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Lot Essay
'Zao Wou-Ki's artistic destiny was not merely personal, it was closely related to the development and evolution of thousands of years of Chinese painting. The fundamental fact, far from lessening the value of the artist's personal quests, leads instead to making it more moving to our eyes. In fact, thanks to this work, a long expectation in which the Chinese painting had remained for over a century seems to come to an end. For the first time, a true symbiosis took place that, from way back, was meant to take place between China and the West.' FRANCOIS CHENG
SPIRIT OF THE WINGS
Line is an important element in Zao's semifigurative works. The seemingly innocuous caged bird in 29.12.49 (Lot 514) is simplified and depicted by bold and decisive strokes in a compact square structure, as if mimicking the formation of Chinese pictograph. The simplified representation of a bird reflects the style of the Nazca Lindes which follows the Pre-Columbian tradition of simplification and abstraction of natural shapes by the removal of details and, the preservation of elemental form. Most of the time, birds in Zao's paintings are depicted relaxed and free. It is not common to see depictions of a single caged bird, struggling as if it is shouting for its freedom. The forest green background suggests that the bird is situated in its natural environment, though the cage blocks its access to the world beyond. This painting is produced in the second year of Zao's arrival in Paris when he began to return to oil painting after a short break in print production. As if mirroring the situation, 29.12.49 marks Zao's pathway towards a breakthrough, suggesting perseverance and a revolutionary spirit as the bird's head extends beyond the cage. Painted in 1954, the rooster depicted in Untitled (Lot 513) illustrated the beauty of fine and intermittent ink lines which Zao employed on watercolour paper. The proud posture and dynamic movement of the two uplifted wings capture a moment of triumph, like a red crowned warrior celebrating a victory. This subject matter of a fighting cock is further developed into abstraction, shown in repetition in Zao's Combat de Coqs painted in the same year. The subject matter and scenery depicted in Zao's early works, prior to his evolution towards complete abstraction, document the various influences the artist digested, absorbed, and then experimented with on his path towards achieving his personal aesthetic and artistic goals.
Zao's work executed in 1948-1949 can be summarised through his exploration of various spaces, including city scenery in Paris, gardens, villages, the countryside, forests, and seashores, as well as the spatial arrangement in his still life compositions. In some of the works, the multiple perspectives in Chinese landscape painting are adapted and a vertical format is chosen by the artist. Painted in 1948, Untitled (Lot 515) was executed at the period when Zao was experimenting with spatial arrangement within Chinese and Western paintings. It is believed that the scenery depicted here represents the Jardin d'acclimatation, on the edge of Bois de Boulogne in winter time. Another watercolor work by the artist is a depiction of the same garden from an aerial perspective. The dried grassland is fenced with winter branches, forming the foreground. Meanwhile the lake and tower are composed to make up middle and background. On the right, a small pavilion inserts another dimension into the pictorial space. Tightly organised, the garden space carries an air of stability, harmony, and quietude following the artist's meditation and contemplation of the space under the clear blue sky of early morning.
SPIRIT OF ROMANCE
Birds, among many other animals, are an immensely rich source of inspiration, symbolism and metaphor for Zao Wou- Ki. The three paintings of birds in this sale provide a view of the artist's multifaceted treatment of the subject. Untitled (Lotus Pond and Waterfowls) (Lot 516) painted in 1948, was produced in the year the artist arrived Paris. A garden pond framed by bunch of lotus leaves and flowers becomes, by Zao's hand, profoundly romantic. The empty space, milky in colour, transforms into both a body of water and an outcropping of marshland where the two birds rest. The ambiguity in space division is adopted from the juxtaposition of solid and void (liubai), present in Chinese ink painting. Untitled (Lotus Pond and Waterfowls) seems to be Zao's interpretation of the distinctive painting style of famous late Ming painter, Zhu Da (Ba Da Shan Ren). Zao retains the juxtaposition of solid and void to create pictorial space but in a different format. He arranges the lotus in a curved line on a horizontal surface, placing two birds on the foreground, a completely different spatial arrangement from the vertical format of Zhu Da's work in which elongated lotus branches are depicted to show the contrast of big and small. Zao's study on how relationships between objects in the same pictorial space are handled in Chinese ink painting is evident in this work. The soft tones of colour depicting olive green lotus leaves and the pink blossom heighten the tranquil atmosphere. This harmonious quality continues to the birds depicted in a pair, a metaphor of romance in both painting and poetry, such as Rowing in Mandarin Duck Lake, No, 7 by Zhu Yizun from Qing dynasty: 'Since mandarin ducks are in the lake, so do the waterfowls come in pairs.'
