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Lot Essay
"Western painting forms the body of Guan Liang's paintings, and Chinese paintings their soul. Western painting techniques, lucid, solid, and rich, allow him to express the leisurely charm of Chinese paintings, with their tranquility, ease, and simple elegance. His aim is to create modern, forward-looking paintings that convey the spirit of traditional Chinese art; his purpose is to create." – Guo Moruo
Given that Guan Liang was one of the most avant-garde modern masters of his era, and one of the earliest to advocate a blend of Chinese and Western art practices, this quote captures perfectly the essence of his work. The focus of his career was formed around two lines of development, Chinese and Western, that wove together and formed a unique style as he moved between the oil medium and ink on paper. This season, Christie's is proud to present two important early oils from Guan Liang that testify to his evolution in the 1940s and '50s.
After graduating from the Pacific Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1923, Guan Liang was invited by Liu Haisu to teach at the Shanghai Art College. Under the influence of Guo Moruo, Guan Liang in 1927 joined the Northern Expedition, heading the Art Section of the General Political Division of the Northern Expedition Army. When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out in 1937, Guan took a boat from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then passed through Hanoi to reach Yunnan by way of the Burma Road. Now in Kunming, he taught at the National College of Art, which had relocated to Yunnan, until early 1941, when he transferred to the Technical College of Chengdu, Sichuan. It was Guan Liang's tenacious and enthusiastic love for art that inspired him with hope in difficult times such as those.
Guan Liang's Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348), dating from the 1940s, reflects his experiences during the war years. West Yunnan is famous for its diverse scenic views of snowcapped mountains, deep valleys, and lakes. Guan sets out an S-shaped composition for this winding, meandering scenery, with a temple and spire set side by side at its center. Framed by the surrounding landscape, they help highlight the wellproportioned differences in spatial depth as we advance through the layers of the painting. Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348) employs both Western perspective techniques and the aesthetics of the "deep distance" method seen in traditional Chinese painting. Guan sets out the rock wall on the left, the mountains in the distance, and the foreground rocks with relaxed, natural, concise brushwork, ingeniously combining Chinese painting techniques with the Western oil medium. Colours are vivid and saturated, and while it may appear that the colours of the painting — the emerald green of the trees, the white of the building walls, the yellow highlights, and the misty pink layers — were simply casually applied by the artist, they in fact reflect a superb technical handling of colour. These techniques originated with the Fauves, whose rich, dense tones may not have represented the actual colours of any real scene, but were used to structure paintings, heighten their sense of atmosphere, and produce added layers, all of which contributed to the great energy and vitality of their works. In the artist's own words, "I capture colorful light that brings out a sense of movement in what I depict rather than stillness."
When the War of Resistance ended in 1945, Guan Liang returned to Hangzhou, and later settled in Shanghai. In 1957, China and East Germany signed a cultural exchange agreement, and when a large-scale Chinese painting exhibition was held in East Germany, Guan Liang and Li Keran traveled to East Berlin as members of the Chinese delegation. Such a trip provided a rare opportunity to go abroad and to see great masterpieces of Western art. Guan Liang wrote in his memoirs: "In 1917, I studied Western painting at the Pacific Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo, and was exposed to works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso, and Matisse. When I was young, I always longed for the day when I might be able to visit the places where these masters once practiced their art, to study and admire their work. I was excited and on the edge of my seat as I departed Beijing with Li Keran, taking the train through Siberia, Moscow, and Czechoslovakia, and finally, ten days later, arriving in East Berlin.
The paintings of Guan Liang and Li Keran received an enthusiastic welcome during the Berlin exhibition. The German publishing house Insel-Bücherei issued a Germanlanguage edition of a Guan Liang painting album, making him only the second Chinese artist after Qi Baishi to be included in their "World Art" series. Under official sponsorship, Guan Liang was able to visit various parts of East Germany, and the unique impact of the European geography, cultures, and customs inspired him, resulting in the creation of his important "German series."
Guan Liang visited Museum Island in Berlin many times, repeatedly studying the masterpieces of Western art and making many sketches of the island itself; those sketches were invested with some of the deepest personal feeling of any works from his East Berlin visit. Berlin's Museum Island consists of five museums, including the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode- Museum, and the Pergamonmuseum. The varied styles of architecture of the five museums nevertheless achieve harmony, and together they house precious cultural relics from 6,000 years of human history.
In Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan Liang adopts a distant perspective that takes in the riverside scenery, ships plying the riverbanks, empty streets, and the striking and monumental architecture of the museum itself on the river's far side. The tranquil, pleasant scene of the painting is composed in a warm palette with broad, freehand brushwork, while simple outlines establish a rhythm that carries through from the foreground and into the middle and deep distance. Given that Guan's visit took place in the deep autumn, in October, he selects a palette based around blue-greys of relatively low saturation and purity, while light yellow tones add a mild warmth to the streets and walls near the painting's center, producing contrasting warmth and coolness and highlighting the sunlit areas. The deep red of the museum's central spire stands out against the sky, echoed by touches of red in the boats along the river. The greygreen in the lower left is balanced by the yellow-green of the lawn on the right, while the work as a whole emerges as a misty and delicate scene with a satisfyingly tranquil and leisurely atmosphere.
Fifty-seven years old when he painted Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan Liang had already returned to Chinese painting for some time, and his use of color in this work undoubtedly shows the influence of Chinese painting. After the Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Daoist idea that "the five colors blind the eyes" began to spread, and this, along with the simplicity sought in Zen Buddhism, set Chinese painting along of path of more simplified brushwork and ink color. In Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan's fine and subtle layering of color produces even, peaceful textures, reflecting the artist's state of mind and feelings during this period. Guan Liang creates a painting style uniquely his own by infusing significant aspects of colour and composition from traditional Chinese painting into his oil work.
The provenance of these two Guan Liang oil paintings is known in detail: Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348) belonged to the artist's family and was shown in a solo exhibition at the gallery of The Sun Company in Shanghai in 1947; Berlin Museum (lot 349) was witness to a historical moment of Sino-German cultural exchange in the 1950s. Mention of both works can be found in many authoritative records, and both are hard-to-find representative works by this artist. Both paintings embody his unique insights into integrating the spirit of traditional Chinese art with Western styles, and both were witness to particular episodes during the war and the cold war that followed, reflecting the artist's feelings as someone who personally experienced those eras of history.
Given that Guan Liang was one of the most avant-garde modern masters of his era, and one of the earliest to advocate a blend of Chinese and Western art practices, this quote captures perfectly the essence of his work. The focus of his career was formed around two lines of development, Chinese and Western, that wove together and formed a unique style as he moved between the oil medium and ink on paper. This season, Christie's is proud to present two important early oils from Guan Liang that testify to his evolution in the 1940s and '50s.
After graduating from the Pacific Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1923, Guan Liang was invited by Liu Haisu to teach at the Shanghai Art College. Under the influence of Guo Moruo, Guan Liang in 1927 joined the Northern Expedition, heading the Art Section of the General Political Division of the Northern Expedition Army. When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident broke out in 1937, Guan took a boat from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then passed through Hanoi to reach Yunnan by way of the Burma Road. Now in Kunming, he taught at the National College of Art, which had relocated to Yunnan, until early 1941, when he transferred to the Technical College of Chengdu, Sichuan. It was Guan Liang's tenacious and enthusiastic love for art that inspired him with hope in difficult times such as those.
Guan Liang's Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348), dating from the 1940s, reflects his experiences during the war years. West Yunnan is famous for its diverse scenic views of snowcapped mountains, deep valleys, and lakes. Guan sets out an S-shaped composition for this winding, meandering scenery, with a temple and spire set side by side at its center. Framed by the surrounding landscape, they help highlight the wellproportioned differences in spatial depth as we advance through the layers of the painting. Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348) employs both Western perspective techniques and the aesthetics of the "deep distance" method seen in traditional Chinese painting. Guan sets out the rock wall on the left, the mountains in the distance, and the foreground rocks with relaxed, natural, concise brushwork, ingeniously combining Chinese painting techniques with the Western oil medium. Colours are vivid and saturated, and while it may appear that the colours of the painting — the emerald green of the trees, the white of the building walls, the yellow highlights, and the misty pink layers — were simply casually applied by the artist, they in fact reflect a superb technical handling of colour. These techniques originated with the Fauves, whose rich, dense tones may not have represented the actual colours of any real scene, but were used to structure paintings, heighten their sense of atmosphere, and produce added layers, all of which contributed to the great energy and vitality of their works. In the artist's own words, "I capture colorful light that brings out a sense of movement in what I depict rather than stillness."
