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拍品专文
‘What I want to see is space: the expansion and twisting of space, and the infinite shades of blue conjured by the reflection of a single leaf on the water.’ – Zao Wou-Ki
Infused with the aesthetics of ink art, with rich, weighty brushstrokes concentrated in one side of the canvas, 19.04.89 pays homage to the foundational principles of classical Chinese landscape painting. Between a densely rendered space on one side, and a wide, open expanse on the other, the viewer’s gaze travels freely to take in the asymmetry in tension. This work is exemplary of Zao Wou-Ki’s consummate mastery of oil paint: in bold and fluid brushstrokes, his colours layer over and blend with each other, intermingling and breaking apart to evoke space. It is as if ink was seeping and breathing on Xuan paper to generate a vast, moving and always-changing scenery in a traditional Chinese landscape painting. Artists from both the East and the West have long sought to address the challenge of using the finite space of a canvas to present an infinite space. While Western artists often employ perspective, light and shadow, and contrast to create depth, breadth and texture, their Chinese counterparts apply the concepts of scattered perspective and empty space to encourage the imagination of space.
Traversing between the two, Zao uses colour layering, splattered brushstrokes and one-sided composition in this work to create the visual effect of infinity. 19.04.89 was first exhibited at the Jan Krugier-Ditesheim Gallery in Geneva, which had a long-standing collaborative relationship with Zao since 1985. It later passed through the collection of the Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei, before being acquired by the Yageo Foundation, Taipei. Between 1998 and 1999, this work was included in Zao Wou-ki, 60 ans de peintures (which translates as ‘Zao Wou-ki, 60 years of paintings’), a major touring exhibition which travelled to the Shanghai Museum, the National Art Museum of China and the Guangdong Museum of Art. The exhibition comprehensively traces the artist’s sixty-year artistic journey and further cemented his stellar status and enduring legacy in the world of Chinese art. At once rooted in traditions and groundbreaking, 19.04.89 is a work which masterfully amalgamates the artistic languages of the East and the West while also boasting a distinguished provenance and exhibition record. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most representative masterpieces by the artist from the 1980s.
Zao was active in the American art scene from the late 1950s to the 1960s. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism, he gradually moved away from the use of symbolism to embark on his exuberant and impassioned ‘Hurricane’ period. Through the layering of oil paint and razor-sharp brushstrokes that look as if they were executed with the speed of wind and lighting, the artist imbued his paintings with an explosive energy and tension. This was followed by a period when his creative practice turned increasingly inward, subdued and poetic, as he grieved over the death of his wife in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the period during which 19.04.89 was created, the artist revisited his earlier exploration of the spirit of Chinese ink painting. This time, he achieved even more profound breakthroughs in the articulation of ‘borderless scene’ (wu jing zhi jing), an ideal that is much sought after in Chinese painting. The composition of his works became increasingly free and expansive, with a fluid vitality conveyed by brushstrokes that intersect and break. Liberating the finite space of his canvas from the constraints of a physical landscape, Zao created a vast realm that bridges the natural world with the spiritual cosmos.
By the 1980s, Zao was already enjoying an unparalleled reputation in both Asian and Western art circles. His abstract paintings were internationally acclaimed, cementing his iconic status in post-war art history. In 1981, the Grand Palais in Paris hosted a large-scale retrospective exhibition to comprehensively showcase the fruits of over thirty years of his creative life in France. In 1983, at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the artist held his first major solo exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. In 1985, he returned to his alma mater, the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, for a teaching stint, a homecoming which would prove to be a crucial opportunity for the artist to re-examine traditional Chinese art. During this period, he delved deeply into the spiritual essence underlying the brushwork and the spatial concepts in Chinese ink art, transforming and integrating it into his abstract paintings. From 1988 onwards, his biography was published and released successively in many countries, a testament to his soaring international reputation.
