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5.6.54 (Herbes)
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1954 Oil on canvas 50 x 73 cm Signed lower right Wou-ki in Chinese, ZAO in French |
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Estimate
28,000,000 - 40,000,000 6,829,000 - 9,756,000 893,100 - 1,275,900
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Sold Price
38,400,000 9,896,907 1,273,632
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During the 1950s, the poetical spaces and intimations of Paul Klee's work helped Zao Wou-ki to rediscover the mysterious appeal of ancient Chinese characters. In origin, the signs employed by the oldest Chinese script, also known as the "oracle bone inscriptions" (jiaguwen), are graphic symbols used to represent all kinds of objects and concepts occurring in the natural world. As lasting pictographs and ideographs, they are fascinating examples of early human ingenuity and cultural inventiveness, and their design bears much resemblance to the composition of a painting. In his early work, Zao was content to depict nature in a fairly concrete and objective fashion: flowers and grass, trees and rocks are readily recognizable. But in his later years, the artist gradually shifted gears, aiming for the representation of more abstract ideas and forces, such as fire, water, wind and earth: the invisible powers that drive all existence. The crucial year for Zao's switch to abstract painting was 1954, when he moved from the narrative, material and specific to the existential, non-representational and universal, from concrete objects to symbolic meanings.
Klee's oeuvre was instrumental in pushing the artist towards abandoning figural and objective painting, but at the same time Zao's embracing of abstractionism also meant that he was leaving behind the influence of Klee's lyricism, stating that "painting should allow people to see the world in a different way, to see it from the perspective of a painter." Consequently, Zao strove to "create an artistic vocabulary that is not dependant on my subject." By tracing the Chinese cultural tradition back to one of its origins, the oracle bone inscriptions, Zao learned to grasp the role of "line" (in itself an abstraction), which enabled him to simplify and generalize all those objects and images he had before represented in a more "objective" fashion. With this, the artist's unique and much admired individual style was truly born. As Zao put it, "Suddenly, motifs began to take on shapes, while their backgrounds began to take on spatial depth, and as I repainted them again and again, discarding previous work and starting over many times, things that had been hidden in the deepest recesses of my mind began to surface."
In an article about Zao Wou-ki's paintings from this period that was published in the Parisian art journal Arts in 1955, the French art critic Alain Jouffroy outlined what it was that made Zao's work from this era so special: "In Zao Wou-ki's work one can see how the Chinese vision of the universe, where flow and distance reflect the spirit of contemplation more than the object of contemplation, has been transformed into a modern vision of universal relevance." The modernity and artistic significance of Zao's oeuvre could hardly be summed up any better.
In the Chinese view of the world, man and heaven form an organic whole, and all things and creatures in the universe come about through the merging of matter and essence. The upshot of this is that man and nature are one, each forming an integral part of the other. This harmonious view of the cosmos is evident in Northern Song painter Kuo Hsi's "Early Spring": the softly zigzagging mountains form the painting's central axis, and S-shaped rock structures help to create a sense of circular motion and make the landscape throb with currents of energy that can be felt if not actually seen. Qing Emperor Qianlong, a great friend and patron of the arts, wrote a poem to praise the merits of Early Spring: "Budding trees and thawing rivers, a hermit's residence at lofty heights; a landscape dotted with willows and peaches, and mist rising in the valleys." One of Zao Wou-ki's works from 1954 titled Vent is currently in the collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The French government bought the oil painting from a collector in 1985 for a research project examining the development of Zao's abstract style of painting. "Vent" offers an abstracted yet perfectly vivid and expressive image of tree leaves fluttering in the wind, circling, blowing and wavering in a constant interplay of air and matter, mover and moved—a poignant modern echo of the atmosphere permeating Kuo Hsi's classical landscape painting.
This lot, "5.6.54 (Herbes)", was completed in the spring of 1954 and is a masterpiece just as worthy of admiration and close study as the Centre Pompidou's Vent. Both paintings belong to the "Oracle Bone Series," employing delicate lines and shapes against a largely monochromatic backdrop of blocks and planes. With the assurance and subtle skill of a calligrapher, the artist manages to conjure up a sweeping impression of musical rhythm that seems to evaporate from the canvas like gusts of steam—an apt representation of the invisible forces of nature.
"5.6.54 (Herbes)" has the title (Herbes, Eng. "Grass") written on the back of the painting by the artist. On the surface of it, the composition shows a verdant stretch of grass in spring, a world dominated by lush green tones brimming with the sap of budding life. But there is more: cryptic black lines and curves crisscross the canvas, and a closer look reveals them to be interwoven in a peculiar fashion, with the result strongly reminiscent of the beautiful semi-abstract imagery found in Chinese seal characters, or the solid engravings and embellishments found in ancient bronze ware, heavy with a sense of long history. Meanwhile, the yellow-beige totemic symbols interspersed among the calligraphic lines further add to the captivating feel of rhythm and vibration that pervades the entire picture, and the white hues invoke enshrouding mist and floating shreds of clouds, generating a dreamlike lyrical ambience and layered space.
It is worth mentioning that "5.6.54 (Herbes)" was completed in the same year as "Paysage Abstrait" ("Abstract Landscape"), which was sold at the Ravenel Spring Auction 2010 Taipei and, in terms of basic structure and composition, bears a striking similarity to this lot. However, in other respects the paintings differ considerably. Where "5.6.54 (Herbes)" is brimming with motion, its counterpart is much more quiet and subdued, where the former revels in complexity, the latter emphasizes simplicity and compactness, where one prefers lush and rich tones, the other employs softer and less varied shades. It is almost as if these two pictures show the same landscape in a different season, or painted in a different mood. What is certain is that both works are prime specimens documenting the artist's engrossing development as an abstract painter.
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