In 1926, not long after returning from his study in Europe, as he wrote 'The Prospect of Chinese and Western Arts', Lin Fengmian clearly stated the driving philosophical principle of his art - 'As a matter of fact, the shortcomings of Western Arts are exactly where the strengths of Eastern Art lie, and the strengths of Western Arts are also where the shortcomings of Eastern Arts lie. Complementing each other produces the world's new arts.' Lin also pointed out that 'Development of national culture comes from the creation of a new era by the absorption of other cultures while basing upon one's own, and the whole process goes on and on.' (from Lin's 'New Theory of Chinese Painting', 1929). His grand aspiration to reconcile Chinese and Western art could be traced back to the time when he studied in the National School of Fine Art in Paris. After returning to China, Lin systematically reformed his approach to ink painting: he sorted out and revived the grand creation and strength of the five-thousand-year-old Chinese Arts, and at the same time complemented the shortcomings of this tradition with the strength innovation from the West, to develop a newly Modern Chinese Art, which encompasses both Chinese and Western elements, as well as a 'sense of time', 'national culture' and 'individual style'.

Landscape painting was one of the main targets for Lin's project. In Lin's point of view, the development of Chinese landscape paintings preceded that of the Western and the concept of temporal change was also developed in an early stage; however, the concept was only partly demonstrated, and the overall way to depict temporal change was not fully evolved. Chinese landscape paintings are limited by their raw materials water and ink, the backgrounds being depicted are usually rain, clouds and foggy, while the depiction of sun shine, which shows complexity in colours and infinite variations, was absent. Over the course of his career, the subjective expression of the artist became more and more evident. He boldly expressed his emotions using deliberately unrealistic colour choices that originated from Western expressionism. At the same time, adapting his color use from those of the Western Impressionists' use of light and colour refraction, Lin was able to combine ink with colour harmoniously. In this manner, he elevated the weight of Chinese traditional landscape painting elements, and placed an intense sense of nostalgia within the profound Oriental scene. In Tranquil Landscape (Lot 2109), Landscape (Lot 2110), the artist introduced a palette foreign to the Chinese landscape tradition: sapphire, yolk-yellow, pure white complemented with turquoise, dark green, and tangerine, presenting a landscape scene filtered with Lin's temperament. A cold hue is his central tone, one that creates an ethereal and distant atmosphere. Just as Guo Xi stated, "the spirit of flat distance (viewing from a near mountain gazing at a distant mountain) lies in the mistiness and ambiguity from afar"; "a realm beyond representation" is created through features such as emptiness, void, distance and depth in Landscape. Audiences are able to experience the landscape from near to afar, and perceive the pictorial scene through the concrete to abstract. Lin split the rectangular image horizontally, the surface of the river, the gentle slope, the distant mountain and the sky have been depicted under a Western rational perspective, further giving the landscape a spatial arrangement derived from Western inspiration.

Traditional Chinese painting uses blank compositional spaces to imply the indefinite space, yet Tranquil Landscape and Landscape have their entire surface covered with colours. Under close observation on the paintings, we may find that in order to overcome the restriction imposed by traditional Chinese painting materials, Lin put forward innovation in the tools for painting, as well as the skills of paint colour mixing and colouring. The artist has a clear control over the permeability of water and ink on Xuan paper, as well as of the transparency and permeability of the mineral pigments common in Chinese paints. In order to strengthen the scenery's texture, and stabilize the fluidity of water and ink, Lin further adopted the colouring skill of 'overlapping of ink and colour', which gives fullness to his forms without adding stagnancy, the landscape painting thus created shows complexly superimposition of colour layers, and alternating layers of thick and thin water-based paints. In traditional Chinese scholarly paintings, painters are often keen to save every brushstroke, yet Lin had been inspired by the technique of oil painting, and started discovering the possibility of overlaying ink with colours. The lightly overlaid colour surfaces transformed into the multi-layered scrubs create a stronger penetration of light and shadow within the landscape. The thin layer of white on the river indicates the movement of the stream; at the same time, they represent the reflection of light over the river surface. This innovative colour application not only breaks apart the binding restriction of traditional ink painting; it also becomes a signature element of Lin's style.

