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Lot Essay
'I saw the Alps covered in snow. When the mists were moving, there were distinct layers and shifting tones between the white of the mists and the white of the snow. In my mind I could see nothing but scenes of those mists moving over the white lands and the depths appearing within them. My heart seemed to rise up and subside in time with the shifting colors, from deep to shallow, from dense to light, and immediately images from Tang poetry came to mind. As soon as I returned home I could hardly wait to start painting.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'Besides immersing myself in the colours of Wang Wei, I am deeply enamored of Li Qing-zhao and Li Houzhu. The brilliance and passion of poetry comprise the jewel-like blue shade in my spiritual palette.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'With Western colour relationships and the abstract lines of calligraphy, I hope to mold a new style of abstract painting: one that can express the ineffable qualities of classical Chinese poetry, and abstract conceptions that can only be sensed or felt. Given what the Western critics have been saying about my work, they seem to have understood that I am searching for something different from those of Western abstract artists.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'Chinese literati painters were the first to sense the beauty of clouds and mist and the only ones who managed to express such beauty in the form of painting. In the Western history of art, the cloud only serves as a background and rarely appears as a major aesthetic object. However, Chinese painters focused on its endless variations. The cloud and mist in Pashien Mountain reminded me of an early master in literati painting of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, also known as Poem Budda. He once wrote that 'Among thousands of towering mountains cloud pervades the air, blurring the boundary between the heaven and earth, leafy trees thriving yet appearing dimed and blinded, and apes calling yet remain unseen.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
ARTICULACY IN CHINESE TRADITIONS THAT MARRIES EASTERN AND WESTERN AESTHETICS
Chu Teh-chun arrived in France for the first time in 1955 as a second-generation Chinese modern artist. He is lauded as a visionary that inspires the convergence and exchange between Chinese and Western art scenes. Confronted by the many emerging artists hailing from different schools and disciplines in the mid-20th century, Chu mulled over the mysteries within and painted tirelessly, to arrive at a conclusion, that the 'xieyi' ('free and spontaneous') aesthetic steeped in traditional Chinese ink paintings, poetry and the Taoist philosophy, is actually rooted in the same principles as the Western theoretical perceptions of abstract art conceived in the early 20th century. The Eastern cultural element indoctrinated in his training, and the Chinese -and-We s t e rn aesthetic finesse he patiently polished over the years enabled Chu to liberate the compositional poeticism and spirituality in Chinese landscapes on his canvas, with beautifully-integrated Western abstract substance that 'transcends the imagery and fulfills the spirit.'
A REENACTMENT OF SNOWSCAPE WITH 'WHITEOUT '
A millennium ago, when Ouyang Xiu –the master litterateur of the Song Dynasty– hosted his literati gatherings for drinks and poetry composition about snow, 'pear, plum, goose, crane, practice, flurry' were words completely off-limits. A millennium later, Chu Teh-chun created the imagery of snow without deliberate fabrication: rather, he intensified the representation and ambiance of snow with economical brushwork and spaces of 'void'. In the upper left corner, Snowscape (Lot 554) is primed with mint green and light hazel, followed by a generous flat wash of white, embellished with dotted colours and trailing lines, letting the swath of white to actualise the impression of snowdrift, paying homage to the grandeur of nature. This gestural execution of snow is evocative of the two-tone swaths and large sweeps of smudging in April Snow by Andrew Dasburg, and the spirit of 'simplistic and clean brushwork,' 'economical ink use' seen in Riders in the Snow. The cloud, fog, snow and frost are executed with minimalist skip of the brush across the canvas; the chill and wintriness of the composition nonetheless biting.
A CADENCED SCENESCAPE
Mentored by virtuoso ink painters such as Pan Tianshou, Zhang Guang and Li Kuchan during his stint in the School of Fine Arts of Hangzhou, Chu's artistic position, conception of nature and cosmological views of 'conveying the spirits is more than painting the form' and 'releasing the transcendent nature within you' were affirmed further. Chu had commented that 'the colours and lines in my composition are never accidental ramblings. They work together harmoniously to attain the same vision: reviving the source of light, and awakens images and rhythm.' The white, gray, and black lines in Snowscape entangle and intertwine in a breathtaking and profound dance of action painting, capturing the flying flurries from the heavens as the powdery snow rises to blanket them, in a heart-stirring panoramic spiritedness. The portrayal of events with lines is also seen in Bird Paradise by Wu Guanzhong, that acknowledges the basics of fine arts in 'dots, lines and planes' to illustrate the moods and wonders of the cosmos.
