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Lot Essay
The oriental style of oil painting created by Mr. Lee Man Fong is definitely a great artistic bridge. Though he is not a 'formalist', he created a unique style never seen before. He is also not a realist painter, yet the artistic conception in his works evokes a certain type of oriental wisdom, teaching people to adapt to the imperfections of life.
Siew Hock Meng
AN EASTERN AVANT-GARDE
Lee Man Fong first experimented with Eastern-style oil painting at the age of 25 in 1937 and decisively committed himself to the the incorporation of eastern elements in his paintings in the 1940s. The two present lots, Peace and Happiness (Lot 29) and Tending to the Poultry (Lot 30), are exquisite pictures painted in 1948, during the end of his formative period painting eastern-style oils. After World War II, Lee Man Fong had departed for the Netherlands on a Milano scholarship. He was to spend six fulfilling years in Europe, absorbing the sights of European cities and country, painting in oil, perfecting the sense of verisimilitude in his paintings and broadening the scope of his painterly subjects. However, particularly commonplace subjects and scenes from Indonesian life was what Lee Man Fong was best known for painting and the present two lots are such subjects. Most of Lee's paintings are colourfully alive, vividly realistic and capable of evoking intense emotions despite their simple narratives. The two paintings reveal Lee's sophisticated handling of the everyday subject and exemplify his mastery of the Western materials and pigments to reflect particularly Eastern or Chinese ideals by painting with earthy Eastern colours.
The lightness of Lee Man Fong's brushstrokes gives the oil painting an appearance similar to that of a traditional ink painting at the first glance. The creation of depth within the painting is a harmonious marriage of the traditions and sensibilities of eastern and western painting, which the artist was pursuing all through his career. But more so than any time, it was in the formative period of the 1940s when he was still grasping and perfecting his technique that any achievement is especially significant. He absorbed the artistic conception, composition, lines and brushstrokes, and even the use of seal chops from Chinese painting. But instead of painting on with a Chinese ink brush on rice paper, the artist worked with oil on canvas and masonite board as his primary medium, fully conscious that modern painting of his time had to release itself from any single encompassing visual tradition. In this regard, Lee Man Fong was the best embodiment of a progressive Chinese painter, ever aware of the pervasive influence of Chinese cultural traditions and a distinct Chinese worldview on his art but always seeking to adapt his art to the sensibilities of the contemporary world. Yet distinguishing himself from other Chinese painters like Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian who were contemporaneous to Lee Man Fong, he decided to forsake Chinese brush to paint oil paintings in an eastern style. This is now firmly acknowledged as his distinct contribution to the field of Chinese painting.
Man Fong's protagonist in Tending to the Poultry is skillfully rendered with a few deftly articulated lines rendering a highly expressive and realistic depiction. Opting for the subtle effect of a Chinese ink and brush work, it is remarkable for Man Fong to create a similar feel of the soft and diffusing effect of Chinese ink on paper with the use of oil on board. This gives the subjects a light and precarious feel making them seem more casual and unpremeditated. Labour is an equation of the tender loving relationship between beast and man in this present composition. The artist's protagonist is painted with exaggerated elongated limbs that are at the same time wonderfully graceful, a supreme idealisation of the act of labour. The man is at work and quite evidently enjoying it. Behind him, the figure of a woman, presumably his wife is present, feeding fowls. Like him, Lee paints her with exaggeratedly lengthier limbs to draw attention to the act of feeding. Peace and Happiness is an exquisite work that contains the quintessential elements of a classical work of Lee Man Fong. Painted with the realism and exactitude possible only with the gifted talent, rigorous training as well as a single-minded pursuit of the infusion of Chinese aesthetics in his works, the present work reveals the artist's mature understanding of the painting vocabulary of the great Dutch impressionists who unlike their French counterparts, showed a great penchant to a darker palette and a reluctance to relinquish a great Dutch tradition of orchestrating the effect of light on the painted surface. The contours of the doves in the painting are exquisitely rendered, and the impasto on their chests lends a great sense of verisimilitude. The work testifies to Lee Man Fong's mastery of technique and realisation of theme, depicting not just a flock of doves but rather articulating a parallel universe in which they exist. In this world, there is an absence of strife; one finds only peace and calmness, and the evocation of an ideal world.
To Lee Man Fong, art is an essence of culture without the form of written words but only strokes that tell directly anyone regardless of time, race and language'. Painting from life the doves in Peace and Happiness or the male protagonist in Tending to the Poultry are not figments of Lee Man Fong's imagination; rather, they are very much part of the Indonesian life, which Lee Man Fong immortalises through the synthesis of the attitudes of European art, with the style and composition of traditional Chinese ink paintings. In this regard, Lee manages to capture his world in a manner that is harmonious and halcyon, but simultaneously dynamic and full of depth.