SPIRIT OF SPLENDOR
Zao's 14.07.68 (Lot 517) was executed in 1968, by which time the artist had long since given up figurative painting. It is a fine representative work that embodies his deep exploration of the union of Eastern aesthetics with Western abstraction. In an interview in Preuves magazine in 1964, Zao had said, 'We all obey some kind of tradition. I heed the call of two traditions.' The composition seems to linger on the ambiguity present within Chinese ink painting where empty space can be interpreted as both sky and water according to the composition of solid and void. Smoke in the distance is vaguely visible, while black brushstrokes near the center form the dynamic heart of the work— like a whirling black hole of energy focused in one torrent, coalescing and then being torn apart again. Both form and empty space are suggested by the composition, as well as tension and release, while Zao's brushwork reveals the influence of both Abstract Expressionism and Chinese calligraphy. Within the relatively small scope of his canvas, Zao achieves a magnificent, timeless power recalling the words of the Chinese poet Su Shi, in his Reminiscence on History at the Red Cliffs: 'Tangled crags pierce through the clouds, fierce waves crack the shore and foam up ridges of snow. Like a painting, I see this river and these hills...how many great men once gathered here...' Zao Wou-Ki's lyrical, abstract landscape speaks to the actual circumstances of his life in the 1960s when he became even more exuberant. His high spirits seem to have found full release on 14.07.68. 'To paint a landscape is to paint the portrait of man—not so much his physical portrait, but more that of his mind and spirit: his rhythm, his gait and bearing, his torments, his contradictions, his fears, his peace or exuberant joy, his secret desires, and his dream of the infinite.' Francois Cheng, Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting
DISSOLVED SPACE
Rhythms and movement through spatial arrangement are further translated from landscape into abstract style where grassland, lake and sky are no longer distinguishable from one another. In the 1980s, these boundaries are dissolved, creating a space defined by abstract elements－colour and brushwork convey the artist's thorough understanding of spatial organisation within both Chinese and Western landscape painting. This allows for a gracefully application of colour within the composition and layering in which one can sense the pace, music, and mood. In his 1980s works, Zao's colour palatte becomes light and gentle. To achieve this, he deliberately increased the proportions of solvent when mixing oil paint, before applying paint on canvas's surface like ink on paper, creating flowing, spreading, and permeating effect, as if a few drops of dissolving colour collide with one another creating a new hue of colour. 04.02.88 (Lot 518) is divided into three horizontal sections, the same way the foreground, middle ground, and background are subdivided within a landscape or seascape. This arrangement of sunset orange, silver white, and light greys capture the magical array of colour change at dusk. The semi-transparent quality of the paint enhances the floating and drifting effect. The juxtaposition of the small curved structure, formed by black strokes on a coloured background, create the contrast of solid and void found in Chinese ink painting, leaving ambiguous spaces for contemplation and imagination according to the experience of viewers.
'Another thing I know is that I enjoy painting more and more, that I've got more to say, with the ever-present fear of repeating myself. I paint my own life but I also try to paint an invisible place, that of dreams, somewhere where one feels in perfect harmony, even in the midst of agitated shapes or opposing forces. Every picture, from the smallest to the biggest, is always a fragment of that dream place.' ZAO WOU-KI
Although Zao Wou-Ki purposefully eschewed Chinese ink after his arrival in Paris, he did not completely dislodge himself from his cultural roots. His inner notion of Chineseness manifest themselves in various ways. In the 1960s, Zao planted common Chinese trees at the end of his garden: maples, birches, with a few lemon trees, and orchids brought back from China, and a few orange trees. Every morning, Zao Wou-Ki would see to their leaves, and then water them. For him, gardening was an elegant Chinese pastime that reminded him of his father. French art critic Daniel Marchesseau once said that Zao Wou-Ki's painting is the "integration of two world uniques", that is "Paris Chinese, a Chinese Chinese". Most view Zao Wou-Ki as a Chinese Western painter, but in fact Zao Wou-Ki's Chinese culture was what enabled him to successfully bridge Chinese and Western aesthetics, and thus create novel abstract painting. This Eastern and Western cultural exchange is not just a one-way street, however, but a way of importing Oriental art elements into a Western painting method. In fact, Zao Wou-Ki also infuses Western art into the creation of his paper-background compositions. As Zao Wou-Ki stated: "Everyone is bound by a tradition, I am bound by two." Zao always wandered between the two traditions of ink and oil painting. He assimilated Western colour composition and space layout, made the transition to watercolours, and then initiated his ink painting in the 1970's. At the same time, Zao's fine Chinese painting brushwork is to be seen within the perspective of the transplantation of this into his oil paintings. In the process of this free transmigration, Zhao transposed these perspectives in a parallel course of studying and developing watercolour creations and oil painting and ink.