CALLIGRAPHIC LINES IN AN EXHILARATED DANCE OF ABSTRACTION
Chu has studied calligraphy since boyhood, beginning his training with rigorouslystructured regular script , followed by semi-cursive and cursive scripts. Years of commitment to this practice were imbued with a personal touch of lines; as his skills improved, Chu commanded those lines with forms and new definitions. The royal blue, light-green calligraphic lines in 2.12.87 (Lot 555), L'azur de L'espace (Azure Infinity) (Lot 557) and L'améthyste de L'espace (Amethyst Infinity) (Lot 556) are supple, with a vestige of ruggedness, as the artist brings to life a space of many depths with polish and strength effortlessly. Chu's devotion to the calligraphic exercise and assimilation of abstract beauty is credited for this artistic mastery. Wang Jiang Nan, Duo Shao Hen - 'Gazing to the South' - faithfully embodies Chu's prowess with rhythm and melodies in his brushwork of calligraphic drags, pulls, and dots, to transfigure the immense beauty of the snowscape.
SPIRITED TEXTURE STROKES, SPONTANEOUS AND EFFERVESCENT
Composition No. 80 (Lot 552) and Composition No. 206 (Lot 553) offer a powerful statement of Chu's extraordinary command of lines. The upper and lower halves of Composition No. 80 are dominated by the free and spontaneous yet uniform texture strokes of smudging, bleeding, and angular cuts, swift and forceful, to highlight the vertical and ebullient black lines. This spontaneous yet subtly precise brushwork is evocative of the mountain silhouette in Fishermen's Evening Song by Hsu Tao-ning: range upon range of mountains are executed with strong, heavily saturated ink, yet modulated with light wisps of cloud. Both pieces are created with gouache, a Western water-media, testifying to Chu's remarkable proficiency to effectuate the conception of landscape with Western techniques, Eastern philosophical substance and sophisticated execution.
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'Besides immersing myself in the colours of Wang Wei, I am deeply enamored of Li Qing-zhao and Li Houzhu. The brilliance and passion of poetry comprise the jewel-like blue shade in my spiritual palette.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'With Western colour relationships and the abstract lines of calligraphy, I hope to mold a new style of abstract painting: one that can express the ineffable qualities of classical Chinese poetry, and abstract conceptions that can only be sensed or felt. Given what the Western critics have been saying about my work, they seem to have understood that I am searching for something different from those of Western abstract artists.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
'Chinese literati painters were the first to sense the beauty of clouds and mist and the only ones who managed to express such beauty in the form of painting. In the Western history of art, the cloud only serves as a background and rarely appears as a major aesthetic object. However, Chinese painters focused on its endless variations. The cloud and mist in Pashien Mountain reminded me of an early master in literati painting of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei, also known as Poem Budda. He once wrote that 'Among thousands of towering mountains cloud pervades the air, blurring the boundary between the heaven and earth, leafy trees thriving yet appearing dimed and blinded, and apes calling yet remain unseen.'
-CHU TEH-CHUN
ARTICULACY IN CHINESE TRADITIONS THAT MARRIES EASTERN AND WESTERN AESTHETICS
Chu Teh-chun arrived in France for the first time in 1955 as a second-generation Chinese modern artist. He is lauded as a visionary that inspires the convergence and exchange between Chinese and Western art scenes. Confronted by the many emerging artists hailing from different schools and disciplines in the mid-20th century, Chu mulled over the mysteries within and painted tirelessly, to arrive at a conclusion, that the 'xieyi' ('free and spontaneous') aesthetic steeped in traditional Chinese ink paintings, poetry and the Taoist philosophy, is actually rooted in the same principles as the Western theoretical perceptions of abstract art conceived in the early 20th century. The Eastern cultural element indoctrinated in his training, and the Chinese -and-We s t e rn aesthetic finesse he patiently polished over the years enabled Chu to liberate the compositional poeticism and spirituality in Chinese landscapes on his canvas, with beautifully-integrated Western abstract substance that 'transcends the imagery and fulfills the spirit.'
