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拍品专文
The paintings of Chinese artist Liu Ye are works of considerable paradox and sophistication. Beneath a disarming veneer can be found the profound and thoughtful meditations of the artist. His ironic fairytales provide a mirror to the evolving world of post- Mao China, its effect on the consciousness of the artist and on his generation; at the same time, his colourful, delicately balanced compositions reveal the contemplative spirit of the artist, steeped in art history, his idiosyncratic intellectual tastes and obsessions - his love of Piet Mondrian, Hans Christian Anderson, Dick Bruna's Miffy, to name but a few - as his muse and his chess pieces. The last three decades of Liu's career have witnessed the steady refinement of the artist, his pursuit of a state of philosophical, spiritual, and artistic autonomy. This pursuit is embodied by his self-portrait from 2003, surrounded by his self-selected totems and forebears, in Mondrian, Dick Bruna, and I (Lot 36).
From his earliest years, Liu Ye has employed symbolic homage to his artistic heroes, as well as to his own personal and cultural history, in pursuit of his own creative identity, one that fuses the past with the present into an utterly new aesthetic vocabulary. This is clearly evident in his canvases from the first half of the 1990s and his "European" period. Having studied first in the Netherlands, followed by several years in Germany, Liu produced a number of rich and intimate canvases, populated by self-portraits as both adult and child, as well as by friends, patrons, and artistic influences.
These figures and symbols hold a two-fold purpose for the artist. Wassily Kandinsky, in "Concerning the Spiritual in Art", wrote, "Any object (even a pipe) has an inner music which is not subordinated to its surface meaning. If the external meaning - which in practical life dominates the object - is removed, then the thing's music will be strengthened." For Liu, his selected symbols and figures are indeed an opportunity to pursue pictorial harmony and aesthetic balance. We can see this plainly in Horse and Rider (Lot 423), painted in 1994. The composition features a young, robed female atop a majestic horse, in regal repose and wearing angel's wings, staff in hand, and surrounded by a mysterious trio of child-priests. The three boys stand atop mysterious orbs, binoculars poised intently towards a far-off horizon. The three boy-priests and young girl all "wear" hats that float effortlessly above their heads. They stand before a plain, Northern European stable. The viewers' gaze darts back and forth between the foreground and background, through a series of contrasting and receding masses and spaces, a snapshot of a blue sky with a small airplane embarking in a contrasting direction. A discreet paternal figure leans curiously out of a far off window frame.
The child-priests are an early example of Liu's use of himself in cherub form in his paintings, the floating hats a reference to the surrealism of René Magritte (Fig. 1), the direction of the action offstage a nod to the religiously-infused lighting of Johannes Vermeer (Fig. 2), the adherence to geometric forms and palette of primary colours a distillation of Liu's study of Bauhaus and De Stijl. But unlike Kandinsky's ode to form, Liu has not evacuated his symbols of content for the sake of pure formal study. The paternal figure in the distance is that of his German gallerist from the same period, the girl, the daughter of one of his early patrons. As such, the painting becomes a quiet puzzle, a metaphor for the artist's present circumstances but also a tableau alluding to the challenges of an artist embarking on his own unique journey. Liu Ye gives equal weight to content and form, resulting in works that have the grace and rigour of Mondrian, but which also bear considerable emotional and symbolic weight and which reflect the personal journey of the artist.
In Composition for Mondrian (Lot 424), painted just one year later, we can see the further distillation of Liu's themes and methods. In a shallow interior space, the artist-as-child plays hide-and-seek with his muse, René Magritte, a winged priest-like figure who hovers improbably from a single blue balloon at the center of the canvas. The perpendicular and parallel lines of the floor where it meets the wall, the legs and slats of the chair, the edge of the curtain, all gently parallel the edges of the canvas itself, and, coupled with the reds, yellows, whites and blues of the composition, are further echoed by the presence of Mondrian's canvas itself, leaning gently against the wall, partially hidden by the long curtain.
The artist-as-child plays an ineffectual game of hide-and-seek, as he peers in lain view through the slats of the simple chair. This might also suggest child's play as a mock-prisoner, suggesting Liu's ambivalence as an artist, honoring his heroes while also seeking to escape them. This tableau also introduces essential aesthetic, philosophical and visual dualities that would be present in many of Liu's works henceforth: the play between that which is hidden and that which is revealed, between revelation and obscurity, between truth and mystery, between outer form and inner expression (Fig. 3). Like a conductor commanding his symphony, between Horse and Rider and Composition for Mondrian, we see Liu at play with the themes, symbols and aesthetic strategies that have set him apart from his contemporaries and have established him as one of the most compelling painters of his generation.
