.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
“With Western colour relationships and the abstract lines of calligraphy, I hope to mould 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
Chu Teh-chun was almost 80 years old when he painted Ombres Flottantes in 1997; he was still at his creative peak, and his exploration of the world of abstraction had matured. Apart from stronger echoes of the unique dynamics of the Chinese calligraphic brushstrokes, Ombres Flottantes also differs in the use of light, shadow and colours than his previous works that emphasise the contrast between brightness and darkness, dramatic tension and highly emotional composition. The painting features vibrant specks of light and lines to create an intersecting, pulsating rhythm, while illuminating a poetic realm that evokes “the strumming of strings resounds, like large and small beads falling on a jade plate” in The Pipa Tune.
Chu Teh-chun once quoted the words of Paul Klee: “Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.” In this context, what is “not visible” denotes a kind of spiritual concept. In the 1990s, the purely abstract structure could no longer encapsulate the stirrings in Chu’s emotional response towards the universe. The artist set out to explore new modes of expression; he switched from red to aquamarine in his choice of color palette, as he believed blue was the grandest colour in nature. The connection, the rise and fall, and the intersection between characters in Chinese calligraphy are more strongly manifested in his works from this period, where they are interwoven with the colours in the composition to reveal the artist’s inner feelings.
Unlike the artist’s early works featuring dramatic lighting that recalls the works of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, in Ombres Flottantes, colourful specks of light dance between warm and cold colours, bearing closer resemblance to the shifting light in Impressionist paintings. It brings to mind the sparkling sunlight beneath the trees and the intriguing colours in Renoir’s Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette. Another distinctive feature of Ombres Flottantes is the rich musical rhythm it embodies. Among Western artists, such effects are only seen in Kandinsky’s synesthesia in art (Fig. 1). When the viewer gazes at the painting, they feel as though they were listening to a beautiful melody and watching the dance of colours.
Chu Teh-chun developed a solid foundation in calligraphy and painting at a young age. His brushstrokes in Ombres Flottantes showcase impeccable artistry, where the seemingly free flowing brushstrokes are precisely arranged. Chu also used a unique, semi-transparent paint to perfectly imitate the texture of the ink smudge, creating a visual effect of featherlike lightness that accentuates the sense of depth. The effect is akin to the sea of mist and clouds in traditional landscape painting. It guides the viewer to engage in a pure visual experience, and to broaden their feelings and imagination of an unknown space. Different colours are “written” in the painting in swift lines that resemble the calligraphic styles of flying white, scattered brush and semi-cursive script. The energy of the brushstrokes is increasingly condensed towards the centre, in sharp contrast to the ethereal touches on the periphery, as if the energy was spreading towards the margins. This contrast between the illusory and the real is created by the alternation between condensing and expanding, and that between converging and dispersing. It embodies the beauty of landscape painting that emphasises the illusory and the real arising from one another, a tradition established since Early Spring by Guo Xi from the Northern Song dynasty.
The poetry of Ombres Flottantes stems from the rise and fall in the language of colours, where a sense of lyricism and profound spiritual substance are instilled into abstract lights and colours. A great deal of details is rendered in the main colours of aqua and turquoise, as if depicting a sacred and serene state. Indigo intersects with the warm rays of light in red, yellow and orange in distinct contrast, weaving an interior world of overlapping contradictions. This approach to the contrast between cold and warm echoes that in Red Lotus by Zhang Daqian (Fig.2).
Chu Teh-Chun created an “interior landscape” in Ombres Flottantes, where colours and lines take the place of physical scenery. The realm beyond the painting spells the boundlessness of time and space, while the brushstrokes and colours illuminate the richness of spiritual and emotional experience. Chu drew on the aesthetic tradition of the unison of Chinese poetry and painting, and merged the “poetic realm” with painting. Further, he instilled classical Oriental aesthetics into the world of Western abstraction. Wu Guangzhong said that Chu’s paintings are “Chinese paintings when looked at from a close distance”. They mark the zenith of the merging of classical and contemporary, and that of Chinese and Western sensibilities by Chinese artists.
