ILLUSTRATED:

Jean Leymarie, Zao Wou-ki, Editions Cercle d'Art, Paris, 1986, black-and-white illustrated, no. 343, p. 326

Around 1980, Hsiao Chin (who was painting in Italy at that time) wrote an article entitled 'Zao Wou-ki – the First Painter to take Traditional Chinese Art onto the Global Stage,' in which he noted the international acclaim that Zao Wou-ki had achieved. Hsiao suggested that Chinese and Japanese calligraphy and brush painting had exerted a major influence over the way that Western abstract art developed in the 1950s and 1960s, and that Zao Wou-ki had played the single most important role in bringing this about.

From the early days, when his paintings had the mysterious, poetic quality of works by Paul Klee, to his later use of symbols from the ancient Chinese oracle bone script, Zao Wou-ki was constantly exploring new avenues along which abstract paintings could develop. From 1958 onwards, Zao abandoned the use of symbols, and switched over to using combinations of different color tones, which gave greater spiritual depth to his work. Zao sought to use color and line to portray his inner emotions; over time, his pulsating brushstrokes took on an ever stronger resemblance to traditional Chinese calligraphy in the "clerical script" or "wild cursive script." In this particular painting, "31.3.63" (which was completed in the spring of 1963), the artist's thoughts and feelings are expressed through brushstrokes that seem to rise up out of the canvas, against a reddish-brown background. The painting exudes joy and self-assurance, as well as a bright radiance. This work is a classic example of Zao Wou-ki's work from the 1960s, which combines elegance and beauty with great depth of meaning.

The French art critic Jean Leymarie has noted that, in the early 1960s, Zao Wou-ki made extensive use of palette knife techniques to give greater texture to his paintings: "Starting in 1961, for several years he sometimes employed a palette knife. The palette knife had first been used in painting by Courbet and Cézanne to apply paint more thickly; it subsequently became the painting implement of choice for artists who preferred a more active style of painting, because of the speed with which paint could be applied, and because of the way it enabled the artist to make particular elements within a painting either stand out or withdraw back into the canvas." ("À partir de 1961, et durant quelques années, il a parfois recours au couteau à palette, utilisé d'abord par Courbet et par Cézanne pour maçonner la touche et que les peintres de geste ont choisi comme moyen instrumental pour sa rapidité d'attaque et sa prise directe sur la matières, qu'il étale ou retire.") (Jean Leymarie (ed.), Zao Wou-ki (Catalog), 1986, pp. 36-37) Zao's use of a palette knife enabled the color to flow with the movement of his hand, whether vigorous or circumlocutory, adding greater emotional force to the work and giving it new vitality.