With Mondrian, Dick Bruna, I (Lot 36) from 2003, Liu Ye offers one of his rare larger format canvases, already suggesting the significance of the themes and artistic development present in the work. Seated before a simple yellow worktable, the artist now appears not as a child but of indeterminate age, perhaps now an adolescent. The yellow of the table is contrasted with the rich blue of the wall behind him. From the shadows, it is revealed that various images of the iconic Dutch cartoon character, Miffy, created by Dick Bruna, are pinned at various heights on the wall. The melancholic young artist stands squarely at the center of the composition. Notably, his hands are hidden, and his child's tin cup, usually full of his artist tools (Fig. 4), is empty. He stares forlorn at the viewer before a book illustrating the works of Mondrian.
The composition displays an easy play of colour and form. The dark yellow of the shadow of the table, receding into the bright yellow of the tabletop, contrasted against the vibrant blue of the background. These colour forms are softened by Liu's rich and meticulous handling of the paint, which is never monochromatic, but dense with shadows and subtle variations, and the flatness of the composition allows the viewer to disappear into the depths of pure colour abstraction as one might before a work of Mark Rothko (Fig. 5). At the same time, the flatness of the table, the textbook, and the images of Miffy keep us alert to a jaunty patchwork composition that that vibrates like the jazz-inspired works of Mondrian or Stuart Davis (Fig. 6 & 7). At the same time, the contrast between the bright foreground and shadowed background suggests the emotional distress of the boy, obliged to his studies when he might prefer to be drawing bunny rabbits. Indeed, the composition itself evokes a famous image of Miffy-as-artist, before a series of colourful canvases and frames.
Every aspect of the work allows Liu an occasion for philosophical and artistic exploration. He does not disappear into pure formalism or pure colour abstraction, but toys with their possibilities and implications. At the same time, Liu remains alert to content and narrative, and pursues a balance perched between these two extremes. The empty child's cup is the occasion for an elegant still life, a miniaturisation of Liu's themes in its lightly contrasting yellow-white body and blue rim, its impeccably modeled shadow rich with impressionistic nuance. At the same time, this simple cup evokes the present of the "empty vessel" that would appear in depictions of Christ during the renaissance, a motif symbolic of his followers as empty vessels destined to be filled with Christ's spirit. No object is ever innocent or incidental in Liu's hands, and the composition itself further evokes the genre of artist's self-portraits in their studios. As with Édouard Manet, Portrait of Emile Zola , Liu has surrounded himself with his inspirations (Fig. 8). His flushed and distressed look suggests his humility before the path of the artist, while his facility with his themes, technique, and forms renders them both heavy and light. In a Jungian sense, he is producing himself through the objects of his attachments and obsessions, and through them, finds himself. Though dense with symbol and allusion, Liu's works are never trite or rote; his simultaneous capacity for refinement, nuance, and play is what allows us to experience his compositions like dreams unfolding. The rich colouration gives the work a gravitas that draws the viewer in; the delicate balance of forms keep the mood light, contrasting the poignant dilemma of the artist. The elegance and refinement of Liu's execution in Mondrian, Dick Bruna and I suggest a new level of artistic purity, personal reflection and expressive autonomy in his extraordinary career and evolution as an artist.
From his earliest years, Liu Ye has employed symbolic homage to his artistic heroes, as well as to his own personal and cultural history, in pursuit of his own creative identity, one that fuses the past with the present into an utterly new aesthetic vocabulary. This is clearly evident in his canvases from the first half of the 1990s and his "European" period. Having studied first in the Netherlands, followed by several years in Germany, Liu produced a number of rich and intimate canvases, populated by self-portraits as both adult and child, as well as by friends, patrons, and artistic influences.
These figures and symbols hold a two-fold purpose for the artist. Wassily Kandinsky, in "Concerning the Spiritual in Art", wrote, "Any object (even a pipe) has an inner music which is not subordinated to its surface meaning. If the external meaning - which in practical life dominates the object - is removed, then the thing's music will be strengthened." For Liu, his selected symbols and figures are indeed an opportunity to pursue pictorial harmony and aesthetic balance. We can see this plainly in Horse and Rider (Lot 423), painted in 1994. The composition features a young, robed female atop a majestic horse, in regal repose and wearing angel's wings, staff in hand, and surrounded by a mysterious trio of child-priests. The three boys stand atop mysterious orbs, binoculars poised intently towards a far-off horizon. The three boy-priests and young girl all "wear" hats that float effortlessly above their heads. They stand before a plain, Northern European stable. The viewers' gaze darts back and forth between the foreground and background, through a series of contrasting and receding masses and spaces, a snapshot of a blue sky with a small airplane embarking in a contrasting direction. A discreet paternal figure leans curiously out of a far off window frame.
The child-priests are an early example of Liu's use of himself in cherub form in his paintings, the floating hats a reference to the surrealism of René Magritte (Fig. 1), the direction of the action offstage a nod to the religiously-infused lighting of Johannes Vermeer (Fig. 2), the adherence to geometric forms and palette of primary colours a distillation of Liu's study of Bauhaus and De Stijl. But unlike Kandinsky's ode to form, Liu has not evacuated his symbols of content for the sake of pure formal study. The paternal figure in the distance is that of his German gallerist from the same period, the girl, the daughter of one of his early patrons. As such, the painting becomes a quiet puzzle, a metaphor for the artist's present circumstances but also a tableau alluding to the challenges of an artist embarking on his own unique journey. Liu Ye gives equal weight to content and form, resulting in works that have the grace and rigour of Mondrian, but which also bear considerable emotional and symbolic weight and which reflect the personal journey of the artist.