'Although the influence of Paris is undeniable in all my training as an artist, I also wish to say that I have gradually rediscovered China; it has affirmed itself as my deeper personality. In my recent paintings, this is expressed in an innate manner. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is to Paris I owe this return to my deepest origins.' ZAO WOU-KI
SPIRIT OF THE WINGS
Line is an important element in Zao's semifigurative works. The seemingly innocuous caged bird in 29.12.49 (Lot 514) is simplified and depicted by bold and decisive strokes in a compact square structure, as if mimicking the formation of Chinese pictograph. The simplified representation of a bird reflects the style of the Nazca Lindes which follows the Pre-Columbian tradition of simplification and abstraction of natural shapes by the removal of details and, the preservation of elemental form. Most of the time, birds in Zao's paintings are depicted relaxed and free. It is not common to see depictions of a single caged bird, struggling as if it is shouting for its freedom. The forest green background suggests that the bird is situated in its natural environment, though the cage blocks its access to the world beyond. This painting is produced in the second year of Zao's arrival in Paris when he began to return to oil painting after a short break in print production. As if mirroring the situation, 29.12.49 marks Zao's pathway towards a breakthrough, suggesting perseverance and a revolutionary spirit as the bird's head extends beyond the cage. Painted in 1954, the rooster depicted in Untitled (Lot 513) illustrated the beauty of fine and intermittent ink lines which Zao employed on watercolour paper. The proud posture and dynamic movement of the two uplifted wings capture a moment of triumph, like a red crowned warrior celebrating a victory. This subject matter of a fighting cock is further developed into abstraction, shown in repetition in Zao's Combat de Coqs painted in the same year. The subject matter and scenery depicted in Zao's early works, prior to his evolution towards complete abstraction, document the various influences the artist digested, absorbed, and then experimented with on his path towards achieving his personal aesthetic and artistic goals.
Zao's work executed in 1948-1949 can be summarised through his exploration of various spaces, including city scenery in Paris, gardens, villages, the countryside, forests, and seashores, as well as the spatial arrangement in his still life compositions. In some of the works, the multiple perspectives in Chinese landscape painting are adapted and a vertical format is chosen by the artist. Painted in 1948, Untitled (Lot 515) was executed at the period when Zao was experimenting with spatial arrangement within Chinese and Western paintings. It is believed that the scenery depicted here represents the Jardin d'acclimatation, on the edge of Bois de Boulogne in winter time. Another watercolor work by the artist is a depiction of the same garden from an aerial perspective. The dried grassland is fenced with winter branches, forming the foreground. Meanwhile the lake and tower are composed to make up middle and background. On the right, a small pavilion inserts another dimension into the pictorial space. Tightly organised, the garden space carries an air of stability, harmony, and quietude following the artist's meditation and contemplation of the space under the clear blue sky of early morning.
SPIRIT OF ROMANCE
Birds, among many other animals, are an immensely rich source of inspiration, symbolism and metaphor for Zao Wou- Ki. The three paintings of birds in this sale provide a view of the artist's multifaceted treatment of the subject. Untitled (Lotus Pond and Waterfowls) (Lot 516) painted in 1948, was produced in the year the artist arrived Paris. A garden pond framed by bunch of lotus leaves and flowers becomes, by Zao's hand, profoundly romantic. The empty space, milky in colour, transforms into both a body of water and an outcropping of marshland where the two birds rest. The ambiguity in space division is adopted from the juxtaposition of solid and void (liubai), present in Chinese ink painting. Untitled (Lotus Pond and Waterfowls) seems to be Zao's interpretation of the distinctive painting style of famous late Ming painter, Zhu Da (Ba Da Shan Ren). Zao retains the juxtaposition of solid and void to create pictorial space but in a different format. He arranges the lotus in a curved line on a horizontal surface, placing two birds on the foreground, a completely different spatial arrangement from the vertical format of Zhu Da's work in which elongated lotus branches are depicted to show the contrast of big and small. Zao's study on how relationships between objects in the same pictorial space are handled in Chinese ink painting is evident in this work. The soft tones of colour depicting olive green lotus leaves and the pink blossom heighten the tranquil atmosphere. This harmonious quality continues to the birds depicted in a pair, a metaphor of romance in both painting and poetry, such as Rowing in Mandarin Duck Lake, No, 7 by Zhu Yizun from Qing dynasty: 'Since mandarin ducks are in the lake, so do the waterfowls come in pairs.'