‘After 1986, Zao Wou-Ki seemed to abandon all established methods and returned to the natural and casual in his painting… Sometimes, it appeared to be in the manner of Shitao, blending the old, the stimulation, the raw and the awkward.’ – Professor Joseph Wang
After returning to teach at the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, Zao again turned his gaze to classical Chinese culture. Having already established a solid foundation in Western modern art, the artist threw himself once more into the turbulent currents where Eastern and Western art converged. In 19.04.89, layers of dark green, jet black, navy blue and crystalline purple fuse and bleed into each other. Imposing blocks of colour dominate one corner, resembling towering mountains or rugged boulders tempered by the passage of time. Splashes, smudges and dry brushstrokes of paint intersect to evoke fluidity, luminosity and rhythm of breaths. The concentration of energy and momentum on one side of the canvas calls to mind the famous ‘one-corner’ landscapes of the Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan, while the sharply defined, layered brushwork subtly echo the ‘axe-cut’ style of Song Dynasty landscape painting. By adapting ‘axe-cut’ – where brushstrokes are vigorously applied with a slanted brush to render the solid structure and lofty grandeur of rocky peaks – to the medium of oil painting, Zao injects a sense of weightiness into an abstract landscape.
The immense space on the right side of 19.04.89 demonstrates Zao’s modern reinterpretation of a Chinese landscape painting concept whereby the finite space of the canvas is used to manifest a landscape with no bounds. Though seemingly devoid of any concrete form, the versatile colour rendering and brushstrokes subtly allude to what lies underneath: as specks of greyish-pink, fluorescent green and brown scatter, and thin layers of paint fuse on the canvas, a willow branch seems to emerge deep within the faintly visible mist. Such symbiosis of the tangible and the intangible, as well as the manifestation of the whole by the part, can be traced to the core aesthetic principles of Song Dynasty landscape art. These principles were transmitted from China to Japan alongside Zen culture and ink art, gradually evolving into a fundamental pillar of Japanese painting. From the Kano and the Rinpa schools to the ukiyo-e landscapes of Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, one can observe the continuation and development of one-sided composition, selective framing and negative space. Because of the massive export of Japanese art to the West during the Meiji Restoration, the influence of Song Dynasty landscape aesthetics continued on to reach modern artists in Europe such as Monet and Cézanne. The use of space in Cézanne’s watercolours not only conveys light and a sense of airiness but also loosens the rigidity of the Western technique of perspective, endowing his works with an openness akin to the interplay of the concrete and the abstract found in Chinese paintings. An artistic lineage spanning China, Japan and Europe, and stretching back nearly a thousand years, was thus formed. Under Zao Wou-Ki’s paint brush, this lineage is reinvigorated and transformed into his very own language of contemporary abstract painting.
Infused with the aesthetics of ink art, with rich, weighty brushstrokes concentrated in one side of the canvas, 19.04.89 pays homage to the foundational principles of classical Chinese landscape painting. Between a densely rendered space on one side, and a wide, open expanse on the other, the viewer’s gaze travels freely to take in the asymmetry in tension. This work is exemplary of Zao Wou-Ki’s consummate mastery of oil paint: in bold and fluid brushstrokes, his colours layer over and blend with each other, intermingling and breaking apart to evoke space. It is as if ink was seeping and breathing on Xuan paper to generate a vast, moving and always-changing scenery in a traditional Chinese landscape painting. Artists from both the East and the West have long sought to address the challenge of using the finite space of a canvas to present an infinite space. While Western artists often employ perspective, light and shadow, and contrast to create depth, breadth and texture, their Chinese counterparts apply the concepts of scattered perspective and empty space to encourage the imagination of space.
Traversing between the two, Zao uses colour layering, splattered brushstrokes and one-sided composition in this work to create the visual effect of infinity. 19.04.89 was first exhibited at the Jan Krugier-Ditesheim Gallery in Geneva, which had a long-standing collaborative relationship with Zao since 1985. It later passed through the collection of the Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei, before being acquired by the Yageo Foundation, Taipei. Between 1998 and 1999, this work was included in Zao Wou-ki, 60 ans de peintures (which translates as ‘Zao Wou-ki, 60 years of paintings’), a major touring exhibition which travelled to the Shanghai Museum, the National Art Museum of China and the Guangdong Museum of Art. The exhibition comprehensively traces the artist’s sixty-year artistic journey and further cemented his stellar status and enduring legacy in the world of Chinese art. At once rooted in traditions and groundbreaking, 19.04.89 is a work which masterfully amalgamates the artistic languages of the East and the West while also boasting a distinguished provenance and exhibition record. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most representative masterpieces by the artist from the 1980s.
