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拍品专文
Wu Guanzhong once said, 'During my early period (meaning my student period) I focused mostly on oils, and secondarily on traditional Chinese painting. Watercolour once served as a grand bridge in my painting career, helping communicate between these two major types of painting, Western and Eastern. In a small watercolour, you have oil-like colours meeting the water of ink-wash painting - morning mingles with evening, creating a beautiful feeling... I was continually switching between these three mediums of oil, watercolour, and ink-wash. My oil paintings imbue a sense of Chinese tradition and culture, while my inkwash paintings are influenced by Western artistic expression, the East and West elements have subconciously influenced my artworks.'
Wu Guanzhong worked principally in three mediums, which were watercolour (including goauche), oil, and ink; the order in which he used them, or switched between them, reflected the evolution of his creative process and its different phases. During the 1950s his main accomplishments appeared in the watercolour medium, though he also worked in oils; later, still working in watercolours, he gave more attention to oils; then, in the '70s, oil was his main medium even as he began transitioning to ink-wash painting, and he later worked mainly in ink, with which he had great success. For these reasons, watercolour occupied an important position in Wu Guanzhong's creative process. Given that it had both a range of colours, but was a water-based medium, he was able to gain a feel for the use of both Chinese and Western creative mediums, and watercolours were also an indispensible part of his exploratory process in producing a new work.
In 1947, Wu Guanzhong set out on a US ocean liner for Europe, landing in Italy and then traveling on to Paris by rail. Prior to setting out, he had been well schooled at the Hangzhou Academy of Arts under teachers such as Lin Fengmian and Wu Dayu, who were among the first group of Chinese painters to study abroad in Europe. Thus he had already indirectly absorbed the basic principles and forms of painting and established his skills with the mediums of Chinese ink painting and watercolour. During his time in Paris, he wandered widely, painting numerous scenic watercolours in the city and its outskirts. This A Village in a Paris Suburb (Lot 3), dating from 1950, is one such work painted from life during his studies in Paris. Wu first sketched the outlines of the scene in pencil, then used his watercolours to provide its various hues. The water-based nature of watercolours is what gives the medium its particular qualities, and the artist must immediately and intuitively grasp, from the very start, how to position each colour in the composition and how he wants to distribute colours among the various scenic objects — unlike oils, watercolours cannot be overpainted with subsequent layers to correct or alter their look, presenting a real challenge to the artist's sense of colour. Wu begins his presentation of Village on the Outskirts of Paris with the side walls on the rows of houses. Perhaps given his engineering and science background, Wu is careful to depict their proportions accurately, in clean and orderly lines, and even at this early date we can sense the importance he would later place on lines and blocks of colour. Wu's depiction of the scenic objects makes clear they belong to the streets and lanes of outer Paris. Warm sunlight falls lightly, producing soft colour tones, and Wu's brushwork is relaxed; the comfortable scene hides within it a certain tranquility that makes it always appealing despite its ordinariness. Wu Guanzhong's early efforts at scenic landscapes, such as this A Village in a Paris Suburb, undoubtedly helped lay a solid foundation for his later works in the landscape genre.
Wu Guanzhong worked principally in three mediums, which were watercolour (including goauche), oil, and ink; the order in which he used them, or switched between them, reflected the evolution of his creative process and its different phases. During the 1950s his main accomplishments appeared in the watercolour medium, though he also worked in oils; later, still working in watercolours, he gave more attention to oils; then, in the '70s, oil was his main medium even as he began transitioning to ink-wash painting, and he later worked mainly in ink, with which he had great success. For these reasons, watercolour occupied an important position in Wu Guanzhong's creative process. Given that it had both a range of colours, but was a water-based medium, he was able to gain a feel for the use of both Chinese and Western creative mediums, and watercolours were also an indispensible part of his exploratory process in producing a new work.
In 1947, Wu Guanzhong set out on a US ocean liner for Europe, landing in Italy and then traveling on to Paris by rail. Prior to setting out, he had been well schooled at the Hangzhou Academy of Arts under teachers such as Lin Fengmian and Wu Dayu, who were among the first group of Chinese painters to study abroad in Europe. Thus he had already indirectly absorbed the basic principles and forms of painting and established his skills with the mediums of Chinese ink painting and watercolour. During his time in Paris, he wandered widely, painting numerous scenic watercolours in the city and its outskirts. This A Village in a Paris Suburb (Lot 3), dating from 1950, is one such work painted from life during his studies in Paris. Wu first sketched the outlines of the scene in pencil, then used his watercolours to provide its various hues. The water-based nature of watercolours is what gives the medium its particular qualities, and the artist must immediately and intuitively grasp, from the very start, how to position each colour in the composition and how he wants to distribute colours among the various scenic objects — unlike oils, watercolours cannot be overpainted with subsequent layers to correct or alter their look, presenting a real challenge to the artist's sense of colour. Wu begins his presentation of Village on the Outskirts of Paris with the side walls on the rows of houses. Perhaps given his engineering and science background, Wu is careful to depict their proportions accurately, in clean and orderly lines, and even at this early date we can sense the importance he would later place on lines and blocks of colour. Wu's depiction of the scenic objects makes clear they belong to the streets and lanes of outer Paris. Warm sunlight falls lightly, producing soft colour tones, and Wu's brushwork is relaxed; the comfortable scene hides within it a certain tranquility that makes it always appealing despite its ordinariness. Wu Guanzhong's early efforts at scenic landscapes, such as this A Village in a Paris Suburb, undoubtedly helped lay a solid foundation for his later works in the landscape genre.