In Composition for Mondrian (Lot 424), painted just one year later, we can see the further distillation of Liu's themes and methods. In a shallow interior space, the artist-as-child plays hide-and-seek with his muse, René Magritte, a winged priest-like figure who hovers improbably from a single blue balloon at the center of the canvas. The perpendicular and parallel lines of the floor where it meets the wall, the legs and slats of the chair, the edge of the curtain, all gently parallel the edges of the canvas itself, and, coupled with the reds, yellows, whites and blues of the composition, are further echoed by the presence of Mondrian's canvas itself, leaning gently against the wall, partially hidden by the long curtain.
The artist-as-child plays an ineffectual game of hide-and-seek, as he peers in lain view through the slats of the simple chair. This might also suggest child's play as a mock-prisoner, suggesting Liu's ambivalence as an artist, honoring his heroes while also seeking to escape them. This tableau also introduces essential aesthetic, philosophical and visual dualities that would be present in many of Liu's works henceforth: the play between that which is hidden and that which is revealed, between revelation and obscurity, between truth and mystery, between outer form and inner expression (Fig. 3). Like a conductor commanding his symphony, between Horse and Rider and Composition for Mondrian, we see Liu at play with the themes, symbols and aesthetic strategies that have set him apart from his contemporaries and have established him as one of the most compelling painters of his generation.
With Mondrian, Dick Bruna, I (Lot 36) from 2003, Liu Ye offers one of his rare larger format canvases, already suggesting the significance of the themes and artistic development present in the work. Seated before a simple yellow worktable, the artist now appears not as a child but of indeterminate age, perhaps now an adolescent. The yellow of the table is contrasted with the rich blue of the wall behind him. From the shadows, it is revealed that various images of the iconic Dutch cartoon character, Miffy, created by Dick Bruna, are pinned at various heights on the wall. The melancholic young artist stands squarely at the center of the composition. Notably, his hands are hidden, and his child's tin cup, usually full of his artist tools (Fig. 4), is empty. He stares forlorn at the viewer before a book illustrating the works of Mondrian.
The composition displays an easy play of colour and form. The dark yellow of the shadow of the table, receding into the bright yellow of the tabletop, contrasted against the vibrant blue of the background. These colour forms are softened by Liu's rich and meticulous handling of the paint, which is never monochromatic, but dense with shadows and subtle variations, and the flatness of the composition allows the viewer to disappear into the depths of pure colour abstraction as one might before a work of Mark Rothko (Fig. 5). At the same time, the flatness of the table, the textbook, and the images of Miffy keep us alert to a jaunty patchwork composition that that vibrates like the jazz-inspired works of Mondrian or Stuart Davis (Fig. 6 & 7). At the same time, the contrast between the bright foreground and shadowed background suggests the emotional distress of the boy, obliged to his studies when he might prefer to be drawing bunny rabbits. Indeed, the composition itself evokes a famous image of Miffy-as-artist, before a series of colourful canvases and frames.
Every aspect of the work allows Liu an occasion for philosophical and artistic exploration. He does not disappear into pure formalism or pure colour abstraction, but toys with their possibilities and implications. At the same time, Liu remains alert to content and narrative, and pursues a balance perched between these two extremes. The empty child's cup is the occasion for an elegant still life, a miniaturisation of Liu's themes in its lightly contrasting yellow-white body and blue rim, its impeccably modeled shadow rich with impressionistic nuance. At the same time, this simple cup evokes the present of the "empty vessel" that would appear in depictions of Christ during the renaissance, a motif symbolic of his followers as empty vessels destined to be filled with Christ's spirit. No object is ever innocent or incidental in Liu's hands, and the composition itself further evokes the genre of artist's self-portraits in their studios. As with Édouard Manet, Portrait of Emile Zola , Liu has surrounded himself with his inspirations (Fig. 8). His flushed and distressed look suggests his humility before the path of the artist, while his facility with his themes, technique, and forms renders them both heavy and light. In a Jungian sense, he is producing himself through the objects of his attachments and obsessions, and through them, finds himself. Though dense with symbol and allusion, Liu's works are never trite or rote; his simultaneous capacity for refinement, nuance, and play is what allows us to experience his compositions like dreams unfolding. The rich colouration gives the work a gravitas that draws the viewer in; the delicate balance of forms keep the mood light, contrasting the poignant dilemma of the artist. The elegance and refinement of Liu's execution in Mondrian, Dick Bruna and I suggest a new level of artistic purity, personal reflection and expressive autonomy in his extraordinary career and evolution as an artist.