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拍品专文
Art originated from the desire for emotional resonance. I seek resonance with the entire world, and more importantly, with the hundreds of millions of our Chinese sons and daughters. That was my original intention when I began exploring how to nationalize oil painting and modernize Chinese painting. I will hold to this idea until I die. -Wu Guanzhong
Wu Guanzhong was born on 29 August 1919 in Yixing County, Jiangsu Province. In the summer of 1934, as an electrical engineering student in the Zhejiang Industrial School associated with Zhejiang University, Wu participated in summertime military training and met Chu Teh-Chun, who was then a student at the Hangzhou Academy of Art. Chu Teh-Chun's influence brought about Wu Guanzhong's decision to study painting, and he too later studied at Hangzhou, under the guidance of Chang Shuhong and Guan Liang. He adopted the nom de plume "Wu Tu-Cha," signing his name to paintings during this period with the single character, "Tu." In 1940 he studied Chinese painting with Pan Tianshou, and in 1947-1950 he studied abroad in France (from the chronology of Wu Guanzhong's autobiography, What I Owe to Painting).
Wu Guanzhong chose scenic painting as the focal point that would embody his entire course of artistic exploration. Beginning in the 1950s, he traveled on both sides of the Yangtze, painting from life. Nature became a vast studio within which he roamed energetically, accumulating a rich store of visual experience (Fig. 1). Old Pier at Guazhou is an excellent example of Wu Guanzhong's outdoor works painted from life. In revealing the details of this scene, Wu delves into the endless possibilities in combining colour and line. The viewer's eye first settles on the broad expanse of the river, then the horizon unfolding in the far distance, along with the graceful undulation of a few white-tipped waves. Busy ships, depicted by Wu in vivid, lively abstract lines, ply their routes along the river or berth at the bank. A patchwork of various green hues, light and dark, earthy or grassy, along with the textural buildup of Wu's pigments, defines the contours of the Guazhou area. With just a few simple strokes of the brush, Wu gives vivid shape and pleasing rhythm to the ships stopping at shore and the busy figures alongside. A variety of brushstrokes, from short dots to spreading regions of colour and textured and dry-brush strokes, also merge to produce the effects here.
In his talk Nationalizing Oil Painting, Wu Guanzhong mentioned, "Can the colour and richness of oils and the flow and harmony of Chinese ink work together in a complementary way? Yes, I think they can, but there are all kinds of contradictions. How do you resolve them? Only by working at it continually, and learning from the frustrations and the rewards!"
Old Pier at Guazhou is an exciting realization of Wu Guanzhong's blend of Eastern and Western art. Old Pier at Guazhou is neither a stereotyped realistic reproduction of a scene, nor does Wu restrict himself to absolute formalism. Instead, Wu roams between those two poles, seeking greater depth in both the modeling of his subjects and in his formal approach, uniting them in a highly individualistic style and manner of expression. Individual scenic objects are abstracted in a manner compatible with the impressionistic style of traditional Chinese painting, yet Wu's management of the smallest aspects of the painting makes each of them a small scene in itself (Fig. 2).
Wu Guanzhong found his scenic subjects in nature, though philosophy of life suggested in his paintings injects deeper sentiment into those scenes; he produced "scenic paintings that depict our circumstances and realizations about human life." Given his understanding of both forms and conceptions, his figurative elements acquire a kind of abstract beauty and philosophical spirit (Fig. 3).
The old pier at Guazhou is located at Yangzhou, in today's Jiangsu Province (Fig. 4). The ancient Waterway Classic with Commentary notes that accumulations of silt and sand produced underwater sandbars, and from the Han Dynasty on, their gourd-like shape gave this place its name, which was also sometimes called "the Gua step" or "Gua wharf." First a sandbar, then a spit of land, and then a large village, Guazhou was the starting point for the Buddhist monk's journeys chronicled in Master Jianzhen's Journey to the East, and is the site of Wang Anshi's poem Berthing at Guazhou: "The spring breeze brings green to the southern banks of the Yangtze—when will the bright moon light my way home?" Zhou Enlai, at the Conference on Scientific and Technological Work held in Shanghai in 1963, noted that establishing China as a great socialist nation depended on achieving scientific and technological modernization. Wu's 1963 Old Pier at Guazhou represents his view of the Chinese people vigorously engaged in building their country, determined to rely on their own resources, in a proud scene of the new and flourishing China.