When the War of Resistance ended in 1945, Guan Liang returned to Hangzhou, and later settled in Shanghai. In 1957, China and East Germany signed a cultural exchange agreement, and when a large-scale Chinese painting exhibition was held in East Germany, Guan Liang and Li Keran traveled to East Berlin as members of the Chinese delegation. Such a trip provided a rare opportunity to go abroad and to see great masterpieces of Western art. Guan Liang wrote in his memoirs: "In 1917, I studied Western painting at the Pacific Academy of Fine Arts in Tokyo, and was exposed to works by Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso, and Matisse. When I was young, I always longed for the day when I might be able to visit the places where these masters once practiced their art, to study and admire their work. I was excited and on the edge of my seat as I departed Beijing with Li Keran, taking the train through Siberia, Moscow, and Czechoslovakia, and finally, ten days later, arriving in East Berlin.
The paintings of Guan Liang and Li Keran received an enthusiastic welcome during the Berlin exhibition. The German publishing house Insel-Bücherei issued a Germanlanguage edition of a Guan Liang painting album, making him only the second Chinese artist after Qi Baishi to be included in their "World Art" series. Under official sponsorship, Guan Liang was able to visit various parts of East Germany, and the unique impact of the European geography, cultures, and customs inspired him, resulting in the creation of his important "German series."
Guan Liang visited Museum Island in Berlin many times, repeatedly studying the masterpieces of Western art and making many sketches of the island itself; those sketches were invested with some of the deepest personal feeling of any works from his East Berlin visit. Berlin's Museum Island consists of five museums, including the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode- Museum, and the Pergamonmuseum. The varied styles of architecture of the five museums nevertheless achieve harmony, and together they house precious cultural relics from 6,000 years of human history.
In Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan Liang adopts a distant perspective that takes in the riverside scenery, ships plying the riverbanks, empty streets, and the striking and monumental architecture of the museum itself on the river's far side. The tranquil, pleasant scene of the painting is composed in a warm palette with broad, freehand brushwork, while simple outlines establish a rhythm that carries through from the foreground and into the middle and deep distance. Given that Guan's visit took place in the deep autumn, in October, he selects a palette based around blue-greys of relatively low saturation and purity, while light yellow tones add a mild warmth to the streets and walls near the painting's center, producing contrasting warmth and coolness and highlighting the sunlit areas. The deep red of the museum's central spire stands out against the sky, echoed by touches of red in the boats along the river. The greygreen in the lower left is balanced by the yellow-green of the lawn on the right, while the work as a whole emerges as a misty and delicate scene with a satisfyingly tranquil and leisurely atmosphere.
Fifty-seven years old when he painted Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan Liang had already returned to Chinese painting for some time, and his use of color in this work undoubtedly shows the influence of Chinese painting. After the Wei, Jin, and the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Daoist idea that "the five colors blind the eyes" began to spread, and this, along with the simplicity sought in Zen Buddhism, set Chinese painting along of path of more simplified brushwork and ink color. In Berlin Museum (lot 349), Guan's fine and subtle layering of color produces even, peaceful textures, reflecting the artist's state of mind and feelings during this period. Guan Liang creates a painting style uniquely his own by infusing significant aspects of colour and composition from traditional Chinese painting into his oil work.
The provenance of these two Guan Liang oil paintings is known in detail: Western Yunnan Scenery (lot 348) belonged to the artist's family and was shown in a solo exhibition at the gallery of The Sun Company in Shanghai in 1947; Berlin Museum (lot 349) was witness to a historical moment of Sino-German cultural exchange in the 1950s. Mention of both works can be found in many authoritative records, and both are hard-to-find representative works by this artist. Both paintings embody his unique insights into integrating the spirit of traditional Chinese art with Western styles, and both were witness to particular episodes during the war and the cold war that followed, reflecting the artist's feelings as someone who personally experienced those eras of history.