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Lot Essay
Liao Chi-Ch'un spent his early years studying in Japan where he cultivated basic concepts and techniques, eventually maturing his practice for strict realistic sketching techniques together with bold use of colours. Liao's personal style is strongly rooted on the fundamentals, hence, on his solid sketching technique and incisive power of observation. Since his return from Europe and America in 1962, the artist's style underwent evident transformation. In 1970, he reached the peak of his artistic achievement with his Garden series that exhibited a blend of subjective colour and abstract forms. Nevertheless, he ceased his quest for purely abstract style and instead chose to illustrate his reinterpreted understanding of "form" and "colour" to present representative objects. Given a comprehensive observation on the development of Liao's art, seascape was repeatedly explored and researched through realistic sketching style of his early period, with the use of colour pink of fauvism in 1960s and also through the deconstruction of landscape that cross between semi-representation and abstract; thus, in which The Seashore (Lot 1007) was composed for the artist's preference and proficiency in this particular theme in 1973. This painting became Liao's unique masterpiece with its combination of abstract composition, with his innovative expression of color and form that further contributed to the attentive depiction of scenery image.
The Seashore is one of the favored and successful subjects in which artists can express both the scene and convey volumes of emotion through multifarious visual elements, such as composition, light and shade, colours, dots, lines and planes. Liao Chi-Ch'un typically depicted seascape in a horizontal and stable composition, however, here, he arranges rocks in the foreground which slant from the top left corner to the bottom right corner, covering nearly half of the painting. Conjoint seashores and remote mountains extend into the opposite direction in order to balance the whole composition, boldly creating a slanting horizon. Within the contrast and struggle, the painting conveys a tension of clearness and openness, originating from Liao's training and accomplishment on abstract concepts in the 1960s. Rather than adhering to the appearance and shape of objects in reality, he reconstructs the objects with his perception of nature, not only preserving the visual balance but also strengthening the sense of rhythm of the painting within a well-arranged composition. Meanwhile, the artist tries to trace the outlines back to basic geometrical forms. Mountains and rocks are simplified to triangle or irregular geometrical forms. Through tight and solid piling, he strengthens the relationship between space, cutting among elements and composition. Extracting from elements of dots, lines, planes and more, Liao Chi-Ch'un uses short lines to display the rugged veins and complicated changes of rocks, echoing with zun brushstrokes and traditional moss points, which are results of the evolution of traditional Chinese landscape painting. He combines lines and planes within sketches of oil painting. His use of brushes resembles traditional short-brushstrokes. Inheriting Chinese scholars' aesthetic views on landscape, he has also developed his own language of creation.
The foreground of The Seashore takes advantage of colours. The principal colours here reflect the "five primary colours" used in the costumes and makeup of traditional Chinese opera (blue, red, yellow, white, black). Liao spent his childhood years in Fengyuan, and echoed the vivid colours from brightly coloured shrines and temple fairs, wherein these saturated primary colours produced vivid comparisons. In the center of the painting, white waves surging against the rocks create a visual focus, and along the 'S' shape shoreline, the use of white palette is reduced; objects darkening and retreating to draw out the depth of the field and to instill a sense of distance. Liao Chi-Ch'un applied his favourite color pink as the axis of the painting. Though not overwhelming the painting in large amount, pink penetrates the foreground, middleground and background, reverberating between the high and the low, the far and the near, the deep and the shallow. Inspiring a sense of subjective sentiment, Liao's use of colours in fact originates from his accomplishment of light and space in his past realistic sketching, thus, allowing Liu to overlook the emphasis on change of light in the painting as he developed a brilliant collocation of chroma and lightness to create a neat but rich expression of colours.
