'Footsteps in the Gallery' Brings High Art to the Public

In 2024, Truong Thi An Na launched the book My Musical Walk, introducing readers to most of the world's most famous classical music authors and works. Also combining the writing style of an essay describing the emotions of the audience with the research and collection of documents of a serious scientist , the author continued to launch the book Footsteps in the Exhibition Room .

Những bước chân trong phòng triển lãm đưa nghệ thuật đỉnh cao đến với công chúng - Ảnh 1. — Cover

What is special is that Truong Thi An Na is not a musician or a painter, nor does she specialize in researching these two art fields, but she has the strength of being a doctor of French, born into a family of teachers who are fluent in French culture, from her grandfather - Mr. Truong Quang Phien, who was the Chairman of the Administrative Resistance Committee of Quang Tri province in 1948. After studying and teaching French in Hue and Ho Chi Minh City, then studying and doing her doctoral thesis in France, she approached the selection of classical music made by Le Monde newspaper in the early 21st century. In the Foreword of the recently published book, the author said that thanks to her "left-handed" job, she has had the opportunity to visit many European museums over the past decades: " ...In addition to my main job of teaching French, I also participate in the field of artistic embroidery... often having to attend many fairs in Paris... ". Thanks to that, Truong Thi An Na has attended many exhibitions and visited many art museums because "in addition to my love for painting, I also hope that through the emotions from the depths of my heart with those paintings, I will find inspiration to create embroidery designs... ".

These things only provide the author with materials and knowledge, it takes passion and a lasting love for the pinnacle of art for An Na to be able to write the two books mentioned above. With classical music, just give a detail, and readers will see that: Truong Thi An Na has seen The Nutcracker 7 times, since Tchaikovsky's ballet was staged in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011.

Những bước chân trong phòng triển lãm đưa nghệ thuật đỉnh cao đến với công chúng - Ảnh 2. — A page from the book introducing the painting *My Mother, My Mother, My Mother (Ma mère, ma mère, ma mère* - 1929) by artist Salvador Dalí

To write the book Footsteps in the Exhibition Hall, the author had to spend more time and "cost more money". The book is over 500 pages thick with hundreds of color prints of more than 20 famous artists such as Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973), Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903), Leonard De Vinci... It took a lot of effort for the author to be able to describe " my stories, experiences, passions, feelings and emotions about some (of the hundreds of thousands) of paintings by artists that I have seen in many exhibitions over the past decades ..." (Excerpt from the Preface). Elaborate and extremely passionate about art. Domestic readers may find it difficult to imagine the scene of Truong Thi An Na "lining up for more than three hours in the cold of a Paris winter day to see the exhibition of Claude Monet's paintings at the Grand Palais..." . The author wrote like that on the opening page of the book and also the first page of the introduction to the "most beloved" painter Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) which is 30 pages long with 25 color photos. And thanks to that, readers can "enjoy" the beauty of the painter's works through Truong Thi An Na's book with the same harmony: "... When looking at his paintings, I seem to find the time I lived here again, feeling like I am breathing the familiar salty air of the sea, the strong scent of the land, overwhelmed by the majesty of each cliff and feel my heart gently soaring high with the seagulls spreading their wings across the sky" .

Những bước chân trong phòng triển lãm đưa nghệ thuật đỉnh cao đến với công chúng - Ảnh 3. — One of the 15 pages of the book introducing paintings by British artist David Hockney - the world's most expensive contemporary artist (the author saw his exhibition in 2017 at Pompidou, France)

The article about Salvador Dalí and René Magrite is also very elaborate. The interesting thing is that from the works of these two leading surrealist painters (in which Truong Thi An Na really liked the work My mother, my mother, my mother - Ma mère, ma mère, ma mère, Dalí painted in 1929) - a Spaniard, a Belgian, both in the distant "West", with very different personalities, but the author of the book, while looking at their paintings, "wistfully" remembered the melody of a song by Van Cao "in the sky of his childhood memories" : "My village is green with bamboo shade, each bell in the afternoon, the church bell rings" ...

It can be said that the author's cultural reach and true art have the power to transcend geographical boundaries, connecting differences. And as Truong Thi An Na quoted a sentence by American painter Edward Hopper: "If I could express it in words, there would be no reason to paint" , readers should join her in the book to feel and enjoy; not to enrich their "knowledge of painting", but to join the author "to go to the end of emotions, to see life and the people around us more lovable, to see that painting always creates its own vibrations that words can hardly replace..." .