Siew Hock Meng
AN EASTERN AVANT-GARDE
Lee Man Fong first experimented with Eastern-style oil painting at the age of 25 in 1937 and decisively committed himself to the the incorporation of eastern elements in his paintings in the 1940s. The two present lots, Peace and Happiness (Lot 29) and Tending to the Poultry (Lot 30), are exquisite pictures painted in 1948, during the end of his formative period painting eastern-style oils. After World War II, Lee Man Fong had departed for the Netherlands on a Milano scholarship. He was to spend six fulfilling years in Europe, absorbing the sights of European cities and country, painting in oil, perfecting the sense of verisimilitude in his paintings and broadening the scope of his painterly subjects. However, particularly commonplace subjects and scenes from Indonesian life was what Lee Man Fong was best known for painting and the present two lots are such subjects. Most of Lee's paintings are colourfully alive, vividly realistic and capable of evoking intense emotions despite their simple narratives. The two paintings reveal Lee's sophisticated handling of the everyday subject and exemplify his mastery of the Western materials and pigments to reflect particularly Eastern or Chinese ideals by painting with earthy Eastern colours.
The lightness of Lee Man Fong's brushstrokes gives the oil painting an appearance similar to that of a traditional ink painting at the first glance. The creation of depth within the painting is a harmonious marriage of the traditions and sensibilities of eastern and western painting, which the artist was pursuing all through his career. But more so than any time, it was in the formative period of the 1940s when he was still grasping and perfecting his technique that any achievement is especially significant. He absorbed the artistic conception, composition, lines and brushstrokes, and even the use of seal chops from Chinese painting. But instead of painting on with a Chinese ink brush on rice paper, the artist worked with oil on canvas and masonite board as his primary medium, fully conscious that modern painting of his time had to release itself from any single encompassing visual tradition. In this regard, Lee Man Fong was the best embodiment of a progressive Chinese painter, ever aware of the pervasive influence of Chinese cultural traditions and a distinct Chinese worldview on his art but always seeking to adapt his art to the sensibilities of the contemporary world. Yet distinguishing himself from other Chinese painters like Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian who were contemporaneous to Lee Man Fong, he decided to forsake Chinese brush to paint oil paintings in an eastern style. This is now firmly acknowledged as his distinct contribution to the field of Chinese painting.
Man Fong's protagonist in Tending to the Poultry is skillfully rendered with a few deftly articulated lines rendering a highly expressive and realistic depiction. Opting for the subtle effect of a Chinese ink and brush work, it is remarkable for Man Fong to create a similar feel of the soft and diffusing effect of Chinese ink on paper with the use of oil on board. This gives the subjects a light and precarious feel making them seem more casual and unpremeditated. Labour is an equation of the tender loving relationship between beast and man in this present composition. The artist's protagonist is painted with exaggerated elongated limbs that are at the same time wonderfully graceful, a supreme idealisation of the act of labour. The man is at work and quite evidently enjoying it. Behind him, the figure of a woman, presumably his wife is present, feeding fowls. Like him, Lee paints her with exaggeratedly lengthier limbs to draw attention to the act of feeding. Peace and Happiness is an exquisite work that contains the quintessential elements of a classical work of Lee Man Fong. Painted with the realism and exactitude possible only with the gifted talent, rigorous training as well as a single-minded pursuit of the infusion of Chinese aesthetics in his works, the present work reveals the artist's mature understanding of the painting vocabulary of the great Dutch impressionists who unlike their French counterparts, showed a great penchant to a darker palette and a reluctance to relinquish a great Dutch tradition of orchestrating the effect of light on the painted surface. The contours of the doves in the painting are exquisitely rendered, and the impasto on their chests lends a great sense of verisimilitude. The work testifies to Lee Man Fong's mastery of technique and realisation of theme, depicting not just a flock of doves but rather articulating a parallel universe in which they exist. In this world, there is an absence of strife; one finds only peace and calmness, and the evocation of an ideal world.
To Lee Man Fong, art is an essence of culture without the form of written words but only strokes that tell directly anyone regardless of time, race and language'. Painting from life the doves in Peace and Happiness or the male protagonist in Tending to the Poultry are not figments of Lee Man Fong's imagination; rather, they are very much part of the Indonesian life, which Lee Man Fong immortalises through the synthesis of the attitudes of European art, with the style and composition of traditional Chinese ink paintings. In this regard, Lee manages to capture his world in a manner that is harmonious and halcyon, but simultaneously dynamic and full of depth.