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Lot Essay
As the Chinese pioneer of western style painting, Ran In-Ting is a prolific painter with extraordinary achievements who has cleverly combined Chinese traditional ink painting skills with the vivid colors of western watercolor paintings. In 1991, a memorial exhibition in honor of Ran was held at the Taipei National Palace Museum; while the Hong Kong Museum of History organized a retrospect of Ran In-Ting and published Ran's collection of paintings in 1998.
The essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting is inherent in the works of Ran In-Ting. His acclaimed collection of works by Ding Lu Xiaoyu can be seen and is interpreted through the concepts in his paintings. Ran is from the "School of Nature" and always wrote prose about leisure and life in order to promote art education from his own understanding and perspective of art. Ran formerly held the position of Director of Chinese Television Service in his later life, and the watercolour painter posted the following motto in his studio in Shihlin: "Named as In-Ting, I paint to earn a living and never feel tedious. With only the essence can be found in my paintings, the reviews of my paintings bring no influence upon me." Therefore, Ran dismissed the terms "gentry painter" or "political painter" given by some critics with a laugh.
The theme of Ran In-Ting's watercolor paintings is mainly about customs and conditions of the people in Taiwan. He was regarded as the "Lone Star" in Taiwanese art history."While the feet of Ran In-Ting steps on the soil of the countryside, his hands are full with the glamour of high society," said Lifa Hsieh, the author of the History of Taiwanese Art Movement During Japanese Occupation. Ran insisted to use "realistic" approaches to depict the hometown he missed.
With the preface "Mountain has no ink but looks like a landscape painting; river has no string but sounds like a lyre" and painted in 1963, High Mountain and Running River was given to Mr. Pang, who was the Chief Justice of Taiwan's Hualien District Court. In using the old Chinese motto "as determined as the towering mountain but as relaxing as the running river" to express his feelings of the scenery of Taroko, Ran In-Ting applied the stroke frequently used in landscape painting to depict the running river and mountains. The magnificent spring scenery of purple haze and greenery is fully illustrated.
Painted in 1960, Life of Baiting Ducks (Tansui Sketching) was crafted before the famed Ducks Raising Family, which was the magnum opus exhibited at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. His technique of painting was based on traditional convention while the his mastery of depths of field was influenced from the Western art of painting. Different from his mentor Ishikawa Kinichiro who learnt directly from John Constable, the painting technique of Ran In-Ting surpassed the pastiche of Western art, and instead introduced concepts of "time" and "identity" with the "sketching" of nature and society into his creation.
The essence of traditional Chinese landscape painting is inherent in the works of Ran In-Ting. His acclaimed collection of works by Ding Lu Xiaoyu can be seen and is interpreted through the concepts in his paintings. Ran is from the "School of Nature" and always wrote prose about leisure and life in order to promote art education from his own understanding and perspective of art. Ran formerly held the position of Director of Chinese Television Service in his later life, and the watercolour painter posted the following motto in his studio in Shihlin: "Named as In-Ting, I paint to earn a living and never feel tedious. With only the essence can be found in my paintings, the reviews of my paintings bring no influence upon me." Therefore, Ran dismissed the terms "gentry painter" or "political painter" given by some critics with a laugh.
The theme of Ran In-Ting's watercolor paintings is mainly about customs and conditions of the people in Taiwan. He was regarded as the "Lone Star" in Taiwanese art history."While the feet of Ran In-Ting steps on the soil of the countryside, his hands are full with the glamour of high society," said Lifa Hsieh, the author of the History of Taiwanese Art Movement During Japanese Occupation. Ran insisted to use "realistic" approaches to depict the hometown he missed.
With the preface "Mountain has no ink but looks like a landscape painting; river has no string but sounds like a lyre" and painted in 1963, High Mountain and Running River was given to Mr. Pang, who was the Chief Justice of Taiwan's Hualien District Court. In using the old Chinese motto "as determined as the towering mountain but as relaxing as the running river" to express his feelings of the scenery of Taroko, Ran In-Ting applied the stroke frequently used in landscape painting to depict the running river and mountains. The magnificent spring scenery of purple haze and greenery is fully illustrated.
Painted in 1960, Life of Baiting Ducks (Tansui Sketching) was crafted before the famed Ducks Raising Family, which was the magnum opus exhibited at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center. His technique of painting was based on traditional convention while the his mastery of depths of field was influenced from the Western art of painting. Different from his mentor Ishikawa Kinichiro who learnt directly from John Constable, the painting technique of Ran In-Ting surpassed the pastiche of Western art, and instead introduced concepts of "time" and "identity" with the "sketching" of nature and society into his creation.