In Vietnam, verse meant to last

People in monarchic Vietnam centuries ago might be considered talented if they could write poetry and essays and speak well in public. Some of the poems written during the era remain popular today – and valuable.

While most poetry appeared in books, it has recently emerged that there were other ways to present and preserve it in a manner worthy of Unesco distinction.

Kings and other royalty of the Nguyen Dynasty (1802-1945) had their poems inscribed in paintings and on the walls of palaces, mausoleums, temples dedicated to their ancestors and dynasty-related pagodas.

The poems can even be seen on the rooftops of royal structures.

“These are documentary heritage items and are valuable at both the national and international level,” says Phan Thanh Hai, director of the Hue Monuments Conservation Centre. “They reflect a keen sense of art and a capacity among the emperors for writing poetry.

“The inscriptions reflect the mental power of the kings, as well as the skills of calligraphers and carvers, whose efforts resulted in a very unique means of decoration that was born in the Nguyen Dynasty and is only found in Vietnam.”

Experts have found the royalty of the era to be skilled at poetry. The kings sought out ways to showcase their poems for both educational and entertainment purposes. Inscribing poems was the vogue in architectural art from the dynasty’s second king, Minh Mang, to the 12th emperor, Khai Dinh. It required skill, knowledge and talent on the part of the poets, calligraphers, carvers and painters.

The kings and their mandarins first selected poems and lines of prose that they felt suited an intended building. The poems were then written in the calligraphy of ancient Han Chinese characters. Carvers worked on concrete surfaces, wooden boards and even glass, using brushes, pieces of broken porcelain and ivory tools.

Working on glass was the most complicated because the inscribing had to be done backwards – written on the back but read from the front. 

The architectural inscriptions engendered an ornamental practice known as nhat thi nhat hoa, sometimes called nhat tu nhat hoa. A poem (nhat thi) or a calligraphic word (nhat tu) would be accompanied by a painting (nhat hoa).

The result was an interior decorated in red paint and gold-covered wood, porcelain shards and colourful artistic patterns.

Stemming from the kings’ passion, the inscribing of poems became an innovation in architectural decoration, setting it apart from the supernatural-inspired patterns used in previous centuries.

At the same time it promoted patriotism and social norms. Hue, the royal capital, became an unprecedented grand museum of Han character poems.

The Hue Monuments Conservation Centre, which manages all the relics of the dynasty, found 2,967 poems on buildings in Hue. These include the Thai Hoa Palace, Hung To Temple, The To Temple and Trieu To Temple inside the Imperial City, Long An Palace nearby, and the mausoleums of kings Minh Mang, Thieu Tri, Dong Khanh, Duc Duc and Khai Dinh.

There are more poems at Thai To Temple, Can Chanh Palace, Can Thanh Palace and Khon Thai Palace, the last once home to thousands of them until they were destroyed during wartime.

The Nguyen royalty attributed great importance to the architectural poetry. At Thai Hoa (Supreme Harmony) Palace, where kings met with mandarins and conducted ceremonies, poems were inscribed on the front and back roofs, interior walls and roof-connecting panels.

The To Temple, built for worshipping dynastic ancestors, boasts the majority of the surviving royal poems, some inscribed on wooden boards connecting the roof beams.

In May Unesco’s Regional Committee for the Memory of the World Programme included “the Royal Literature on Hue Royal Architecture” on its Memory of the World Regional Register for Asia and Pacific.

The architecture became the fifth remnant of the city to be recognised by the United Nations agency. Already on the list were the Hue Complex of Monuments and Royal Court Music, recognised as “world culture” items, and the Nguyen Dynasty’s wood blocks and royal records, listed in the same Memory of the World Regional Register.

Susan Vize, acting director of Unesco in Hanoi, said at a ceremony in June that the architectural poem inscriptions formed a unique decorative art of the Vietnamese people. They are masterpieces summarising the social, political and cultural development of the dynasty over almost 150 years, she said.

Although the works are still in good condition, Unesco has urged their conservation. Nguyen Van Cao, chairman of the Thua Thien-Hue Province People’s Committee, pledged to protect the works and also make digital records.

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