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Lot Essay
The inspiration for Lin Fengmian’s Slain Six Generals and Breached Five Passes came from Chapter Twenty-Seven of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. General Guan Yu went through five passes and slain six of Cao Cao’s generals to escape and reunite with his sworn brother Liu Bei. The composition, packed full of colours and geometric shapes, is a feast for the viewer’s eyes. Among a sea of semi-visible characters, General Guan Yu stands out in a green robe and headdress, his head tilting right, exuding an invincible spirit. Two women, possibly Liu Bei’s wives, are standing timidly behind Guan Yu, their facial expressions pale and blank. A white-faced character emerges from the left and is perhaps one of the six generals whom Guan Yu would slay to escape from Cao Cao. The composition manifests countless faces, clothes, and weapons weaved together indistinguishably as if an actual fighting scene in a battleground.
The present lot comes from Lin’s literature-themed series in the 1950s. Another famous work, Flooding the Monastery, which is based on White Snake Legend, also came from this body of works. Lin perceived cubism as the vital art movement after impressionism in 20th-century Europe and applied it successfully in his works. By using colour, line and plane emphasized by cubism, Lin attempted to break through the artistic expression of realism. The result enabled him to enhance his compositional structure and logically express his thoughts. Lin introduced a sense of temporality in the two works, whereby his characters enter the composition according to their order of appearance in the book, overlapping each other as they fade into obscurity. Indeed, the twenty scenes in Slain Six Generals and Breached Five Passes only revolve around two characters and are void of fighting scenes. However, Lin’s depiction of a chaotic set is undoubtedly a creative outlet, his afterthoughts and his real emotions. In a letter he wrote to Pan Qiliu in November 1952, full of excitement, he said, ‘I found a new method after watching an old opera: I overlap the characters one by one on my composition. My aim is not to pursue the sense of volume of individual objects and people but a sense of integrated continuity. The painting doesn’t look bad, so I will watch old operas again to look for a fresh, vibrant colour palette and funny, awkward movements. I painted dozens of works depicting the masks worn by the stage actors because they intrigued me. In the new way of painting, the style has changed so drastically that many of my friends went completely shocked and accused me of going crazy.” Lin’s joy and self-gratification in discovering a new expression are thoroughly demonstrated in his words to Pan. In his later years, Lin Fengmian re-interpreted many of these compositions again, rendering a different outlook with less emphasis on exploring forms but a much stronger focus on his emotional expressions.
The present lot comes from Lin’s literature-themed series in the 1950s. Another famous work, Flooding the Monastery, which is based on White Snake Legend, also came from this body of works. Lin perceived cubism as the vital art movement after impressionism in 20th-century Europe and applied it successfully in his works. By using colour, line and plane emphasized by cubism, Lin attempted to break through the artistic expression of realism. The result enabled him to enhance his compositional structure and logically express his thoughts. Lin introduced a sense of temporality in the two works, whereby his characters enter the composition according to their order of appearance in the book, overlapping each other as they fade into obscurity. Indeed, the twenty scenes in Slain Six Generals and Breached Five Passes only revolve around two characters and are void of fighting scenes. However, Lin’s depiction of a chaotic set is undoubtedly a creative outlet, his afterthoughts and his real emotions. In a letter he wrote to Pan Qiliu in November 1952, full of excitement, he said, ‘I found a new method after watching an old opera: I overlap the characters one by one on my composition. My aim is not to pursue the sense of volume of individual objects and people but a sense of integrated continuity. The painting doesn’t look bad, so I will watch old operas again to look for a fresh, vibrant colour palette and funny, awkward movements. I painted dozens of works depicting the masks worn by the stage actors because they intrigued me. In the new way of painting, the style has changed so drastically that many of my friends went completely shocked and accused me of going crazy.” Lin’s joy and self-gratification in discovering a new expression are thoroughly demonstrated in his words to Pan. In his later years, Lin Fengmian re-interpreted many of these compositions again, rendering a different outlook with less emphasis on exploring forms but a much stronger focus on his emotional expressions.