Review by Choice Review
Taylor writes about painters in Hanoi during the colonial and postcolonial years of the 20th century and of the institutions, largely created by the state, that nurtured and shaped the values of the social groups that made, sold, and collected painting throughout that period. The study is based on extensive firsthand contact with painters, museum officials, art critics, and other crucial participants in the intellectual life of Hanoi. It is also based on the collective remembrance of such persons from the near past and of their multiple, reassessed reputations. The education of painters--initially on the French model--their interactions and rivalries, the impress of government support (or lack of it), the successes and failures of individual painters in the art market, the various mutations of the markets for paintings--are all considered as they contribute to shaping art production. The discourse is fundamentally academic and not always interesting. Taylor does little to illuminate why Hanoi painters painted what they painted the way they did, although she asserts that "they have chosen to pursue careers in art in large part because of the status that accompanies artists in Vietnam." Appendix listing artists with minimal information; 40 small color illustrations. ^BSumming Up: Not for academic libraries. D. K. Dohanian emeritus, University of Rochester
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
