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Lot Essay
Xiao Rusong's life was dedicated to creative activities and arts education; his works received high honours at the provincial, regional, and national levels, and he had also been set apart with a vetting waiver for his entries to the Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition. His instantly identifiable style was a result of his original exploration and experimentation; unlike the style of English transparent watercolours employed by artists such as Kinichiro Ishikawa, Xiao chose opaque watercolour as his main medium of expression, and carved out his own path in the process. Among the three lots in this sale, Still Life by the Window (Lot 431) and the 1966 Interior (Lot 432) hail from his distinctive "blue/green" and "glass and window" periods, while the 1983 Interior (Lot 433) is from his later "simplified" period, after decades of practice and refinement.
Xiao studied many artistic styles in his life and drew from all of them to inform his own style of expression. Early in his career helearned from Shiotsuki Toho, but later on he was influenced by the innovative watercolour style of Nakanishi Toshio, and combined the even colour application in oil paintings with the vibrant transparency of watercolours, plus the brushstrokes of Chinese ink wash paintings, to create his unique style of opaque watercolour. In the 1960s, diverse avant-garde ideas were disseminating throughout and taking root in Taiwan, and Xiao began his experimentation with the compositional ideas of Cubism (Fig. 1), as well as Piet Mondrian's (Fig. 2) exploration of vertical spaces created by lines and planes. Xiao found that transparent or translucent objects such as glass were excellent at representing light, colours, and space, and subjects such as window frames, glass, and still life also enable a wonderful layering and contrast between the corporeal and the ethereal, which suited themselves well to watercolour. In the mid-1960s during his "blue/green" period, he showed a preference for monochromatic tones and also created his own wash techniques, which turned opaque watercolours clear to reflect the effect of glass and light on colours. In the 1980s, Xiao developed his "simplified and deformed" style, and created a new visual experience by eliminating unnecessary details while preserving the most distinctive features of a scene and accentuating or deforming them.
Xiao's unapologetically modern, simplified, and crystalline colours and composition gave birth to his tranquil and elegant style, which also reflected his personal polish and temperament; the melding of oil painting techniques, ink wash brushstrokes, and abstract geometric methods applied to watercolours all make him one of the most important artists in modern Taiwanese art history.
Xiao studied many artistic styles in his life and drew from all of them to inform his own style of expression. Early in his career helearned from Shiotsuki Toho, but later on he was influenced by the innovative watercolour style of Nakanishi Toshio, and combined the even colour application in oil paintings with the vibrant transparency of watercolours, plus the brushstrokes of Chinese ink wash paintings, to create his unique style of opaque watercolour. In the 1960s, diverse avant-garde ideas were disseminating throughout and taking root in Taiwan, and Xiao began his experimentation with the compositional ideas of Cubism (Fig. 1), as well as Piet Mondrian's (Fig. 2) exploration of vertical spaces created by lines and planes. Xiao found that transparent or translucent objects such as glass were excellent at representing light, colours, and space, and subjects such as window frames, glass, and still life also enable a wonderful layering and contrast between the corporeal and the ethereal, which suited themselves well to watercolour. In the mid-1960s during his "blue/green" period, he showed a preference for monochromatic tones and also created his own wash techniques, which turned opaque watercolours clear to reflect the effect of glass and light on colours. In the 1980s, Xiao developed his "simplified and deformed" style, and created a new visual experience by eliminating unnecessary details while preserving the most distinctive features of a scene and accentuating or deforming them.
Xiao's unapologetically modern, simplified, and crystalline colours and composition gave birth to his tranquil and elegant style, which also reflected his personal polish and temperament; the melding of oil painting techniques, ink wash brushstrokes, and abstract geometric methods applied to watercolours all make him one of the most important artists in modern Taiwanese art history.