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Lot Essay
In Luo Zhongli's Late Return (A Lift at Night), the peasant woman holding the umbrella is depicted in a semi-figurative, semi-abstract manner. Her body is composed of simple shapes and lines, intentionally exaggerated based on the artist's own subjective experience, demonstrating a sense of primitive harmony and natural beauty reminiscent of post-impressionist master Gauguin's portrayals of primitive life in Tahiti. This depiction of the Chinese peasant has become a symbol of Luo's artistic practice. His expressionistic brushwork conveys the artist's thoughts, feelings and experience; his paintings are not true depictions of physical objects. This painting is the artist's response to civilised society, reminding us of long lost primitive, human values. Luo transcended the conceptual framework and artistic methods of Chinese realism, which for over half a century followed the tenets of Soviet Socialist Realism. He infuses his art with the naturalistic spirit of Chinese traditional culture. His works masterfully combine the principles of contemporary visual art and the subject matter of Chinese folk realism in a style both original and true to life.
The Daba Mountains are an important source of Luo's artistic inspiration. They rise along the borders of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei, and were a key base of operations for the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s. Luo first ventured into the Daba Mountains in 1967, searching for physical traces of the Chinese revolution. The rural lifestyle drew him there once again from 1968 to 1977. He returned to the mountains yet again in the spring of 1980, seeking subject matter for his paintings. It was on this visit that Luo gradually rediscovered life in the villages from an artistic point of view.
Painted in 1994, Late Return (A Lift at Night) is a work that reflects more than ten years of creative maturation following his work, Father, from 1980. The work is a product of the artist's explorations following his return to China after his years of study in Belgium (1983-86), signaling the successful beginning of the second period of development in an oeuvre focused on the peasants of the Daba Mountains. During this period, the artist made a transition from figuration to more modern expressionistic and symbolic depiction. The painting has been shown in two major exhibitions: The Paintings of Luo Zhongli at the National Art Museum of China (1994) and The Soul of the Daba Mountains at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (September 1995). From the 1970s onwards, Luo Zhongli has journeyed though Chinese native culture and civilisation, seeking and finding material to enrich and refine his practice. Luo began a third period of work, in which he drew on traditional Chinese folk arts, including paper cuts, woodblock prints, and batik cloth puppets. Yet his oeuvre continued to retain a recognisable consistency. Today he continues to embrace the artistic spirit of East Asian culture, through which he has gained the respect and admiration of scholars and art lovers from the East and West.
The Daba Mountains are an important source of Luo's artistic inspiration. They rise along the borders of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei, and were a key base of operations for the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s. Luo first ventured into the Daba Mountains in 1967, searching for physical traces of the Chinese revolution. The rural lifestyle drew him there once again from 1968 to 1977. He returned to the mountains yet again in the spring of 1980, seeking subject matter for his paintings. It was on this visit that Luo gradually rediscovered life in the villages from an artistic point of view.
Painted in 1994, Late Return (A Lift at Night) is a work that reflects more than ten years of creative maturation following his work, Father, from 1980. The work is a product of the artist's explorations following his return to China after his years of study in Belgium (1983-86), signaling the successful beginning of the second period of development in an oeuvre focused on the peasants of the Daba Mountains. During this period, the artist made a transition from figuration to more modern expressionistic and symbolic depiction. The painting has been shown in two major exhibitions: The Paintings of Luo Zhongli at the National Art Museum of China (1994) and The Soul of the Daba Mountains at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (September 1995). From the 1970s onwards, Luo Zhongli has journeyed though Chinese native culture and civilisation, seeking and finding material to enrich and refine his practice. Luo began a third period of work, in which he drew on traditional Chinese folk arts, including paper cuts, woodblock prints, and batik cloth puppets. Yet his oeuvre continued to retain a recognisable consistency. Today he continues to embrace the artistic spirit of East Asian culture, through which he has gained the respect and admiration of scholars and art lovers from the East and West.