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Vietnam was the earliest country in Asia to merge into the main stream of Western modern art. The founding of Ecole des Beaux Arts (The Fine Arts College of Indochina) by the French in 1925 played a significant role in achieving this. Master painter To Ngoc Van once said, "Without the Fine Arts College of Indochina, we all would have followed a wrong way". Until then, the Vietnamese focused primarily on village arts, which included woodblock printing, temple carvings and some brush painting learned from the Chinese. For 20 years, the French trained Vietnamese students in fundamental classicism, sometimes encouraging them to apply Western techniques on traditional, native themes.
Outsiders to Vietnam are often surprised to see that much of Vietnamese painting resembles European painting. Just a few years ago, nudes and abstracts were banned from museums and exhibitions. Today, the greatest change in contemporary Vietnamese art can be seen in the work itself. Artists work in all styles and techniques, attracting the attention of foreign communities and art collectors. Auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's recognize this and regularly sell paintings from contemporary and master Vietnamese artists.
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