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FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTOR (LOTS 1487-1489)
WU GUANZHONG (1919-2010)
Yulong Mountain Village
Details
WU GUANZHONG (1919-2010)
Yulong Mountain Village
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper
123.5 x 95.5 cm. (48 5/8 x 37 5/8 in.)
With three seals of the artist
Yulong Mountain Village
Scroll, mounted and framed, ink and colour on paper
123.5 x 95.5 cm. (48 5/8 x 37 5/8 in.)
With three seals of the artist
Literature
The Art of Wu Guanzhong, L & F Art Gallery, Hong Kong, 1987, pp.68-69.
Han Mo 6, Han Mo Xuan Publishing Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, July 1990, p.21.
Han Mo 6, Han Mo Xuan Publishing Co. Ltd., Hong Kong, July 1990, p.21.
Further Details
“Its whole form jet black, its sinews taught and strong. From dawn to dusk watching over the snows of Mount Yulong. ”
Yulong Mountain Village depicts the old city of Lijiang nestled beneath the snow-capped peaks of Mount Yulong in Northwest Yunnan province. The town was made famous in China by the late Ming travelogue The Travels of Xu Xiake, compiled in the first half of the seventeenth century. Lijiang’s architecture predates even Xu’s record, preserving structures from as early as the Song and Yuan dynasties. Above Lijiang stand the imposing slopes of Mount Yulong. Yulong is the Southernmost mountain with a permanent snow line in the Northern hemisphere, its frost-white upper reaches picked out in sharp contrast with the carpet of verdant forest below. Wu Guanzhong visited this site in the 1970s working en plein air, a process that culminated a decade later in the eventual completion of this masterpiece.
The foreground is centred on a towering cedar, its twisting, sinuous trunk supporting sprawling branches with luscious leaves. Wu adapts the splashed ink technique in a liberal diffusion of black pigment, articulating the tenacious endurance of this gnarled old tree. The middle ground is filled with the interwoven rooftops of Lijiang’s old town, animated by Wu’s liberally scattered constellations of colour and splashed ink. The far distance is filled by the outline of Mount Yulong’s soaring peaks, explored in Wu’s earlier work en plein air. Picked out in the negative space of the unmarked paper, the mountain peaks stretch across the top of the painting like an undulating bridge shimmering in the distance. The interplay between the colours, textures and forms of the old cedar, the ancient town, and the towering mountain embody the depth of Wu’s artistic vision.
During the Second World War numerous Hangzhou artists accompanied the Nationalist government’s retreat to Sichuan, passing through the provinces of Hunan and Yunnan en route to Chongqing. Several artists travelled ahead of the main party, sending back sketches and reports on the local terrain. Wu Guanzhong recalled that “my deepest influence came from the pencil sketches of Mount Yulong. They seemed to beckon you toward it. My plein air renditions of Mount Yulong are rooted in these sketches.” With four decades already passed since its creation, Wu Guanzhong’s painting of Mount Yulong transcend the mere description of landscape to embody an intense communion with history.
Yulong Mountain Village depicts the old city of Lijiang nestled beneath the snow-capped peaks of Mount Yulong in Northwest Yunnan province. The town was made famous in China by the late Ming travelogue The Travels of Xu Xiake, compiled in the first half of the seventeenth century. Lijiang’s architecture predates even Xu’s record, preserving structures from as early as the Song and Yuan dynasties. Above Lijiang stand the imposing slopes of Mount Yulong. Yulong is the Southernmost mountain with a permanent snow line in the Northern hemisphere, its frost-white upper reaches picked out in sharp contrast with the carpet of verdant forest below. Wu Guanzhong visited this site in the 1970s working en plein air, a process that culminated a decade later in the eventual completion of this masterpiece.
The foreground is centred on a towering cedar, its twisting, sinuous trunk supporting sprawling branches with luscious leaves. Wu adapts the splashed ink technique in a liberal diffusion of black pigment, articulating the tenacious endurance of this gnarled old tree. The middle ground is filled with the interwoven rooftops of Lijiang’s old town, animated by Wu’s liberally scattered constellations of colour and splashed ink. The far distance is filled by the outline of Mount Yulong’s soaring peaks, explored in Wu’s earlier work en plein air. Picked out in the negative space of the unmarked paper, the mountain peaks stretch across the top of the painting like an undulating bridge shimmering in the distance. The interplay between the colours, textures and forms of the old cedar, the ancient town, and the towering mountain embody the depth of Wu’s artistic vision.
During the Second World War numerous Hangzhou artists accompanied the Nationalist government’s retreat to Sichuan, passing through the provinces of Hunan and Yunnan en route to Chongqing. Several artists travelled ahead of the main party, sending back sketches and reports on the local terrain. Wu Guanzhong recalled that “my deepest influence came from the pencil sketches of Mount Yulong. They seemed to beckon you toward it. My plein air renditions of Mount Yulong are rooted in these sketches.” With four decades already passed since its creation, Wu Guanzhong’s painting of Mount Yulong transcend the mere description of landscape to embody an intense communion with history.
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