Mai Thu, « La Femme au Collier Rouge » (The Woman with the Red Necklace), 1945, or the question without an answer
This exquisite work was painted by a 39-year-old man born near Haiphong in northern Vietnam in 1945 in Vanves, just south of Paris.
Two places, two influences.
They are connected here by the thread of talent.
An established artist since moving to France in 1937, he was well exhibited, appreciated, and purchased by private collectors and the French state.
In this piece, he presents a young woman in three-quarter profile, dressed and coiffed in the Tonkinese style. She is clearly focused on a necklace of red beads.
Her lightly made-up face expresses slight tension, which her hands clasping the necklace confirm.
She examines this pearl necklace, the color and material of which already carry multiple symbols.
Red symbolizes warmth and joy. In ancient Vietnam, the land that inspired our painter, the phrase “pull the red silk thread” meant “choose a wife.” We should also mention the red (yang) walls and gold (yin) roofs of the palace in Hue, where Mai Thu lived for six years.
The pearl is one of the “eight jewels” offered to Buddha and is also a symbol of feminine beauty.
This red pearl necklace draws us into a subtle world where the signifier and the signified challenge each other. A delicate polysemy.
The artist paints a subtle background of whites, grays, and beiges that centers the subject, forcing us to focus on the relationship between subject and object—clearly the theme of his work.
The artist contrasts the warm light on the young woman’s face and hands with the pronounced gravity of her hair and necklace.
This interplay of visual hierarchies immediately directs the viewer’s gaze toward the triangle formed by the head, hands, and necklace. This triangle is the strategic center of the composition, a concept that Nguyen Phan Chanh would have approved of and praised for its economy of ink. The red necklace evokes an inner reaction in the young woman that the viewer and probably Mai Thu can sense, though they cannot fully grasp it. This pictorial meditation on desire, memory, and the fragility of the moment is the driving force of life by existential necessity.
It is a beautiful yet infinite meditation in which an artist, far from a country but close to a soul, questions himself in the hope of never finding the answer.
A very beautiful work.
Jean-François Hubert