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Vietnam - Finding a muse

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French artist Anne Marie Besancon found the inspiration to start painting on a 1999 journey through Vietnam. She explains how she found her muse.

Was born in 1945 in a little town in Haute-Loire, France, called Brioude. I was the third child of a family of twelve children - six boys and six girls. The death of my father when I was only 11 years old and the death of my mother ten years later made me completely devoted to my own family. I tried to do exactly as my parents had done, to overcome any hardships that might arise.

It was when I met my husband, Vincent, an architect and painter, that my life was transformed. As well as raising four children, I helped Vincent in his work. Each year we traveled with our children, our luggage full of brushes and sketch-pads. We went to Italy, Morocco, Greece, Spain, New York and Egypt. Then in 1999, our son who was teaching in Hanoi at the time brought us to Vietnam.

With Vietnam came the culture shock of Asia, a different experience for each of us. Vincent published a book of sketches of his travels in Vietnam (Gallimard 2000). It was also at that time that my life changed completely. I discovered painting.

From the moment I set foot on Vietnamese soil, the stupendous beauty of the landscape with its magnificent colors, changing skies, and gentle people were all sources of inspiration for me. It was s shock.

Already on the road leading from the airport to Hanoi the scenes leapt out at me like living paintings. I only took notice of the women. During my journey from North to South I admired how these women worked so religiously in the paddy fields, replanting rice. I saw women on bicycles with baskets full of flowers, fruit and all kinds of implements; women carrying heavy loads to market early in the morning; women who, from daybreak, worked hard physically. I watched women praying in pagodas, women from Ao Cai and Sapa who carried their whole lives with them, a child on their back, finely chiselled silver jewellery, around their neck, and a dress decorated with magnificent embroidery. I saw schoolgirls in Ho Chi Minh City walking on the dusty earth in their white ao dai, all slim-fingered, all beautiful. What a sight!

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