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Lot Essay
5.7.62 Temporal Sequence Joined to Spatial Dynamics
Paul Klee once said, "All pictorial form begins with the point that sets itself in motionK.the point movesKand the line comes into being - the first dimension. If the line shifts to form a plane, we obtain a two-dimensional element. In the movement from plane to spaces, the clash of planes gives rise to body (three-dimensional). A summary of the kinetic energies which move the point into a line, the line into a plane and the plane into a spatial dimension." During his Klee-influenced period, Zao Wou-ki gradually separated points, lines, and planes from their functions in shaping forms; then, during his "oracle-bone" period, he transposed points, lines, and planes into new kinds of symbolic motifs. By the early 1960s, Zao had made his break altogether with the restrictions of form by completely liberating the elements and colors that had once shaped his art. Living in the West, Zao found his work gaining acceptance in abstract expressionist circles there. Because of this, a work like 5.7.62 (Lot 2001) not only symbolizes the first true maturity of his art at this point in his career, it also concretely represents a fusion of traditional Eastern culture and Western modernism that reaches across historical eras and geographical boundaries.
In 5.7.62, fine and densely interwoven streaks of black and white, set off against a background of grayish-brown and yellow ochre, meet along the central axis of the painting, interlacing in a dramatic clash with the layer of vermillion red in the upper middle. The fresh, brilliant reds become a focal point of the work and bring an extra dynamism to its stable, horizontal composition. In this work Zao joins media and technique perfectly, applying pigments with a true abandon and freedom that make 5.7.62 an independent expression of his moods and feelings. This, combined with Zao's management of color on the canvas, arouses a direct sensual and emotional response on the part of the viewer. Zao has said, "My canvases aren't particularly concerned with 'stillness.' Maybe that's just the result of natural expression of feeling, since internally there are always complex and dramatic tensionsKbut I do in fact think of the ancient Chinese painters and the way they penetrated deeply into the natural world with their feelings. Not just vaguely or weakly probing beneath the surface, but focusing their energies to delve deep and truly grasp its meaning. The movement here is absolutely not a superficial explosion; it's a movement that appropriately contains both feeling and reason, depicting a kind of 'inner' movement." The agile brushwork and lines of 5.7.62 therefore present a moment of dynamic motion, but in a work whose real starting point is the "automatic writing" concept of the abstract expressionists, making 5.7.62 the embodiment of several different modes of expression and spatial depth.
Initially, Zao Wou-ki preferred not to paint in the purely Eastern ink-wash medium. So it came about that, by using oils, he naturally evaded limitations that might have been imposed by the ossified tradition of ink painting that had been handed down from the literati of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Instead, in abstract painting he found a link that he could trace straight to the earlier Tang and Song dynasties and the direct connection with nature in the landscapes of those periods. Traditional Chinese landscape painting was never concerned with completely realistic depiction, but instead expressed the overall sense of a natural scene: the changes of the seasons, the passage from sunrise to sunset, or the change in perception as our gaze shifts between distant and near forms. Only after these artists had roved through the particular scene they wanted to paint, grasping its underlying order and logic, would they pick up the brush. The technique of 5.7.62 is an extension of this practice, based not on direct observation but on the accumulation of memories and sensations. Its interlocking lines and streaks of color are not accidentally achieved effects, but draw upon traditional Chinese aesthetics and their awareness of space. Dynamic observation and psychological insight work with its areas of darkness and light, of solid form and empty space, to create a picture space filled with rhythm and harmonious motion. Freely shifting points of perspective express the concept of a space existing somewhere between the Earth and the heavens, as the artist transforms personal feeling and experience into the elements that shape this work. Its points, lines, and planes are anything but static, existing as they do in the midst of constant motion, change, and transformation. Here Zao undertakes an in-depth exploration of the formal elements that structure his painting, and through abstraction constructs a work that shares the essence of traditional Chinese landscape paintings but with a new and powerful vitality injected into its spaces.
