Lotus in Rain

The development of Zhang Daqian’s splashed ink and colour technique first matured in his landscape paintings from the middle to the late 1960s. In his later years, Zhang gradually applied this technique to painting lotus flowers and figures. As a lifelong admirer of flowers and plants, Zhang was particularly fond of lotuses and never stopped depicting them from his youth to his later years. The present lot, Lotus in Rain, is a splashed-ink masterpiece created by Zhang Daqian in his final years when the artist resided in Moye Jingshe, his residence and studio in Waishuangxi, Taipei. The artist uses simple yet expressive brushstrokes in this painting to outline two budding lotus blossoms and their stalks. The leaves are then portrayed with ink and colour pigments splashed freely on paper by a mix of azurite, malachite, and anthocyanin into a myriad of blue and green. The saturated mineral pigments freely flow and spread all over the painting, thus creating a striking contrast to the lightly coloured buds. Zhang presents the natural beauty of the lotus pond by focusing more on the composition to create a mood that evokes the gentle breeze, glimmering green water, vast waves, and fragrant flowers.