"A Chinese painter never works in the open air with his canvas set up in front of him, putting on touches of colour. He feels no need for this as nature is within him and he is perhaps in more intimate communion with it than is the Western artist. In fact, some Chinese painters have spent their lives travelling and have filled their gaze with the beauties of nature. On returning home they allow these spoils to settle and after putting themselves in a mood favourable to creativity, silence and contemplation they have expressed only the essence. What remains when the ephemeral has faded away, is the meeting of two souls, that of the artist and that of the landscape." (Pierre Cabanne in Chu Teh-Chun, Cercle d'Art, 1993, p. 7)
Following the Taoist fundamental Wu Wei concept asserting that one must place their will in harmony with the natural universe, Chu Teh-Chun keeps a necessary permanent tie to nature, which he conveys into an intimate poetic synthesis. Each painting becomes a fragmented part of this unique lyrical entity where fantasy and reality become one in his creative flow. Nature is therefore the subject, object and action at the same time.
Arriving in Paris in 1955, Chu Teh-Chun immersed himself in the French artistic capital and discovered the Western paintings that he once studied from reproductions in the Hangzhou Academy. Although Western painting had a great formal impact on the artist and gave him a crucial freedom to break from Chinese traditional art, the painter remained essentially Chinese in his approach towards art and its concept and meaning, using abstraction as a formal expression to render his emotions onto the canvas. In 1956 a year after his move to Paris, Chu Teh-Chun visited the Nicolas de Staël Retrospective at the Mus?e d'Art Moderne. De Staël's ability of breaking with the orthodox method of depicting nature, allowed him to look at Chinese painting and calligraphy in a new light. Gazing upon de Staël's landscape paintings from the Mediterranean coast, Chu Teh-Chun realized that rather than falling into the anecdotal aspects of imitation, abstraction was a sensitive way to extract and render the essential truth of a scene. Both artists paint with a similar emotional intensity, opening up their interiority to convey a sense of universal greatness beyond mere figuration. Thus their compositions are reminiscent of natural landscapes, with curves suggesting distant hills while lines and dots refer to swirling weather and light clouds without explicitly representing the elements.
Composition No. 310 (Lot 107) offers a horizontal linear panorama, characteristic of this period in Chu's oeuvre, the work shows strong ties to the artist's daily calligraphic practice. Horizontal black lines in the foreground create a complex composition of multidirectional lines and brushstrokes, enlightened by vivid yellow and green touches. A luminous jewel-like garland stands out of a subtle grey and blue background, almost evoking a sunrise setting. Large rigid lines in earlier compositions gently dissolve here into a more fluid whole. The work demonstrates how Chu Teh-Chun, by the end of the 1960s, had fully acquired his unique style. The great painter's skill lies in the capacity to translate calligraphic and poetic meanings as well as the beauty of natural landscapes into a visual lyrical form, thus creating a network of interconnected arts.
The artistic maturity came simultaneously with international recognition. The same year of the creation of Composition No. 310, the painter was invited to the Tenth Biennale in Sao Paulo, where an entire room was devoted to his work. He also had multiple shows in Paris and Switzerland, which received the support of major French art critics.