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Lot Essay
Paintings that depict or reproduce scenery have held an important position in art from ancient times, but with the passage of time, traditional scenic landscapes have entered the contemporary context. Contemporary artists are attempting to apply diversified media and Western concepts of painting in ingenious new ways to traditional scenic paintings, while making use of classical Eastern themes to present their thoughts on life and nature.
The fantastical imageries of children created by Zeng Jianyong are often allegories for the human condition today. A reference to the Analects of Confucius, In the Wild (lot 226) shifts the artist's focus to nature. Zeng explores the relationship between man and nature through the depiction of the landscape, encouraging the modern-day viewer to revisit the beauty of nature.
With delicate brushwork flowing from his pen and brush, Lin Guocheng depicts the beauty of nature, bringing to the fore the organic forms of mountains, trees, rocks, streams and clouds. The blurry, misty outlines of distant mountains with a river flowing through the valley pay homage to the Chinese landscape painting tradition. Here, the lines replace textured strokes in the landscape painting of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and yet Layered Trees on Cliffs, particularly its intricate web of lines, uncannily recalls Old Masters drawings. Deeply interested in cosmic energy and the pulse of nature, the artist provides a fantastical glimpse into the universe.
In Hope in the Distance No. 2 (lot 231), Zhao Bo expresses his thoughts on modern society by means of the changing energies in nature. Is what lies in the unknown distance somehow different after we have traveled a long road of thorns and brambles? As Robert Frost once said in The Road Not Taken, "I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
With his 'gardens'—a vehicle both special and yet very common—Xiao Fangkai (lot 232) has become engaged in a long-term creative endeavor. In a work that seems to have been strongly influence by Chinese painting, Xiao presents not merely a traditional scene, but even more, a kind of symbol for cultural and spiritual space. He once noted that "In my view of things, I don't really take the garden courtyard as an overly special symbol. It's just a vehicle, a special kind of scenery, but in itself it's also a kind of text, or a pretext. What I do is to make use of this vehicle to engage in a narrative, or you could say to convey something to the viewer."
Focusing on landscape themes, Zhang Wanqing (lot 237) depicts empty mountains, devoid of human activity—yet somehow we feel humanity's presence everywhere, or perhaps the mountains themselves take on a human flavour. Inspired by blurred pictures in the mass media, she builds her paintings from short, curving brushstrokes; these iconic brushstrokes dissolve natural details and pictorial elements to produce wholly imaginary scenes. Even if Zhang's work suggests the prospects of new technologies and defamiliarization, she nevertheless returns us to the intimate relationship between people, and between people and nature.
The fantastical imageries of children created by Zeng Jianyong are often allegories for the human condition today. A reference to the Analects of Confucius, In the Wild (lot 226) shifts the artist's focus to nature. Zeng explores the relationship between man and nature through the depiction of the landscape, encouraging the modern-day viewer to revisit the beauty of nature.
With delicate brushwork flowing from his pen and brush, Lin Guocheng depicts the beauty of nature, bringing to the fore the organic forms of mountains, trees, rocks, streams and clouds. The blurry, misty outlines of distant mountains with a river flowing through the valley pay homage to the Chinese landscape painting tradition. Here, the lines replace textured strokes in the landscape painting of the Song and Yuan dynasties, and yet Layered Trees on Cliffs, particularly its intricate web of lines, uncannily recalls Old Masters drawings. Deeply interested in cosmic energy and the pulse of nature, the artist provides a fantastical glimpse into the universe.
In Hope in the Distance No. 2 (lot 231), Zhao Bo expresses his thoughts on modern society by means of the changing energies in nature. Is what lies in the unknown distance somehow different after we have traveled a long road of thorns and brambles? As Robert Frost once said in The Road Not Taken, "I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."
With his 'gardens'—a vehicle both special and yet very common—Xiao Fangkai (lot 232) has become engaged in a long-term creative endeavor. In a work that seems to have been strongly influence by Chinese painting, Xiao presents not merely a traditional scene, but even more, a kind of symbol for cultural and spiritual space. He once noted that "In my view of things, I don't really take the garden courtyard as an overly special symbol. It's just a vehicle, a special kind of scenery, but in itself it's also a kind of text, or a pretext. What I do is to make use of this vehicle to engage in a narrative, or you could say to convey something to the viewer."
Focusing on landscape themes, Zhang Wanqing (lot 237) depicts empty mountains, devoid of human activity—yet somehow we feel humanity's presence everywhere, or perhaps the mountains themselves take on a human flavour. Inspired by blurred pictures in the mass media, she builds her paintings from short, curving brushstrokes; these iconic brushstrokes dissolve natural details and pictorial elements to produce wholly imaginary scenes. Even if Zhang's work suggests the prospects of new technologies and defamiliarization, she nevertheless returns us to the intimate relationship between people, and between people and nature.