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Lot Essay
PIONEER OF CHINESE MODERN ART
'The shortcomings of Western Arts are exactly where the strengths of Eastern Art lie, and the strengths of Western Arts are also where the shortcomings of Eastern Arts lie. Complementing each other produces the world's new arts.'Lin also pointed out that 'Development of national culture comes from the creation of a new era by the absorption of other cultures while basing upon one's own, and the whole process goes on and on.' LIN FENGMIAN, Lin Fengmian in 'New Theory of Chinese Painting', 1929.
Entering Lin Fengmian's artistic world, we are brought into a mountain village of poetic charm, in which every single herb and tree are Lin’s memory of his native soil, as well as an integration of his emotion and imagination. Parting from his mother lead Lin into the tranquil world of painting, which then became a language to express his innermost emotion and how he sighs for his mother. After graduation from high school, he strived for new adventure for his life. In 1919, with determined resolution, Lin travelled a long way to France, and set off for his legendary life.
Lin's abecedarian Mr. H. Yancesse, who was the Headmaster of the National School of Fine Arts in Dijon (Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de ijon), encouraged him to ‘study the precious and splendid Chinese Arts, otherwise he would make a big mistake’. Yancesse’s speech lit up his way through arts, and caused him determined to absorb the internal spirit of Eastern Arts through studying Chinese arts such as porcelain, traditional calligraphy and painting, in addition to the studying Academic Arts and Modern Arts, which didn’t receive much attention at that time.
THE LINE OF LIVELINESS
Lin believes line is critical in Chinese visual culture, for example, hieroglyphs, which are constructed with lines; calligraphy, which shows a change in focus from balance and harmony to the patterns of lines; and the art of painting, which emphasizes on the aesthetics of curved lines.
'Curve, is 'the line of gracefulness and liveliness'. Curve and straight lines are in opposition, the latter is tranquil and peaceful, which is also a manifestation of continual balance.' LIN FENGMIAN
When culture from the East and the West collided, various artists rediscovered the use of line, for example, Pan Yuliang, Foujita and Lin Fengmian.
Nude (Lot 525) is depicted by the smoothly stretched curve lines, which were finished in one single stroke, outline the lady's face and body, as a manifestation of gracefulness. Soft but decisive, the lines show the movement and strength of the artist 's hand. The background is divided by different patterns formed by lines. The quality of haziness is resembled through ink rendering technique.
CEASELESS MOMENTUM
Chinese Opera 'Lotus Lantern' is also named 'Hewing the Mountain to Rescue Mother', which is a story about the reunion of a mother and a son: Chenxiang, the son of a goddess Sanshengmu, managed to recapture the magical Lotus Lantern when he grown up, and split open the Lotus Hill, in which his mother was imprisoned, to rescue her. It is believed that the drama characters in 'Lotus Lantern' were portrayed in Lin's paintings, is due to his personal experience as well as his remote but realistic remembrance of his mother.
'Old drama makes use of separate acts to tell the story … separation into different acts seems to contain the idea of temporal continuity. … Just like Picasso, sometimes he deals with objects by overlapping them on a plane surface. My way to deal with it is that, after watching the old drama, one by one, I put the characters of separate acts on the plane in a pile. I do not aim at the volume of figures, but at the integrational consecutiveness.' LIN FENGMIAN
In the square painting, the goddess Sanshengmu occupies the central position; the one who follow her is Chenxiang, who is holding the Lotus Lantern. The three figures are overlapping, layers of fine clothes set each other off; it manifests the interlacing of spaces and layers, and suggests the complicated relationship between characters and the intricately woven plot. It is like Marcel Duchamp's early work, which shows consecutive movements of one single character.
The two figures constitute a big circle. The way Sanshengmu leans towards the left, Chenxiang's rightward leaning posture, and the way his arm with the Lotus Lantern bends into a curve line, are arranged according to this circle. Rigorous composition of the painting enhances its tension, as well as smoothens and tightens the connection within the plot. Since temporal continuity is hidden in the floating fine clothes, Lin made thorough consideration regarding the best way to present the floating fine clothes, as they are also the embodiment of temporal continuity.
