Architecture in the service of imperial poetry

VietNamNet Bridge – Emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty were gifted and passionate poets. In addition to books, they showcased their works on the walls and rooftops of imperial palaces and temples.

VietNamNet Bridge – Emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty were gifted and passionate poets. In addition to books, they showcased their works on the walls and rooftops of imperial palaces and temples.

Documented heritage: Front view of Thai Hoa Palace. — Photos: Phuoc Buu (VNS)

In monarchic Viet Nam centuries ago, a person was considered talented according to his capacity to write poems and essays, and sometimes his public speaking. Monarchic era scholars produced poems, some of which remain popular - and valuable - today.

Most of the poems were written in books. But recently it transpired that there were special ways to showcase the poems and preserve them in a manner worthy of a UNESCO distinction.

Royalty in the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945), especially the kings, authorized the inscription of their poems on palaces, mausoleums, temples for their ancestors and dynasty-related pagodas.

The poems can be seen on walls and panels, on paintings and rooftops of royal structures.

“Those serve as documentary heritage items that are valuable on a national and international level. They reflect a keen sense of art and a capacity for poetry writing among the emperors,” said Phan Thanh Hai, director of the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre.

“The poem inscriptions reflect the mental power of the kings as well as the skills of calligraphers and carving artisans, whose efforts resulted in a very unique means of decoration born in the Nguyen Dynasty and only found in Viet Nam,” he said.

Experts say royalty were very skilled poets. The kings sought ways to showcase their many poems, both for education and entertainment purposes, and the inscription on royal architecture was born.

The inscription of poems became a trendy architectural art, from the dynasty’s second king, Minh Mang, to the 12th emperor, Khai Dinh. The art required skill, knowledge and talent on the part of the poets themselves, the calligraphers, carving artisans and painters.

The kings and their mandarins first selected poems and lines of prose that were meaningful and proper for the background of an intended building. The selected poems would then be written in the calligraphy of ancient Han Chinese characters. Carving artisans did the final work on concrete surfaces, wooden boards and even glass, using brush or broken porcelain pieces, ivory and enamel panels.

The work on glass, including the inscription of poems and accompanying paintings, was the most complicated as the artisans painted and wrote on the back and had to ensure that it could be read from the front. These pieces stand alone as a unique art form.

The architectural poem inscriptions produced a unique ornamental norm called nhat thi nhat hoa or nhat tu nhat hoa, according to which a poem (nhat thi) would be accompanied by a painting (nhat hoa), or a calligraphic word (nhat tu) and a painting.

The result, highlighted by red paint and gold-covered wood, broken porcelain pieces and colourful artistic patterns, made the interior of each building an art hall.

Stemming from the kings’ passion for poetry, poem inscription became an innovation in architectural decoration, setting it apart from the supernatural decoration patterns used centuries before.

The architectural inscription of poems also conveyed the message of patriotism and social norms. They turned the royal capital city of Hue into a unique and virtually unprecedented grand museum of Han character poems.

A study by the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre that manages all the relics of the dynasty, found a total of 2,967 poems on buildings in Hue, including the Thai Hoa Palace, Hung To Temple, The To Temple, Trieu To Temple located inside the Imperial City, the mausoleums of kings Minh Mang, Thieu Tri, Dong Khanh, Duc Duc and Khai Dinh, and Long An Palace near the Imperial City.

This total does not include other poems inscribed on Thai To Temple, Can Chanh Palace, Can Thanh Palace, Khon Thai Palace, which records show were home to thousands of architectural poem works but were destroyed by wars.

The Nguyen royalty attributed great importance to the architectural poetry. At Thai Hoa (Supreme Harmony) Palace, where kings met with mandarins and conducted royal ceremonies, poems were inscribed on almost every side of the building, including the front and back roofs, interior walls and roof connector panels.

The To Temple, built for worshipping dynastic ancestors, is home to a majority of the remaining royal poems. Those were even inscribed on wooden boards connecting the roof beams.

In May, UNESCO’s Asia Pacific Regional Committee for the Memory of the World Programme (MOWCAP) included the Royal Literature on Hue Royal Architecture on its Memory of the World Regional Register for Asia and Pacific.

The Royal Literature on Hue Royal Architecture thus became the fifth remnant of the city to be recognised by UNESCO, joining the Hue Complex of Monuments and Hue Royal Court Music recognised as world culture items, and the Nguyen Dynasty’s wood blocks and the Nguyen Dynasty’s royal records listed in the Memory of the World Regional Register for Asia and Pacific.

Susan Vize, acting director of UNESCO in Ha Noi, said at the recognition ceremony held in June in Hue that the architectural poem inscriptions were a unique decorative art of the Vietnamese people.

She touted the architectural poem works as masterpieces summarizing the social, political and cultural development of the Nguyen Dynasty over almost 150 years.

Although still in good condition, UNESCO has urged the conservation of the poetry works against the deterioration of time. Nguyen Van Cao, chairman of Thua Thien-Hue Province People’s Committee, pledged to protect the works and record them digitally.

Future study of the poem inscriptions is expected to provide additional insight into the content of the poems as well as their unique inscription methods.