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Lot Essay
Chen Yifei was the first Chinese artist who rose to fame in the United States and United Kingdom following China's period opening and reform. He studied oil painting with Soviet artist Konstantin Maximov during Maximov's visit to China. While his early training was grounded in Soviet realism, Chen expanded his grasp of the medium by incorporating the essentials of European classical realism, and developed a realist style that was uniquely his own. Beyond merging familiar aspects of Western classical realism and romanticism, he instilled quintessential features of Chinese art into his compositions. Within two years after his move to New York, Chen's work had caught the eye of Dr. Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum and founder of the Hammer Gallery. In 1985, on a visit to China, Dr. Hammer presented a Chen Yifei painting,
Hometown Memories—Twin Bridges, as a gift to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. To overseas observers, Chen Yifei's artistic
arrival heralded the dawning of a new era for fine arts in China.
Began from 1982, the Water Village series was the first series that Chen Yifei created after his arrival in New York. While it marked a thematic departure from his historical paintings from his time in China, it also conveyed a historical touch that was unaffected and nostalgic. In 1984, The New York Times and Arts News described Chen's artistic style as "romantic realism", and the Water Village series began to gain recognition in the US art scene.
The romantic aura that permeates Chen Yifei's paintings is shaped by his original brushwork. Despite his solid academic grounding in realist painting and sculpture, he did not follow the classical realist method of using exceptionally fine, precisely placed strokes of colour to create depth or reflected light in painting. Rather, he used "planes of colour" in a manner that is akin to the Impressionists.
In Day's End (Suzhou) (Lot 350), the architectures, the bridge, the surface of the river and the boats in the water village are comprised by overlapping "colour planes". Seen at a distance, the portrayal seems to capture the scene with photographic accuracy, perhaps allowing the viewer to be fooled into thinking that Chen has borrowed the technique of fine brushwork lines from Western classical realism. In fact, Chen made use of the "colour planes" technique from modern art in his classical realist painting, allowing to produce brushwork that was broad, dense, textured, and mottled. The paint surface resembles the effect produced with a special photographic lens that encapsulates a nostalgic and romantic atmosphere. It echoes the early realist oil paintings of German artist Gerhard Richter, who in the 1970s introduced a photographic vocabulary into painting. Richter employed very fine brushwork, and while his colours may intermingle on the canvas, there is little sense of texture.
In Day's End (Suzhou), Chen Yifei used this distinctive brushwork to depict the soft light of dusk, and the moist, hazy and romantic aura that is unique to Jiangnan. In the river flanked by endless black tiles and white walls, the villagers are riding the boats on their way home. It seems as if Chen has captured this serene moment in time in his delicate, evocative portrayal of Jiangnan and its breath-taking landscape surrounded by waters.
Hometown Memories—Twin Bridges, as a gift to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. To overseas observers, Chen Yifei's artistic
arrival heralded the dawning of a new era for fine arts in China.
Began from 1982, the Water Village series was the first series that Chen Yifei created after his arrival in New York. While it marked a thematic departure from his historical paintings from his time in China, it also conveyed a historical touch that was unaffected and nostalgic. In 1984, The New York Times and Arts News described Chen's artistic style as "romantic realism", and the Water Village series began to gain recognition in the US art scene.
The romantic aura that permeates Chen Yifei's paintings is shaped by his original brushwork. Despite his solid academic grounding in realist painting and sculpture, he did not follow the classical realist method of using exceptionally fine, precisely placed strokes of colour to create depth or reflected light in painting. Rather, he used "planes of colour" in a manner that is akin to the Impressionists.
In Day's End (Suzhou) (Lot 350), the architectures, the bridge, the surface of the river and the boats in the water village are comprised by overlapping "colour planes". Seen at a distance, the portrayal seems to capture the scene with photographic accuracy, perhaps allowing the viewer to be fooled into thinking that Chen has borrowed the technique of fine brushwork lines from Western classical realism. In fact, Chen made use of the "colour planes" technique from modern art in his classical realist painting, allowing to produce brushwork that was broad, dense, textured, and mottled. The paint surface resembles the effect produced with a special photographic lens that encapsulates a nostalgic and romantic atmosphere. It echoes the early realist oil paintings of German artist Gerhard Richter, who in the 1970s introduced a photographic vocabulary into painting. Richter employed very fine brushwork, and while his colours may intermingle on the canvas, there is little sense of texture.
In Day's End (Suzhou), Chen Yifei used this distinctive brushwork to depict the soft light of dusk, and the moist, hazy and romantic aura that is unique to Jiangnan. In the river flanked by endless black tiles and white walls, the villagers are riding the boats on their way home. It seems as if Chen has captured this serene moment in time in his delicate, evocative portrayal of Jiangnan and its breath-taking landscape surrounded by waters.