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Farm Girls
Details
LIN FENGMIAN (1900-1991)
Farm Girls
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper
70 x 85 cm. (27 ½ x 33 ½ in.)
Signed, with one seal of the artist
Often seen subject-matters in Lin Fengmian’s oeuvre encompass flowers, still-life, autumnal forests, lotus ponds, reeds, egrets, elegant ladies and opera figures – each with its own characteristics. Farm Girls perhaps was executed in Spring 1958 under particular circumstances, when Lin went to the countryside with artists Wu Dayu, Guan Liang, Lai Shaoqi and Chen Yanqiao to live with the farmers and paint their life. A product of its time, Farm Girls is a rarely seen example depicting a unique subject-matter.
The strong and vivid colours in Farm Girls have moved away from his earlier work inspired by Henri Matisse, and yet it still carries a synthesising undertone. Here, the expressiveness of the ink and colour in a composition with multiple vanishing points is combined with sense of light in the oil painting and watercolour tradition, with the colours displaying a subtle range of lightness. The curved lines that delineate the faces of the farm girls imbue the square composition with a harmonious sense of balance and geometric beauty.
While works depicting agricultural life in China such as Farm Girls can be read as a particular response to the political contexts and demands of the time, it can also be argued that with their distinctive simplicity, they form an integral part of Lin Fengmian’s artistic career.
Farm Girls
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper
70 x 85 cm. (27 ½ x 33 ½ in.)
Signed, with one seal of the artist
Often seen subject-matters in Lin Fengmian’s oeuvre encompass flowers, still-life, autumnal forests, lotus ponds, reeds, egrets, elegant ladies and opera figures – each with its own characteristics. Farm Girls perhaps was executed in Spring 1958 under particular circumstances, when Lin went to the countryside with artists Wu Dayu, Guan Liang, Lai Shaoqi and Chen Yanqiao to live with the farmers and paint their life. A product of its time, Farm Girls is a rarely seen example depicting a unique subject-matter.
The strong and vivid colours in Farm Girls have moved away from his earlier work inspired by Henri Matisse, and yet it still carries a synthesising undertone. Here, the expressiveness of the ink and colour in a composition with multiple vanishing points is combined with sense of light in the oil painting and watercolour tradition, with the colours displaying a subtle range of lightness. The curved lines that delineate the faces of the farm girls imbue the square composition with a harmonious sense of balance and geometric beauty.
While works depicting agricultural life in China such as Farm Girls can be read as a particular response to the political contexts and demands of the time, it can also be argued that with their distinctive simplicity, they form an integral part of Lin Fengmian’s artistic career.
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