In Lotus Lantern (Lot 526), with imagination the artist further lengthened the characters' hair to the bottom to lead our attention to the fluttering dresses. Hairs are then lying on top of the clothes as such; magnifying wavy curves are employed in addition to 'graceful and lively' curve lines, to make the figures dynamic. Finally, Lin applied thick layers of white powder to Sanshengmu's dark blue sleeves, like spotlighting onto the central part of the painting. This does not only add the element of light to water and ink painting, but also magnified the exaggerating dramatic element on stage.
The visual construction of character -overlapping and color-alternation is conceived by the artist as cubist way of drawing, it breaks through the mono-spatial limitation, to narrate and suggest temporal continuity and turning points in a plot. He is exploring topics like temporal integration and world-orientation, which receive lots of attention from Modern Artistic community.
THE BREATH OF HEAVY PAINT
In Lin's point of view, development of Chinese landscape paintings preceded that of the Western and the concept of temporal change was also developed in an early stage, however, the concept was only partly demonstrated, and the overall way to depict temporal change was not yet presented. In his unique landscape paintings, Lin introduced the Western Impressionists' concept towards light and refraction of colour, he merged water and ink with colours in harmony, and at the same time raised the proportion of Chinese landscape element to express his yearn for homeland in a more profound Eastern artistic conception.
Heavily painted, Autumn Twilight (Lot 527) gives fullness without adding stagnancy, the landscape painting thus created shows complexly superimposition of colour layers, and alternating layers of thick and thin waterbased paints.
The overall yellow tone mixed with gold, brown and red, the beech trees are painted in a free manner to create a multi-layered spinney, and gave the new autumn scenery a stronger sense of light-shadow penetration.
River, gentle slopes, distant mountains and sky, which were depicted based on the principle of perspective drawing: object size inversely proportional to distance, distance and spatial depth were then pulled out from square plane surface. The spiritual quality of painting is like what the ancient Chinese painter Guo Xi said, 'gazing horizontally from the distance, one feels calm and dimly discernible', Autumn Twilight created a 'realm beyond the image' by the elements such as emptiness, abstractness, distance and depth.
'The shortcomings of Western Arts are exactly where the strengths of Eastern Art lie, and the strengths of Western Arts are also where the shortcomings of Eastern Arts lie. Complementing each other produces the world's new arts.'Lin also pointed out that 'Development of national culture comes from the creation of a new era by the absorption of other cultures while basing upon one's own, and the whole process goes on and on.' LIN FENGMIAN, Lin Fengmian in 'New Theory of Chinese Painting', 1929.
Entering Lin Fengmian's artistic world, we are brought into a mountain village of poetic charm, in which every single herb and tree are Lin’s memory of his native soil, as well as an integration of his emotion and imagination. Parting from his mother lead Lin into the tranquil world of painting, which then became a language to express his innermost emotion and how he sighs for his mother. After graduation from high school, he strived for new adventure for his life. In 1919, with determined resolution, Lin travelled a long way to France, and set off for his legendary life.
Lin's abecedarian Mr. H. Yancesse, who was the Headmaster of the National School of Fine Arts in Dijon (Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de ijon), encouraged him to ‘study the precious and splendid Chinese Arts, otherwise he would make a big mistake’. Yancesse’s speech lit up his way through arts, and caused him determined to absorb the internal spirit of Eastern Arts through studying Chinese arts such as porcelain, traditional calligraphy and painting, in addition to the studying Academic Arts and Modern Arts, which didn’t receive much attention at that time.
THE LINE OF LIVELINESS
Lin believes line is critical in Chinese visual culture, for example, hieroglyphs, which are constructed with lines; calligraphy, which shows a change in focus from balance and harmony to the patterns of lines; and the art of painting, which emphasizes on the aesthetics of curved lines.
'Curve, is 'the line of gracefulness and liveliness'. Curve and straight lines are in opposition, the latter is tranquil and peaceful, which is also a manifestation of continual balance.' LIN FENGMIAN
When culture from the East and the West collided, various artists rediscovered the use of line, for example, Pan Yuliang, Foujita and Lin Fengmian.
