Modernism in the West began in the end of the nineteenth century, when great breakthroughs in artistic format and language were made with the efforts of numerous twentieth century artists. Under the impact of cultural exchanges between East and West, Lin Fengmian strived for decades in the synthesis of the traits in Chinese and Western arts. His unique style was shaped in an interwoven play of Chinese ink and Western watercolour, in a serious attempt to ground poetic expression for abstract concepts on the basis of rational orderliness through structural composition. He brought to Chinese painting and calligraphy a richer and fresher energy of life. In this sale, Christie's is proud to present Lin Fengmian's breakthrough and accomplishments in compositions, light, spatial relationships and colours in selected subjects of landscape, still life and ladies. These innovations and creations represent not only the milestone for modern Chinese art development, but also fulfil his earlier mission developed in 1928--"the ideal to fuse harmoniously the Eastern and Western spirits".
Christ, Remorse (Lot 1107) is an extension of Lin's Expressionist style as found in his early works of the 1920s like Exploration and Humanity. But instead of a lamentation of the existing society, Christ, Remorse depicts the scene in which the mournful Mary lying next to the body of Christ after Crucifixion hides her face behind her hands. Though depicting a religious subject, the artist places the Virgin Mary in the center of the picture plane, focusing on the attachment between the mother and son, enhancing the intense emotional tension. Primarily painted in deep dark black, the painting is full of sorrow and an aura of silence. Lin uses white gouache at the silhouettes of the figures seemingly placed before a lightsource, simultaneously breaking down the serious sense of space. Through the artist's thoughtful portrayal, Christ, Remorse depicts a passionate expression to illustrate the Christ's innate human nature, as well as his holiness implied by the halo in the background.
In the 1940's Lin resigned from the post of principal of Hangzhou Art College, and fled to Chongqing during war. During the sojourn, he had been greatly impressed by the shuttling ferries, barges and rafts that hustled and bustled on the Jianing River, which might have inspired the creation Seascape (Lot 1108). The horizontal rocky riverbank, hulls and tilted sampans in the foreground, and the up-right sails and masts in the middle ground, create a series of intersecting lines of overlapping triangles and rectangles, resulting in a visual rhythm interplaying with sparseness and intensity. Sails of deep and light colors compete with each other in the centre of the picture. Lin has not only presented overlapping images with tangible realism that render the sails, but also created the effect of motion of sails catching the winds using semi-transparent ink washes. Hence, despite complex geometric forms, we do not see weightiness but a vivid sense of space among the overlapped images. In Seascape (Lot 1112), instead of deploying the usual square picture frame, the artist composes it in a rare oblong format which reflects his intent to depict a panoramic scene. There is an economic use of ink and brush, and the opaque gouache pigments highlight the wave spray and skies. The bright color tone is a direct narration of the natural scene. Lin extends the painting's depth of view by with the employment of multiple perspectives, by reducing objects' size with distance, and by alternating the layers of blue and green colors. Visually speaking, the painting may be seen as an Impressionist depiction of light from life, and indeed shows the inherited ideal in traditional Chinese landscape painting of depicting "the vast land in a small picture".
Square composition was a major trait of Lin's artistic creation. His still-life is among the best of the many to display the balance between the horizontal and vertical forces. In Still Life (Lot 1109), the fruit trays, fishing bowl, vase and table are portrayed in different points of view. Lin condenses and simplifies forms into graphical patterns, making objects independent from each other so as to fabricate the background to form a myriad of rectangles and circles. Circles in squares and squares in circles are not only the Western modernist compositional format but also an inheritance of the traditional Chinese philosophy of "round as the skies, square as the land". In the painting all the objects form a compact structural tension, thereby making the entire painting into one, and producing an unbeatable coherent force. Lin's plot of a geometric order is implied with a pursuit for the traditional Chinese culture and Western modernism.
Lin Fengmian said, "My paintings of ladies are mainly inspired by Chinese ceramics. I like Tang and Song ceramics, especially the Song. [I was] influenced by the transparent glazes from the Guan and Longquan kilns." In Lady (Lot 1110), the perpendicularly dissected background acts to highlight the lady in white using light yellow. The warm tone revealing from underneath the white gauze robe under the light recalls the lustrous and gentle Song white porcelains. With his mastery in the tonal gradation of semi-transparent gouache pigments, Lin captures the glittering yellow glaze of the Ding kiln. The lady's narrow shoulders and slim limbs echo with the slender-neck vase in the right. This method of simplifying figures does not only reflect the influence of Modigliani, but also of another source. In the early 1950s, Lin had copied Dunhuang murals, in which the draperies of the feitian deities inspired his style of delicate and ornate curves. Not only is Lady one of the artist's representative works, it also substantially displays his thorough mastery of both the traditional elements of the Chinese craft and Dunhuang murals, and the modern formalistic syntax of the Paris School.
Among the different types of landscape paintings, Scenery of Hangzhou is undoubtedly the best example showing the fusion of colors and ink. Kandinsky believed that, "black is the least harmonic of all colors. It can be a kind of neutral background against which the minute shades of other colors stand out clearly." Lin uses black as the base colour yet the other colors remain bright in their thick layers and dabs of pigments, whereas those lightly painted are dimmer. The depiction of light and contrast of light and shadows, and the translucence and lightness of ink fuse into one. Though Scenery of Hangzhou (Lot 1111) looks like an autumn scene portrayal, the foreground greenery grassland, the middle ground of golden and fire red forest, and the windery cold seen in the indigo mountaintop in the back comprises the variations of the four seasons. The sequence of time and multiple perspectives are in fact the artist's perception and feeling of nature's comprehensive facets, and are entrusted with his profound sentiments towards Hangzhou.