Notre Dame Cathedral in HCM City, taken by French photographer Pierre Dieulefils (1862 - 1937).Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - A recently published book featuring monochrome photostaken by French photographer Pierre Dieulefils (1862-1937) sheds light on Vietnam inthe late 19th century.
Through his lens, readers can see how significant architecture and beauty spotschanged. While Hue Royal Citadel and the Temple of Literature in Hanoi are keptintact, the landscape and surroundings of Hoan Kiem Lake and Saigon Notre DameCathedral look vastly different in the book.
Entitled "Dong Duong Xinh Dep và Ky Vi" (Picturesque andMonumental Indochina), the book aims to be a museum of images capturingIndochina in the late 19th century, filled with captions about the life andpeople in Vietnam.
A total of 261 photos by Dieulefils were collected from his trip to Indochinain 1885. He spent most of his life capturing images of people, landscapes, andwhatever he found interesting.
Dieulefils was born in Malestroit Village in the Bretagne region of France in1862. He joined the army in 1883 and was later assigned to Indochina in 1885.
Two years later, he was discharged and returned to France. In 1888, he returnedto Vietnam and became a professional photographer and postcard publisher.
In 1905, he went to Sai Gon (now HCM City) and then travelled to Phnom Penh andAngkor Wat in Cambodia.
In 1909, he gathered a set of photos on Indochina and published a photo bookentitled Indochine Pittoresque andMonumentale: Annam – Tonkin featuring the north of Vietnam.
The work earned him a goldmedal at the Brussels International Exposition of 1910. Then he releasedanother book entitled Cochinchine -Saigon et ses Environs featuring the south of Vietnam.
In 1913, he returned to France, spending most of his time composing poetry. Hedied in his hometown in 1937.
Dong A Company combined the two above-mentioned books and published it underthe name Picturesque andMonumental Indochina to bring a panoramic view on Vietnam in the19th century and provide a valuable historical reference for students andresearchers.
Apart from architecture and landscape, the photographer also captured thesociety and culture of Vietnam through images of northern women wearingtraditional long dresses, mandarins of the Nguyen dynasty wearingsophisticated long dresses with patterns and designs strictly regulated by thecourt, and a troupe with impressive costumes.
The captions and notes in the book were written in Vietnamese, French, Englishand German. They are translated into Vietnamese by Luu Dinh Tuan and Nguy HuuTam.
The 280-page book is on sale at bookstores for 680,000 VND./.
VNA