A REENACTMENT OF SNOWSCAPE WITH 'WHITEOUT '
A millennium ago, when Ouyang Xiu –the master litterateur of the Song Dynasty– hosted his literati gatherings for drinks and poetry composition about snow, 'pear, plum, goose, crane, practice, flurry' were words completely off-limits. A millennium later, Chu Teh-chun created the imagery of snow without deliberate fabrication: rather, he intensified the representation and ambiance of snow with economical brushwork and spaces of 'void'. In the upper left corner, Snowscape (Lot 554) is primed with mint green and light hazel, followed by a generous flat wash of white, embellished with dotted colours and trailing lines, letting the swath of white to actualise the impression of snowdrift, paying homage to the grandeur of nature. This gestural execution of snow is evocative of the two-tone swaths and large sweeps of smudging in April Snow by Andrew Dasburg, and the spirit of 'simplistic and clean brushwork,' 'economical ink use' seen in Riders in the Snow. The cloud, fog, snow and frost are executed with minimalist skip of the brush across the canvas; the chill and wintriness of the composition nonetheless biting.
A CADENCED SCENESCAPE
Mentored by virtuoso ink painters such as Pan Tianshou, Zhang Guang and Li Kuchan during his stint in the School of Fine Arts of Hangzhou, Chu's artistic position, conception of nature and cosmological views of 'conveying the spirits is more than painting the form' and 'releasing the transcendent nature within you' were affirmed further. Chu had commented that 'the colours and lines in my composition are never accidental ramblings. They work together harmoniously to attain the same vision: reviving the source of light, and awakens images and rhythm.' The white, gray, and black lines in Snowscape entangle and intertwine in a breathtaking and profound dance of action painting, capturing the flying flurries from the heavens as the powdery snow rises to blanket them, in a heart-stirring panoramic spiritedness. The portrayal of events with lines is also seen in Bird Paradise by Wu Guanzhong, that acknowledges the basics of fine arts in 'dots, lines and planes' to illustrate the moods and wonders of the cosmos.
CALLIGRAPHIC LINES IN AN EXHILARATED DANCE OF ABSTRACTION
Chu has studied calligraphy since boyhood, beginning his training with rigorouslystructured regular script , followed by semi-cursive and cursive scripts. Years of commitment to this practice were imbued with a personal touch of lines; as his skills improved, Chu commanded those lines with forms and new definitions. The royal blue, light-green calligraphic lines in 2.12.87 (Lot 555), L'azur de L'espace (Azure Infinity) (Lot 557) and L'améthyste de L'espace (Amethyst Infinity) (Lot 556) are supple, with a vestige of ruggedness, as the artist brings to life a space of many depths with polish and strength effortlessly. Chu's devotion to the calligraphic exercise and assimilation of abstract beauty is credited for this artistic mastery. Wang Jiang Nan, Duo Shao Hen - 'Gazing to the South' - faithfully embodies Chu's prowess with rhythm and melodies in his brushwork of calligraphic drags, pulls, and dots, to transfigure the immense beauty of the snowscape.
SPIRITED TEXTURE STROKES, SPONTANEOUS AND EFFERVESCENT
Composition No. 80 (Lot 552) and Composition No. 206 (Lot 553) offer a powerful statement of Chu's extraordinary command of lines. The upper and lower halves of Composition No. 80 are dominated by the free and spontaneous yet uniform texture strokes of smudging, bleeding, and angular cuts, swift and forceful, to highlight the vertical and ebullient black lines. This spontaneous yet subtly precise brushwork is evocative of the mountain silhouette in Fishermen's Evening Song by Hsu Tao-ning: range upon range of mountains are executed with strong, heavily saturated ink, yet modulated with light wisps of cloud. Both pieces are created with gouache, a Western water-media, testifying to Chu's remarkable proficiency to effectuate the conception of landscape with Western techniques, Eastern philosophical substance and sophisticated execution.