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Lot Essay
04.08.98 Flowing Ink-Wash Effects and Complex Spatial Layering
Zao Wou-ki's 60-year career has in many ways represented a journey from figuration to abstraction, and from deconstruction to recombination. At the end of the 1990s, in 04.08.98 (Lot 2002), he returned once again to the basic integration of points, lines, and planes. In the Western realist tradition, formal elements served to depict real images; later, in the 20th century, Abstract Expressionism used the element of line to express motion, and Color Field Painting relied on the effects areas of flat color on the canvas. In the latter cases the formal elements of these works displayed a great independence from each other. But in China, the simplified, generalized forms of objective scenes found in their painting and calligraphy-whether in the composition of their landscapes or the structure of their calligraphy-all relied on subjective appraisals by the artist to arrange and integrate the formal elements. With this aesthetic tradition as a backdrop, the organic integration of Zao Wou-ki's points, lines, and planes, and his grasp of form and emptiness, can be more easily understood. He has said, "I admire Mi Fu's spatial arrangements and Ni Yunlin's handling of the more open areas of his paintings. These show how Chinese landscape painting and Western oil painting differ. In my own paintings, many areas also look empty, but in oil you cannot achieve washes of color as easily as in ink, so I actually put more effort into the empty areas than the places where you see forms. The rhythm of form and emptiness in Chinese paintings, the way they continually move and push against each other, creates a wonderful balance of weight in the painting. Traditional painting taught me so much in this area, and if they say that my painting is different from Western artists, the reason is probably my view of the way space should be handled." For this reason, while 04.08.98 may have a basis in traditional landscape painting, Zao Wou-ki nevertheless breaks through the historical use of multiple perspectives and spatial structuring, adapting those formal elements to create an entirely new visual experience. During this period, Zao once again experimented with the ink-wash medium, discovering how inks flow, permeate, and spread when they meet untreated xuan paper. And, because the application of flowing ink cannot be reversed or corrected, he found it necessary to make instant and accurate decisions about the handling of his subject. These discoveries are reflected in 04.08.98. With a background of pale yellow and light blue, Zao shapes a vast, open space, within which layers of highly transparent black, grey-brown, and Prussian blue undergo the subtle shifts that convey the flowing, permeating effects of ink-wash painting. Here, Zao's vehement brushwork of the 1960's is transformed into an interwoven structure of intersecting points, lines, and planes of color, but in contrast to the thick, intense layers of foreground color in those earlier works, Zao here creates depth of field through streaks of pellucid color, charged with energy, that sweep and wash horizontally across the canvas. The transparency of Zao's colors in 04.08.98 also helps overturn our habitual assumptions about space. As areas of transparent color break through from the background, our sense of whether layers are near or receding becomes less dependent on saturation effects, and while blocks of color are clearly marked out, offsetting other colors, it is really the subtle shifts between color layers that hint at the actual depth and breadth of the space in this work and suggest the possible ways in which space can be reordered.
In Zao Wou-ki's works we can see a progression, beginning with a search for the essence of his subject in the Nu Couch? of his Klee-inspired period, after which he moved on to produce 5.7.62 and 7.11.66, with their recreation of landscape spaces. Later came 21.1.85, with the overriding sense of its own unique internal time and space, and finally, 04.08.98, expressing color in an ink-wash style and breaking through the traditional presentation of space and perspective. Within the overall movement to join Eastern and Western aesthetics, Zao Wou-ki has moved step by step to deepen the links between solid forms and abstract spaces, and between inner and outer realities, which has taken his work beyond mere abstract expressionism and made it the place where the concrete physical world and the invisible world of the spirit come together.
Zao Wou-ki's 60-year career has in many ways represented a journey from figuration to abstraction, and from deconstruction to recombination. At the end of the 1990s, in 04.08.98 (Lot 2002), he returned once again to the basic integration of points, lines, and planes. In the Western realist tradition, formal elements served to depict real images; later, in the 20th century, Abstract Expressionism used the element of line to express motion, and Color Field Painting relied on the effects areas of flat color on the canvas. In the latter cases the formal elements of these works displayed a great independence from each other. But in China, the simplified, generalized forms of objective scenes found in their painting and calligraphy-whether in the composition of their landscapes or the structure of their calligraphy-all relied on subjective appraisals by the artist to arrange and integrate the formal elements. With this aesthetic tradition as a backdrop, the organic integration of Zao Wou-ki's points, lines, and planes, and his grasp of form and emptiness, can be more easily understood. He has said, "I admire Mi Fu's spatial arrangements and Ni Yunlin's handling of the more open areas of his paintings. These show how Chinese landscape painting and Western oil painting differ. In my own paintings, many areas also look empty, but in oil you cannot achieve washes of color as easily as in ink, so I actually put more effort into the empty areas than the places where you see forms. The rhythm of form and emptiness in Chinese paintings, the way they continually move and push against each other, creates a wonderful balance of weight in the painting. Traditional painting taught me so much in this area, and if they say that my painting is different from Western artists, the reason is probably my view of the way space should be handled." For this reason, while 04.08.98 may have a basis in traditional landscape painting, Zao Wou-ki nevertheless breaks through the historical use of multiple perspectives and spatial structuring, adapting those formal elements to create an entirely new visual experience. During this period, Zao once again experimented with the ink-wash medium, discovering how inks flow, permeate, and spread when they meet untreated xuan paper. And, because the application of flowing ink cannot be reversed or corrected, he found it necessary to make instant and accurate decisions about the handling of his subject. These discoveries are reflected in 04.08.98. With a background of pale yellow and light blue, Zao shapes a vast, open space, within which layers of highly transparent black, grey-brown, and Prussian blue undergo the subtle shifts that convey the flowing, permeating effects of ink-wash painting. Here, Zao's vehement brushwork of the 1960's is transformed into an interwoven structure of intersecting points, lines, and planes of color, but in contrast to the thick, intense layers of foreground color in those earlier works, Zao here creates depth of field through streaks of pellucid color, charged with energy, that sweep and wash horizontally across the canvas. The transparency of Zao's colors in 04.08.98 also helps overturn our habitual assumptions about space. As areas of transparent color break through from the background, our sense of whether layers are near or receding becomes less dependent on saturation effects, and while blocks of color are clearly marked out, offsetting other colors, it is really the subtle shifts between color layers that hint at the actual depth and breadth of the space in this work and suggest the possible ways in which space can be reordered.
In Zao Wou-ki's works we can see a progression, beginning with a search for the essence of his subject in the Nu Couch? of his Klee-inspired period, after which he moved on to produce 5.7.62 and 7.11.66, with their recreation of landscape spaces. Later came 21.1.85, with the overriding sense of its own unique internal time and space, and finally, 04.08.98, expressing color in an ink-wash style and breaking through the traditional presentation of space and perspective. Within the overall movement to join Eastern and Western aesthetics, Zao Wou-ki has moved step by step to deepen the links between solid forms and abstract spaces, and between inner and outer realities, which has taken his work beyond mere abstract expressionism and made it the place where the concrete physical world and the invisible world of the spirit come together.