The structural use of lines is another direction that Lin studied and redeveloped. Lin believed that way lines are used in traditional Chinese painting occupied an important place in Chinese Arts culture. The fundamental act of line-making is essential in the arts of hieroglyphs, in calligraphy, and in representational painting itself. Lin's paintings of landscapes, palace ladies, Chinese Operas and still life all featured from different elements of his interest in these traditoins. In his work Lady with Flute (Lot 2111), Lin boldly applied white and black lines to the rich colour. The smoothly stretched and semi-visible curve lines, which were finished in one single stroke, outline the lady's clothes and figure, as well as manifest a calm and graceful air in the lady. He sketched with such skillfulness that an effect resembling transparent gauze was created. Line usage of this type is inherited from that in 'Admonitions of the Instructress to the Palace Ladies' (Fig 1) created by Gu Kaizhi, a famous painter in Eastern Jin Dynasty: the smooth and continual lines resembling the silk produced by spring worms show a combination of tension and gentleness, and with the use of curve line in sketching the outfits, a vivid figure is generated. Tactfully using such a capricious element as line, Lin demonstrated in his work the harmony between sturdiness and suppleness, as well as the graceful amusement it can induce. The faintly discernable curve lines visualize the not only multi-layered clothes of fine gauze, but also actual mass of the clothes. The curves and streaks outlining the celadon vase in the background work well in coordination with the lady's figure. Together they establish an inseparable spatial relationship. When talking about lines, Lin said, 'What we can pay attention to, while speaking of lines, is "the line of gracefulness and liveliness". Curve and straight lines are in opposition, the latter is tranquil and peaceful, which is also a manifestation of continual balance.' In addition to curve lines, the artist used straight lines in scenic separation, and trigonometric figures in background formation, so as to balance the lively curve lines and create a dynamically balanced atmosphere in the painting. The long and slanted flute adds a crowning touch to the arrangement of the lines within the painting; it leads the viewer to appreciate the beauty and forms of the different lines. Apart from using colours and line to separate space, Lin also artfully introduced the way the Fauvist artist, Henri Matisse, used decorative patterns and flat colour patches to delineate two-dimensional spaces (Fig 2). It leads the viewer to appreciate the unpredictable two-dimensional visual effect, which is also highly modernized in style. On thick poster paint, Lin applied light ink to delineate facial details of the lady; the abstractness and coordination in Amedeo Modigliani's portraits were melted within this classical lady, only simple lines are used in depicting her face and her hands playing the pipa, so as to make it pithy and lively, and to coordinate the overall layout.

In Lin's word, 'although Cubism was founded by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, it is actually a continual of Cezannesque' and 'Cubist' aesthetic basis about painting lies on trigonometric modeling'. Still life painting became the frontline of his experimental innovation, his aims were to pursue the trigonometric rules governing artistic construction, to present the aesthetic sense in the complexity and interlacing of trigonometric modeling, and to incorporate his expectations towards history and modernity into the connotation features. The rare still life series is theme that Lin worked on in development upon Picasso and Cezanne's theories; once again, he employed the means of integration rather than separation to manifest fully the concrete-abstract relationship between object and space. In Still life (Lot 2112), Lin deliberately emphasized the geometrical composition. He simplified the details of the objects; the vase and fruits has been simplified into triangular, circular and trapezoidal shapes. In terms of colour, only black, white and grey have been used for the background, while yellow and green are used for the objects. The work displays how Lin let go of the stereoscopic sense of three-dimensionality, and placed emphasis on the effect of the design in the two-dimensional space. From the back of Still Life, one can see that the artist has used the same rice paper to create a picture of a lady. Hence, the colouring of Still Life is thick and heavy, showing how Lin was tireless in his practice during the time when he was in Shanghai, and how in his creative spirit, he would cherish every resource.