– Chu Teh-Chun
Chu Teh-chun was almost 80 years old when he painted Ombres Flottantes in 1997; he was still at his creative peak, and his exploration of the world of abstraction had matured. Apart from stronger echoes of the unique dynamics of the Chinese calligraphic brushstrokes, Ombres Flottantes also differs in the use of light, shadow and colours than his previous works that emphasise the contrast between brightness and darkness, dramatic tension and highly emotional composition. The painting features vibrant specks of light and lines to create an intersecting, pulsating rhythm, while illuminating a poetic realm that evokes “the strumming of strings resounds, like large and small beads falling on a jade plate” in The Pipa Tune.
Chu Teh-chun once quoted the words of Paul Klee: “Art does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.” In this context, what is “not visible” denotes a kind of spiritual concept. In the 1990s, the purely abstract structure could no longer encapsulate the stirrings in Chu’s emotional response towards the universe. The artist set out to explore new modes of expression; he switched from red to aquamarine in his choice of color palette, as he believed blue was the grandest colour in nature. The connection, the rise and fall, and the intersection between characters in Chinese calligraphy are more strongly manifested in his works from this period, where they are interwoven with the colours in the composition to reveal the artist’s inner feelings.
Unlike the artist’s early works featuring dramatic lighting that recalls the works of Rembrandt or Caravaggio, in Ombres Flottantes, colourful specks of light dance between warm and cold colours, bearing closer resemblance to the shifting light in Impressionist paintings. It brings to mind the sparkling sunlight beneath the trees and the intriguing colours in Renoir’s Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette. Another distinctive feature of Ombres Flottantes is the rich musical rhythm it embodies. Among Western artists, such effects are only seen in Kandinsky’s synesthesia in art (Fig. 1). When the viewer gazes at the painting, they feel as though they were listening to a beautiful melody and watching the dance of colours.
Chu Teh-chun developed a solid foundation in calligraphy and painting at a young age. His brushstrokes in Ombres Flottantes showcase impeccable artistry, where the seemingly free flowing brushstrokes are precisely arranged. Chu also used a unique, semi-transparent paint to perfectly imitate the texture of the ink smudge, creating a visual effect of featherlike lightness that accentuates the sense of depth. The effect is akin to the sea of mist and clouds in traditional landscape painting. It guides the viewer to engage in a pure visual experience, and to broaden their feelings and imagination of an unknown space. Different colours are “written” in the painting in swift lines that resemble the calligraphic styles of flying white, scattered brush and semi-cursive script. The energy of the brushstrokes is increasingly condensed towards the centre, in sharp contrast to the ethereal touches on the periphery, as if the energy was spreading towards the margins. This contrast between the illusory and the real is created by the alternation between condensing and expanding, and that between converging and dispersing. It embodies the beauty of landscape painting that emphasises the illusory and the real arising from one another, a tradition established since Early Spring by Guo Xi from the Northern Song dynasty.
The poetry of Ombres Flottantes stems from the rise and fall in the language of colours, where a sense of lyricism and profound spiritual substance are instilled into abstract lights and colours. A great deal of details is rendered in the main colours of aqua and turquoise, as if depicting a sacred and serene state. Indigo intersects with the warm rays of light in red, yellow and orange in distinct contrast, weaving an interior world of overlapping contradictions. This approach to the contrast between cold and warm echoes that in Red Lotus by Zhang Daqian (Fig.2).
Chu Teh-Chun created an “interior landscape” in Ombres Flottantes, where colours and lines take the place of physical scenery. The realm beyond the painting spells the boundlessness of time and space, while the brushstrokes and colours illuminate the richness of spiritual and emotional experience. Chu drew on the aesthetic tradition of the unison of Chinese poetry and painting, and merged the “poetic realm” with painting. Further, he instilled classical Oriental aesthetics into the world of Western abstraction. Wu Guangzhong said that Chu’s paintings are “Chinese paintings when looked at from a close distance”. They mark the zenith of the merging of classical and contemporary, and that of Chinese and Western sensibilities by Chinese artists.