Nude (Lot 525) is depicted by the smoothly stretched curve lines, which were finished in one single stroke, outline the lady's face and body, as a manifestation of gracefulness. Soft but decisive, the lines show the movement and strength of the artist 's hand. The background is divided by different patterns formed by lines. The quality of haziness is resembled through ink rendering technique.
CEASELESS MOMENTUM
Chinese Opera 'Lotus Lantern' is also named 'Hewing the Mountain to Rescue Mother', which is a story about the reunion of a mother and a son: Chenxiang, the son of a goddess Sanshengmu, managed to recapture the magical Lotus Lantern when he grown up, and split open the Lotus Hill, in which his mother was imprisoned, to rescue her. It is believed that the drama characters in 'Lotus Lantern' were portrayed in Lin's paintings, is due to his personal experience as well as his remote but realistic remembrance of his mother.
'Old drama makes use of separate acts to tell the story … separation into different acts seems to contain the idea of temporal continuity. … Just like Picasso, sometimes he deals with objects by overlapping them on a plane surface. My way to deal with it is that, after watching the old drama, one by one, I put the characters of separate acts on the plane in a pile. I do not aim at the volume of figures, but at the integrational consecutiveness.' LIN FENGMIAN
In the square painting, the goddess Sanshengmu occupies the central position; the one who follow her is Chenxiang, who is holding the Lotus Lantern. The three figures are overlapping, layers of fine clothes set each other off; it manifests the interlacing of spaces and layers, and suggests the complicated relationship between characters and the intricately woven plot. It is like Marcel Duchamp's early work, which shows consecutive movements of one single character.
The two figures constitute a big circle. The way Sanshengmu leans towards the left, Chenxiang's rightward leaning posture, and the way his arm with the Lotus Lantern bends into a curve line, are arranged according to this circle. Rigorous composition of the painting enhances its tension, as well as smoothens and tightens the connection within the plot. Since temporal continuity is hidden in the floating fine clothes, Lin made thorough consideration regarding the best way to present the floating fine clothes, as they are also the embodiment of temporal continuity.
In Lotus Lantern (Lot 526), with imagination the artist further lengthened the characters' hair to the bottom to lead our attention to the fluttering dresses. Hairs are then lying on top of the clothes as such; magnifying wavy curves are employed in addition to 'graceful and lively' curve lines, to make the figures dynamic. Finally, Lin applied thick layers of white powder to Sanshengmu's dark blue sleeves, like spotlighting onto the central part of the painting. This does not only add the element of light to water and ink painting, but also magnified the exaggerating dramatic element on stage.
The visual construction of character -overlapping and color-alternation is conceived by the artist as cubist way of drawing, it breaks through the mono-spatial limitation, to narrate and suggest temporal continuity and turning points in a plot. He is exploring topics like temporal integration and world-orientation, which receive lots of attention from Modern Artistic community.
THE BREATH OF HEAVY PAINT
In Lin's point of view, development of Chinese landscape paintings preceded that of the Western and the concept of temporal change was also developed in an early stage, however, the concept was only partly demonstrated, and the overall way to depict temporal change was not yet presented. In his unique landscape paintings, Lin introduced the Western Impressionists' concept towards light and refraction of colour, he merged water and ink with colours in harmony, and at the same time raised the proportion of Chinese landscape element to express his yearn for homeland in a more profound Eastern artistic conception.
Heavily painted, Autumn Twilight (Lot 527) gives fullness without adding stagnancy, the landscape painting thus created shows complexly superimposition of colour layers, and alternating layers of thick and thin waterbased paints.
The overall yellow tone mixed with gold, brown and red, the beech trees are painted in a free manner to create a multi-layered spinney, and gave the new autumn scenery a stronger sense of light-shadow penetration.
River, gentle slopes, distant mountains and sky, which were depicted based on the principle of perspective drawing: object size inversely proportional to distance, distance and spatial depth were then pulled out from square plane surface. The spiritual quality of painting is like what the ancient Chinese painter Guo Xi said, 'gazing horizontally from the distance, one feels calm and dimly discernible', Autumn Twilight created a 'realm beyond the image' by the elements such as emptiness, abstractness, distance and depth.