Wu Guanzhong was born on 29 August 1919 in Yixing County, Jiangsu Province. In the summer of 1934, as an electrical engineering student in the Zhejiang Industrial School associated with Zhejiang University, Wu participated in summertime military training and met Chu Teh-Chun, who was then a student at the Hangzhou Academy of Art. Chu Teh-Chun's influence brought about Wu Guanzhong's decision to study painting, and he too later studied at Hangzhou, under the guidance of Chang Shuhong and Guan Liang. He adopted the nom de plume "Wu Tu-Cha," signing his name to paintings during this period with the single character, "Tu." In 1940 he studied Chinese painting with Pan Tianshou, and in 1947-1950 he studied abroad in France (from the chronology of Wu Guanzhong's autobiography, What I Owe to Painting).
Wu Guanzhong chose scenic painting as the focal point that would embody his entire course of artistic exploration. Beginning in the 1950s, he traveled on both sides of the Yangtze, painting from life. Nature became a vast studio within which he roamed energetically, accumulating a rich store of visual experience (Fig. 1). Old Pier at Guazhou is an excellent example of Wu Guanzhong's outdoor works painted from life. In revealing the details of this scene, Wu delves into the endless possibilities in combining colour and line. The viewer's eye first settles on the broad expanse of the river, then the horizon unfolding in the far distance, along with the graceful undulation of a few white-tipped waves. Busy ships, depicted by Wu in vivid, lively abstract lines, ply their routes along the river or berth at the bank. A patchwork of various green hues, light and dark, earthy or grassy, along with the textural buildup of Wu's pigments, defines the contours of the Guazhou area. With just a few simple strokes of the brush, Wu gives vivid shape and pleasing rhythm to the ships stopping at shore and the busy figures alongside. A variety of brushstrokes, from short dots to spreading regions of colour and textured and dry-brush strokes, also merge to produce the effects here.
In his talk Nationalizing Oil Painting, Wu Guanzhong mentioned, "Can the colour and richness of oils and the flow and harmony of Chinese ink work together in a complementary way? Yes, I think they can, but there are all kinds of contradictions. How do you resolve them? Only by working at it continually, and learning from the frustrations and the rewards!"
Old Pier at Guazhou is an exciting realization of Wu Guanzhong's blend of Eastern and Western art. Old Pier at Guazhou is neither a stereotyped realistic reproduction of a scene, nor does Wu restrict himself to absolute formalism. Instead, Wu roams between those two poles, seeking greater depth in both the modeling of his subjects and in his formal approach, uniting them in a highly individualistic style and manner of expression. Individual scenic objects are abstracted in a manner compatible with the impressionistic style of traditional Chinese painting, yet Wu's management of the smallest aspects of the painting makes each of them a small scene in itself (Fig. 2).
Wu Guanzhong found his scenic subjects in nature, though philosophy of life suggested in his paintings injects deeper sentiment into those scenes; he produced "scenic paintings that depict our circumstances and realizations about human life." Given his understanding of both forms and conceptions, his figurative elements acquire a kind of abstract beauty and philosophical spirit (Fig. 3).
The old pier at Guazhou is located at Yangzhou, in today's Jiangsu Province (Fig. 4). The ancient Waterway Classic with Commentary notes that accumulations of silt and sand produced underwater sandbars, and from the Han Dynasty on, their gourd-like shape gave this place its name, which was also sometimes called "the Gua step" or "Gua wharf." First a sandbar, then a spit of land, and then a large village, Guazhou was the starting point for the Buddhist monk's journeys chronicled in Master Jianzhen's Journey to the East, and is the site of Wang Anshi's poem Berthing at Guazhou: "The spring breeze brings green to the southern banks of the Yangtze—when will the bright moon light my way home?" Zhou Enlai, at the Conference on Scientific and Technological Work held in Shanghai in 1963, noted that establishing China as a great socialist nation depended on achieving scientific and technological modernization. Wu's 1963 Old Pier at Guazhou represents his view of the Chinese people vigorously engaged in building their country, determined to rely on their own resources, in a proud scene of the new and flourishing China.