Reading behind the lines

Posters such as these were used as propaganda

By Sarah Buckley BBC News Online

Audiences accustomed to living the Vietnam War through a Western lens have been given a rare chance to see the conflict differently.

Much of the art shows the role played by women

The British Museum in London is hosting an exhibition of North Vietnamese art from 1965-75 - called Vietnam Behind the Lines.

Unlike much of the Western representation of the Vietnam War, which shows it as a dramatic and bloody event, these pictures have a different agenda.

The art avoids the brutal depiction of battle, and rarely shows casualties, instead seeking to lift the national spirit through sentimental evocations of hard work, camaraderie and pastoral scenes.

Art with a cause

The majority of the artists were patriots who worked alongside the guerrilla army. Some worked directly for the government, producing hand-painted posters for propaganda purposes.

All the exhibits are startlingly simple.

The propaganda posters use bold blocks of colour and draw on the cartoon-like style of socialist realism.

And the delicate sketches and paintings of camp life, intelligence briefings and transportation give the impression of being hastily snatched on the move.

Daily life

But their prosaic quality makes the glimpses of tragedy they do give away all the more affecting - the dread and fear on a woman's face; trees made jagged by napalm.

Sentimental scenes of camaraderie are common

The pictures also make evident the role played by women - known as the "long-haired army" - in the war. Their roles included active combat.

And some of the sketches evoke another astonishing aspect of the combat - the extensive use by the North Vietnamese of tunnels, in which entire villages would hide.

However, the stress of the exhibition is on the simple grinding hard work on the sidelines of combat; of war behind the scenes and struggle behind the lines.

Vietnam Behind the Lines is at the British Museum, Great Russell Street, London (020 7323 8299) until 1 December.