors.

Folk Linguistic Thinking

The community's method of using concise, image-rich language, metaphors, and personification to condense daily observations and natural phenomena into memorable folk wisdom.

The Hundred-Node Bamboo Tale (Cây tre trăm đốt)

A folk tale that utilizes magical fiction—where Buddha turns a bamboo tree into one hundred nodes—to help a poor farmer overcome oppression, symbolizing the desire for social justice.

Folk Artistic Thinking

The way folk communities perceive, interpret, and describe the world through images, emotions, and cultural experiences closely tied to labor, beliefs, customs, and daily life.

Syncretism in Folk Art (Tính nguyên hợp)

As defined by Prof. Đinh Gia Khánh, a characteristic where artistic elements and real-life aspects (language, music, dance, beliefs, customs) co-exist and interweave within a single holistic cultural phenomenon.

Dragon Motif in Vietnamese Folk Art

A sacred symbolic figure associated with power, sanctity, rain, and water control for wet-rice agriculture, as well as Vietnamese national origin in the concept of Con Rồng cháu Tiên.

Traditional Decorative Motifs

Folk decorative themes prior to the August Revolution, including Tam Đa (Three Abundances), Tứ Linh (Four Sacred Animals), Ngũ Phúc (Five Blessings), Bát Bửu (Eight Treasures), and Tứ Hữu (Four Friends).

Pre-August Revolution Religious Dances

Ritual performance dance forms reflecting spiritual beliefs, including Lên đồng, múa Văn, múa Võ, múa Bát vật, múa Tứ linh, múa Tam đa, and múa Bát tiên.

Tuồng and Chèo

Traditional Vietnamese theater forms demonstrating syncretism by integrating music, singing, and dance into a comprehensive performance art.

Thơ mới (New Poetry Movement)

A Western-influenced Vietnamese literary movement prior to 1945 that broke free from traditional rigid rules and conventional symbols to emphasize individual emotion, self-expression, and freedom.

Western-Influenced Architecture in Vietnam

Urban architectural structures built between the late 19th century and 1945 reflecting cultural adaptation, such as Bến Thành Market, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai High School, and Marie Curie High School.

Hanoi Fine Arts College (Trường Cao đẳng Mỹ nghệ Hà Nội)

An artistic educational institution established in 1924, illustrating Western cultural adaptation and innovation in Vietnamese fine arts.