Tử Xuân – An Exiled Painter or an Artist Who Found Himself?

Many people who visited the Allusive Panorama exhibition in Huế shared a common impression: that the paintings of Tử Xuân – Emperor Hàm Nghi – were filled with loneliness, sorrow, and the ache of exile. But I felt something else entirely.

Even before arriving in Huế, I had seen a few teaser images in the media – and they stirred something in me. I knew I had to see them in person. Just from a glance, I could already sense: these weren’t the works of someone who was sad or depressed. Not a chance.

At the opening, I waited until the crowd had drifted away to party. I stayed late on purpose – to have those 21 paintings to myself for a while. And yes, what I saw confirmed what I felt: this was not sorrow. These paintings shimmered with delicate light, with softness, with a kind of poetry that didn’t belong to despair. I only left for the reception after I’d had my fill.

The next morning, over coffee at Sai Gon Morin Hotel with Dr. Trần Đình Hằng – Director of the Central Institute for Culture, Arts, Sports and Tourism Studies – I shared my thoughts with him. “I don’t see sadness in his paintings,” I said.

And he offered something precious in return: by the time these works were made, Emperor Hàm Nghi had already lived through chaos and exile, but had also found joy in painting. This period was not one of mourning, but of rediscovery. He had found a kind of peace. A quiet aliveness glows in these works – something new and hopeful, not nostalgic.

When I look at a painting, I try to let it speak on its own. I don’t want to load it with my assumptions. If I learn more about the artist’s story, that’s a bonus – it opens new ways to feel the work – but it’s not a guidebook to understanding it. Every painting is born from something, but it can outgrow its origins. It lives on its own terms.

I remembered a coffee the day before, just outside the Citadel, at a sweet little porch across from the Four Directions Pavilion. My sweet friend Khánh – a gifted architect in Huế – shared something that stayed with me.

He had once filmed a simple rain falling from that very spot. One viewer called it beautiful and romantic. Another said, “So gloomy.”

The same rain. Two different hearts. What we see often says more about us than about the thing itself. Rain is just rain.

Unless we know for sure what Tử Xuân was thinking as he painted, I believe the best way to meet these works is with an open, quiet mind. If there’s a message hidden inside, let it find you on its own. Don’t rush to name it “exile,” “nostalgia,” or “patriotism.” Sometimes, a painting doesn’t need those heavy words.

For me, these paintings simply hold a tenderness, a gentle kind of presence that feels close. Maybe because the palette, the techniques, the mood – they resonate with what I often play with in my own art.
And maybe that’s why I felt such a personal connection to them.

Let’s look at them together, shall we?