SPIRIT OF SPLENDOR
Zao's 14.07.68 (Lot 517) was executed in 1968, by which time the artist had long since given up figurative painting. It is a fine representative work that embodies his deep exploration of the union of Eastern aesthetics with Western abstraction. In an interview in Preuves magazine in 1964, Zao had said, 'We all obey some kind of tradition. I heed the call of two traditions.' The composition seems to linger on the ambiguity present within Chinese ink painting where empty space can be interpreted as both sky and water according to the composition of solid and void. Smoke in the distance is vaguely visible, while black brushstrokes near the center form the dynamic heart of the work— like a whirling black hole of energy focused in one torrent, coalescing and then being torn apart again. Both form and empty space are suggested by the composition, as well as tension and release, while Zao's brushwork reveals the influence of both Abstract Expressionism and Chinese calligraphy. Within the relatively small scope of his canvas, Zao achieves a magnificent, timeless power recalling the words of the Chinese poet Su Shi, in his Reminiscence on History at the Red Cliffs: 'Tangled crags pierce through the clouds, fierce waves crack the shore and foam up ridges of snow. Like a painting, I see this river and these hills...how many great men once gathered here...' Zao Wou-Ki's lyrical, abstract landscape speaks to the actual circumstances of his life in the 1960s when he became even more exuberant. His high spirits seem to have found full release on 14.07.68. 'To paint a landscape is to paint the portrait of man—not so much his physical portrait, but more that of his mind and spirit: his rhythm, his gait and bearing, his torments, his contradictions, his fears, his peace or exuberant joy, his secret desires, and his dream of the infinite.' Francois Cheng, Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting
DISSOLVED SPACE
Rhythms and movement through spatial arrangement are further translated from landscape into abstract style where grassland, lake and sky are no longer distinguishable from one another. In the 1980s, these boundaries are dissolved, creating a space defined by abstract elements－colour and brushwork convey the artist's thorough understanding of spatial organisation within both Chinese and Western landscape painting. This allows for a gracefully application of colour within the composition and layering in which one can sense the pace, music, and mood. In his 1980s works, Zao's colour palatte becomes light and gentle. To achieve this, he deliberately increased the proportions of solvent when mixing oil paint, before applying paint on canvas's surface like ink on paper, creating flowing, spreading, and permeating effect, as if a few drops of dissolving colour collide with one another creating a new hue of colour. 04.02.88 (Lot 518) is divided into three horizontal sections, the same way the foreground, middle ground, and background are subdivided within a landscape or seascape. This arrangement of sunset orange, silver white, and light greys capture the magical array of colour change at dusk. The semi-transparent quality of the paint enhances the floating and drifting effect. The juxtaposition of the small curved structure, formed by black strokes on a coloured background, create the contrast of solid and void found in Chinese ink painting, leaving ambiguous spaces for contemplation and imagination according to the experience of viewers.
'Another thing I know is that I enjoy painting more and more, that I've got more to say, with the ever-present fear of repeating myself. I paint my own life but I also try to paint an invisible place, that of dreams, somewhere where one feels in perfect harmony, even in the midst of agitated shapes or opposing forces. Every picture, from the smallest to the biggest, is always a fragment of that dream place.' ZAO WOU-KI
Although Zao Wou-Ki purposefully eschewed Chinese ink after his arrival in Paris, he did not completely dislodge himself from his cultural roots. His inner notion of Chineseness manifest themselves in various ways. In the 1960s, Zao planted common Chinese trees at the end of his garden: maples, birches, with a few lemon trees, and orchids brought back from China, and a few orange trees. Every morning, Zao Wou-Ki would see to their leaves, and then water them. For him, gardening was an elegant Chinese pastime that reminded him of his father. French art critic Daniel Marchesseau once said that Zao Wou-Ki's painting is the "integration of two world uniques", that is "Paris Chinese, a Chinese Chinese". Most view Zao Wou-Ki as a Chinese Western painter, but in fact Zao Wou-Ki's Chinese culture was what enabled him to successfully bridge Chinese and Western aesthetics, and thus create novel abstract painting. This Eastern and Western cultural exchange is not just a one-way street, however, but a way of importing Oriental art elements into a Western painting method. In fact, Zao Wou-Ki also infuses Western art into the creation of his paper-background compositions. As Zao Wou-Ki stated: "Everyone is bound by a tradition, I am bound by two." Zao always wandered between the two traditions of ink and oil painting. He assimilated Western colour composition and space layout, made the transition to watercolours, and then initiated his ink painting in the 1970's. At the same time, Zao's fine Chinese painting brushwork is to be seen within the perspective of the transplantation of this into his oil paintings. In the process of this free transmigration, Zhao transposed these perspectives in a parallel course of studying and developing watercolour creations and oil painting and ink.
'Although the influence of Paris is undeniable in all my training as an artist, I also wish to say that I have gradually rediscovered China; it has affirmed itself as my deeper personality. In my recent paintings, this is expressed in an innate manner. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is to Paris I owe this return to my deepest origins.' ZAO WOU-KI