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Lot Essay
Between the 1970s and the 1980s, Wu Guanzhong successively published articles “The Formal Beauty of Painting”, “On the Beauty of Abstractness”, and “Content Determines Form?” in the Fine Arts magazine. Wu’s writing awakened the Chinese art world and introduced new inspirations, challenging the socialist realism genre prevalent at that time.
Following ten years of exploration, Wu unreservedly embraced the abstract style and created a fresh look in his work. From the late 1980s, his works transmuted from elegant, aesthetic creations of landscape and still life to rich, intense expressions. Although abstract in nature, the particular subjects in his new paintings retained an inkling of nature’s renewing abilities, as seen in the current lot, Spring in Full Bloom, which was acquired directly from the artist when the collector visited China in the 1980s to early 1990s as a delegation of Sino Japanese cultural exchange.
At the pinnacle of Wu’s abstract achievements, Spring in Full Bloom is a visual symphony of bright green, blue, red and yellow. It encompasses lines and dots of different shades and thickness overlaying with one another, leading to an intertwining and layered spatial impression. Simultaneously, the seemingly random coloured dots and strokes mark the abounding vitality of the Spring season and the blossoming flowers. As each part of the composition can be seen as part of a grander design, the outwardly chaotic strokes and dots attest to Wu Guanzhong’s exceptional creativity and artistic mastery.
Following ten years of exploration, Wu unreservedly embraced the abstract style and created a fresh look in his work. From the late 1980s, his works transmuted from elegant, aesthetic creations of landscape and still life to rich, intense expressions. Although abstract in nature, the particular subjects in his new paintings retained an inkling of nature’s renewing abilities, as seen in the current lot, Spring in Full Bloom, which was acquired directly from the artist when the collector visited China in the 1980s to early 1990s as a delegation of Sino Japanese cultural exchange.
At the pinnacle of Wu’s abstract achievements, Spring in Full Bloom is a visual symphony of bright green, blue, red and yellow. It encompasses lines and dots of different shades and thickness overlaying with one another, leading to an intertwining and layered spatial impression. Simultaneously, the seemingly random coloured dots and strokes mark the abounding vitality of the Spring season and the blossoming flowers. As each part of the composition can be seen as part of a grander design, the outwardly chaotic strokes and dots attest to Wu Guanzhong’s exceptional creativity and artistic mastery.