Details
LIN FENGMIAN
(Chinese, 1900-1991)
Sketches: Landscape; & Nude
two ink on paper
each: 19 x 29.5 cm. (7 1/2 x 11 5/8 in.) (2)
Provenance
Private Collection, France (Gift from the artist, and thence by descent to the present owner)

Brought to you by

Eric Chang
Eric Chang

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Lot Essay

It was during his studies in Europe that Lin Fengmian developed an intense interest in Cubism, which can be seen in the oil paintings executed upon his return to China. Painted in 1924, the sixth year of his stay in Europe, Human Body demonstrates Lin's fluency with Cubist theories and its methods of expression. The practice of simplifying the figure in consideration of the synthetic style of the painting, reducing shapes into diamond angles, allowing different shapes to merge together, and deviating objects from the longitudinal axis to create multiple viewpoints, hearkens back to works of Pablo Picasso and early Cubist paintings by Georges Braque. The two sketches (Lot 265) of Lin Fengmian is an important material to research how Lin observe and filter Cubism.

In the 1940s Lin resigned from the post of principal of Hangzhou Art College, and fled to Chongqing during war. During the sojourn, he had been greatly impressed by the scenery in Jialing River. The villages on the bank sides left a significant impression in the artist's mind. These memories might have been transformed into Landscape (Lot 264). Lin adopted the signature composition style of 'Ma Yijiao', placing the village at the lower right corner of the picture. On the left, mountainous background is created by the smudging of the semi-transparent ink. The sense of spatiality is ingeniously created through the simply outline of birds in mid-air.

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