Some Characteristics and Trends of Wood Engraving Paintings in Ho Chi Minh City from 1986 to Now

The art of woodcarving in Ho Chi Minh City since 1986 has reflected a vivid reality of land in a vibrant historical period with renovation and development. Woodblock paintings in Ho Chi Minh City show a characteristic of Ho Chi Minh City’s culture which is the dynamism and diversity in tolerating new things from the form of expression to adaptation and development. On the other hand, images, language, and penmanship with simple expressiveness, close to social reality can also be considered as another feature in Ho Chi Minh City woodcut paintings. A common feature is that almost all Ho Chi Minh City woodblock painters during this period experimented with many different trends: the tendency to preserve traditional values, the tendency to innovate, and the realistic tendency. The above compositional trends will be analyzed in the following article.