Vietnam War artists from both the North and the South risked their lives to capture many different aspects and events of the War in various media including paintings, drawings, and sketches. Nguyễn Toan Thi, a guerrilla artist in the South, who after the War became the Director of Hô Chí Minh City Fine Arts Museum, recounts his experiences as follows: “Art classes were held outside in the forest until our schools were bombed: classes were then held underground. Art teachers and students shared the same trenches. We fought and sketched together, to record spontaneous and realistic images of the battlefield and our life in the forest. Our headquarters were not like a mini-Pentagon. The administration, soldiers and artists lived in nylon and canvas tents under the forest trees … We moved camp every two or three days… As a guerrilla artist, I was fully engaged in the fighting. Unlike artists who were civilians…” (Nguyễn Toan Thi, “Memories of a Guerrilla Artist”, in Buchanan 2008.
Stamps:
4. (bottom left) - "Fight till the end". Silk painting. Artist: Cố Tấn Long Châu. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1967
Rabindranath Tagore reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of the "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse" of "Gitanjali," he became in 1913 the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Tagore's poetic songs were viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. He is sometimes referred to as "the Bard of Bengal". And indeed the national anthems of Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka were based on writings by Tagore. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla". The Sri Lankan national anthem was inspired by his work.