Paul Klee once said, "All pictorial form begins with the point that sets itself in motionK.the point movesKand the line comes into being - the first dimension. If the line shifts to form a plane, we obtain a two-dimensional element. In the movement from plane to spaces, the clash of planes gives rise to body (three-dimensional). A summary of the kinetic energies which move the point into a line, the line into a plane and the plane into a spatial dimension." During his Klee-influenced period, Zao Wou-ki gradually separated points, lines, and planes from their functions in shaping forms; then, during his "oracle-bone" period, he transposed points, lines, and planes into new kinds of symbolic motifs. By the early 1960s, Zao had made his break altogether with the restrictions of form by completely liberating the elements and colors that had once shaped his art. Living in the West, Zao found his work gaining acceptance in abstract expressionist circles there. Because of this, a work like 5.7.62 (Lot 2001) not only symbolizes the first true maturity of his art at this point in his career, it also concretely represents a fusion of traditional Eastern culture and Western modernism that reaches across historical eras and geographical boundaries.
In 5.7.62, fine and densely interwoven streaks of black and white, set off against a background of grayish-brown and yellow ochre, meet along the central axis of the painting, interlacing in a dramatic clash with the layer of vermillion red in the upper middle. The fresh, brilliant reds become a focal point of the work and bring an extra dynamism to its stable, horizontal composition. In this work Zao joins media and technique perfectly, applying pigments with a true abandon and freedom that make 5.7.62 an independent expression of his moods and feelings. This, combined with Zao's management of color on the canvas, arouses a direct sensual and emotional response on the part of the viewer. Zao has said, "My canvases aren't particularly concerned with 'stillness.' Maybe that's just the result of natural expression of feeling, since internally there are always complex and dramatic tensionsKbut I do in fact think of the ancient Chinese painters and the way they penetrated deeply into the natural world with their feelings. Not just vaguely or weakly probing beneath the surface, but focusing their energies to delve deep and truly grasp its meaning. The movement here is absolutely not a superficial explosion; it's a movement that appropriately contains both feeling and reason, depicting a kind of 'inner' movement." The agile brushwork and lines of 5.7.62 therefore present a moment of dynamic motion, but in a work whose real starting point is the "automatic writing" concept of the abstract expressionists, making 5.7.62 the embodiment of several different modes of expression and spatial depth.
Initially, Zao Wou-ki preferred not to paint in the purely Eastern ink-wash medium. So it came about that, by using oils, he naturally evaded limitations that might have been imposed by the ossified tradition of ink painting that had been handed down from the literati of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Instead, in abstract painting he found a link that he could trace straight to the earlier Tang and Song dynasties and the direct connection with nature in the landscapes of those periods. Traditional Chinese landscape painting was never concerned with completely realistic depiction, but instead expressed the overall sense of a natural scene: the changes of the seasons, the passage from sunrise to sunset, or the change in perception as our gaze shifts between distant and near forms. Only after these artists had roved through the particular scene they wanted to paint, grasping its underlying order and logic, would they pick up the brush. The technique of 5.7.62 is an extension of this practice, based not on direct observation but on the accumulation of memories and sensations. Its interlocking lines and streaks of color are not accidentally achieved effects, but draw upon traditional Chinese aesthetics and their awareness of space. Dynamic observation and psychological insight work with its areas of darkness and light, of solid form and empty space, to create a picture space filled with rhythm and harmonious motion. Freely shifting points of perspective express the concept of a space existing somewhere between the Earth and the heavens, as the artist transforms personal feeling and experience into the elements that shape this work. Its points, lines, and planes are anything but static, existing as they do in the midst of constant motion, change, and transformation. Here Zao undertakes an in-depth exploration of the formal elements that structure his painting, and through abstraction constructs a work that shares the essence of traditional Chinese landscape paintings but with a new and powerful vitality injected into its spaces.