Zao was active in the American art scene from the late 1950s to the 1960s. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism, he gradually moved away from the use of symbolism to embark on his exuberant and impassioned ‘Hurricane’ period. Through the layering of oil paint and razor-sharp brushstrokes that look as if they were executed with the speed of wind and lighting, the artist imbued his paintings with an explosive energy and tension. This was followed by a period when his creative practice turned increasingly inward, subdued and poetic, as he grieved over the death of his wife in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the period during which 19.04.89 was created, the artist revisited his earlier exploration of the spirit of Chinese ink painting. This time, he achieved even more profound breakthroughs in the articulation of ‘borderless scene’ (wu jing zhi jing), an ideal that is much sought after in Chinese painting. The composition of his works became increasingly free and expansive, with a fluid vitality conveyed by brushstrokes that intersect and break. Liberating the finite space of his canvas from the constraints of a physical landscape, Zao created a vast realm that bridges the natural world with the spiritual cosmos.
By the 1980s, Zao was already enjoying an unparalleled reputation in both Asian and Western art circles. His abstract paintings were internationally acclaimed, cementing his iconic status in post-war art history. In 1981, the Grand Palais in Paris hosted a large-scale retrospective exhibition to comprehensively showcase the fruits of over thirty years of his creative life in France. In 1983, at the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the artist held his first major solo exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. In 1985, he returned to his alma mater, the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, for a teaching stint, a homecoming which would prove to be a crucial opportunity for the artist to re-examine traditional Chinese art. During this period, he delved deeply into the spiritual essence underlying the brushwork and the spatial concepts in Chinese ink art, transforming and integrating it into his abstract paintings. From 1988 onwards, his biography was published and released successively in many countries, a testament to his soaring international reputation.
‘After 1986, Zao Wou-Ki seemed to abandon all established methods and returned to the natural and casual in his painting… Sometimes, it appeared to be in the manner of Shitao, blending the old, the stimulation, the raw and the awkward.’ – Professor Joseph Wang
After returning to teach at the Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, Zao again turned his gaze to classical Chinese culture. Having already established a solid foundation in Western modern art, the artist threw himself once more into the turbulent currents where Eastern and Western art converged. In 19.04.89, layers of dark green, jet black, navy blue and crystalline purple fuse and bleed into each other. Imposing blocks of colour dominate one corner, resembling towering mountains or rugged boulders tempered by the passage of time. Splashes, smudges and dry brushstrokes of paint intersect to evoke fluidity, luminosity and rhythm of breaths. The concentration of energy and momentum on one side of the canvas calls to mind the famous ‘one-corner’ landscapes of the Song Dynasty painter Ma Yuan, while the sharply defined, layered brushwork subtly echo the ‘axe-cut’ style of Song Dynasty landscape painting. By adapting ‘axe-cut’ – where brushstrokes are vigorously applied with a slanted brush to render the solid structure and lofty grandeur of rocky peaks – to the medium of oil painting, Zao injects a sense of weightiness into an abstract landscape.
The immense space on the right side of 19.04.89 demonstrates Zao’s modern reinterpretation of a Chinese landscape painting concept whereby the finite space of the canvas is used to manifest a landscape with no bounds. Though seemingly devoid of any concrete form, the versatile colour rendering and brushstrokes subtly allude to what lies underneath: as specks of greyish-pink, fluorescent green and brown scatter, and thin layers of paint fuse on the canvas, a willow branch seems to emerge deep within the faintly visible mist. Such symbiosis of the tangible and the intangible, as well as the manifestation of the whole by the part, can be traced to the core aesthetic principles of Song Dynasty landscape art. These principles were transmitted from China to Japan alongside Zen culture and ink art, gradually evolving into a fundamental pillar of Japanese painting. From the Kano and the Rinpa schools to the ukiyo-e landscapes of Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige, one can observe the continuation and development of one-sided composition, selective framing and negative space. Because of the massive export of Japanese art to the West during the Meiji Restoration, the influence of Song Dynasty landscape aesthetics continued on to reach modern artists in Europe such as Monet and Cézanne. The use of space in Cézanne’s watercolours not only conveys light and a sense of airiness but also loosens the rigidity of the Western technique of perspective, endowing his works with an openness akin to the interplay of the concrete and the abstract found in Chinese paintings. An artistic lineage spanning China, Japan and Europe, and stretching back nearly a thousand years, was thus formed. Under Zao Wou-Ki’s paint brush, this lineage is reinvigorated and transformed into his very own language of contemporary abstract painting.