Liao Chi-Ch'un once quoted on his art, "Now it is no longer a question of the choice between abstract or representational art: whether or not we present real forms, what matters is expressive content. The form of a painting is nothing more than a medium for the artist's spiritual expression." As contemporary artists have already broken the barrier of form, Liu advocated for a new and liberal expression for subject matter that abandon restriction. The Seashore too, maintains perfect unity between theme and form, composition and depiction, as well as elements of form- such as dots, lines, planes harmonizing with each other. Whether it may be primitive construction of creation or final refinement on details, Liao Chi-Ch'un's works manifests his quest for the real construction of form hidden under the exterior of the subjects he paints. Here, colour is not dependent of lines and planes, but rather takes the aesthetic command in conveying Liao's philosophy and emotion; it supplements brushstrokes and veins or vice versa, showing articulacy of the painting, furthermore as channel in embracing the profound basis of traditional Chinese culture.
The Seashore is one of the favored and successful subjects in which artists can express both the scene and convey volumes of emotion through multifarious visual elements, such as composition, light and shade, colours, dots, lines and planes. Liao Chi-Ch'un typically depicted seascape in a horizontal and stable composition, however, here, he arranges rocks in the foreground which slant from the top left corner to the bottom right corner, covering nearly half of the painting. Conjoint seashores and remote mountains extend into the opposite direction in order to balance the whole composition, boldly creating a slanting horizon. Within the contrast and struggle, the painting conveys a tension of clearness and openness, originating from Liao's training and accomplishment on abstract concepts in the 1960s. Rather than adhering to the appearance and shape of objects in reality, he reconstructs the objects with his perception of nature, not only preserving the visual balance but also strengthening the sense of rhythm of the painting within a well-arranged composition. Meanwhile, the artist tries to trace the outlines back to basic geometrical forms. Mountains and rocks are simplified to triangle or irregular geometrical forms. Through tight and solid piling, he strengthens the relationship between space, cutting among elements and composition. Extracting from elements of dots, lines, planes and more, Liao Chi-Ch'un uses short lines to display the rugged veins and complicated changes of rocks, echoing with zun brushstrokes and traditional moss points, which are results of the evolution of traditional Chinese landscape painting. He combines lines and planes within sketches of oil painting. His use of brushes resembles traditional short-brushstrokes. Inheriting Chinese scholars' aesthetic views on landscape, he has also developed his own language of creation.
The foreground of The Seashore takes advantage of colours. The principal colours here reflect the "five primary colours" used in the costumes and makeup of traditional Chinese opera (blue, red, yellow, white, black). Liao spent his childhood years in Fengyuan, and echoed the vivid colours from brightly coloured shrines and temple fairs, wherein these saturated primary colours produced vivid comparisons. In the center of the painting, white waves surging against the rocks create a visual focus, and along the 'S' shape shoreline, the use of white palette is reduced; objects darkening and retreating to draw out the depth of the field and to instill a sense of distance. Liao Chi-Ch'un applied his favourite color pink as the axis of the painting. Though not overwhelming the painting in large amount, pink penetrates the foreground, middleground and background, reverberating between the high and the low, the far and the near, the deep and the shallow. Inspiring a sense of subjective sentiment, Liao's use of colours in fact originates from his accomplishment of light and space in his past realistic sketching, thus, allowing Liu to overlook the emphasis on change of light in the painting as he developed a brilliant collocation of chroma and lightness to create a neat but rich expression of colours.
Liao Chi-Ch'un once quoted on his art, "Now it is no longer a question of the choice between abstract or representational art: whether or not we present real forms, what matters is expressive content. The form of a painting is nothing more than a medium for the artist's spiritual expression." As contemporary artists have already broken the barrier of form, Liu advocated for a new and liberal expression for subject matter that abandon restriction. The Seashore too, maintains perfect unity between theme and form, composition and depiction, as well as elements of form- such as dots, lines, planes harmonizing with each other. Whether it may be primitive construction of creation or final refinement on details, Liao Chi-Ch'un's works manifests his quest for the real construction of form hidden under the exterior of the subjects he paints. Here, colour is not dependent of lines and planes, but rather takes the aesthetic command in conveying Liao's philosophy and emotion; it supplements brushstrokes and veins or vice versa, showing articulacy of the painting, furthermore as channel in embracing the profound basis of traditional Chinese culture.