EXHIBITED:

ILLUSTRATED:

Today, Chu Teh-chun is one of the most internationally revered artists of Chinese origin. This is reflected in the fact that he was awarded the highest honor that Paris, the Capital of the Arts, can bestow when he was made the first Chinese Academician of the French National Art and Science Academy. In Chu's abstract paintings, we can see clear traces of his cultural heritage, presenting themselves as elements of a calligraphic quality or features reminiscent of Chinese landscape painting. His style has found many admirers among art collectors around the world. Before Chu Teh-chun left Taiwan for advanced studies in France in the spring of 1955, he had never seen a single abstract painting, and had little understanding of what abstract art really was. But during his second year in France, he received much inspiration and gained new insights from a Nicolas de Stael exhibition. De Stael's art is poignant and powerful, unrestrained and yet imbued with profound meaning. What impressed Chu the most, though, was de Stael's attitude towards the creative process. Much stimulated and encouraged by de Stael's example, Chu began to abandon objective representation in favor of abstract images, exploring a new range of possibilities in his painting.

Chu Teh-chun considers traditional Chinese painting to be very much akin to abstract painting. Looking at the landscape (shanshui) paintings of Song Dynasty literati artists such as Fan Kuan, Li Tang and others, Chu observes that the mountains and rivers, the entire panoramic views from their brush, are in fact very far removed from a realistic representation of nature. It is in this disassociation, this "distance" from the subject matter, that Chu finds the meaning of abstractionism. By convention and habit, Chinese people are used to seeing and appreciating the landscapes of traditional paintings, but where would you actually find such idealized landscapes in the real world? Chu Teh-chun is extremely successful in merging the imagery of Chinese painting with the concepts and contents of contemporary art, and his innovative and unique style are widely acknowledged in French art circles.

Since 1954, the Galerie Charpentier in Paris held annual exhibitions under the "Ecole de Paris" banner, selecting representative and definitive works to go on display with much ceremony in early fall. Immediately upon its inception this event created quite a stir, and some people viewed it as the dawn of a "Nouveau Ecole de Paris", a "New School of Paris" that was to be clearly distinguished from the original Ecole de Paris" of the 1920s. In 1960, the main focus of the Galerie Charpentier's Ecole de Paris" exhibition was on abstract painting, with special emphasis on making this an international event. Chu Teh-chun's Eaux Profondes was among the exhibits as Chu was chosen to represent the Far East at this event in which more than a hundred artists from around the globe participated. It was mainly on the merit of his success with Eaux Profondes that Chu Teh-chun managed to become a member of the Ecole de Paris.

Internationally renowned fine art historian Chu-tsing Li has the following to say about Chu Teh-chun and his art of that period: "By 1960 Chu had firmly established his position in Parisian art circles. At that time most of his paintings consisted of monochromatic backgrounds with borders that were painted using wet, rapidly done brush strokes that moved in different directions. Sometimes they look like colored clouds, other times like water flowing in mountain cataracts, and at other times like boulders amid wide open spaces. Among these apparitions he added very fine brush strokes using various and lively line work, along with vivid points of color that activated the picture plane, possibly reflecting the influence of De Stael. His strongest influences, however, were derived from Chinese landscape painting technique and the implications of Chinese landscape painting in general. Every aspect of Chu's painting retained very personal characteristics, and today he still maintains a strongly individualistic style. Through careful analysis it is not different to understand that Chu's painting is derived from the Chinese landscape tradition. Although his paintings are abstract/non-objective and despite the fact that there are no streams, no mountains, no rocks and trees, still, Chu comprehends the lingering charm of nature and allows people to feel the cloudy mountains and mist shrouded trees contained within the painting. The poetic flavor and picturesque quality of his paintings can be traced back in a continuous line to their origins in Chinese landscape painting. This point has been raised by several French art critics who feel that his painting has a natural relationship with traditional Chinese landscape paintings."(Chu-tsing Li, 'The Abstract World of Chu Teh-chun' Exposition de Chu Teh-chun, Peinture recentes Extas des profondeurs, 1985-1996, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 1997, pp. 26-27)

French art critic Pierre Cabanne noticed how in works such as Eaux Profondes and others, the poetic structuralism of Chu Teh-chun has already taken a distinct shape, carried by vibrating and variegating colors:"Dark blues, incandescent reds, sea greens, rusty ochres, misty clouds pierced by billowing rhythms with their nocturnal sonorities, such as "Profound Waters"(or "Deep Waters" (1960), or rent by shrill rhythms black on white, such as "Untitled" (1960) also assume rounded or convex forms. This is a nature form beyond the world that has no perspective but has several different focal points. Its depth does not depend on illusionism but a sensitive hierarchy of values."(cf. Pierre Cabanne, Chu Teh-chun, Flammarion, Paris, 2000, p. 18)

Shades of blue dominate the painting Eaux de Profondes, and Chinese writer Zu Wei also mentions Chu Teh-chun's predilection for this color in his Biography of Chu Teh-chun. Chu feels that blue in its many hues is the most vigorous and powerful color in all of nature: azure are the skies above us, and aquamarine are the vast expanses of our oceans. Even so, the color blue also has a more poetic side, has subtle and more mellow layers of concealed meaning to which mankind feels a great affinity. Indeed, "blue" belongs to humanity in its entirety, it is the color of the whole world, of our planet. The earliest forms of life developed in the blue of the primeval oceans. This is why the artist is so fond of this color-and is Eaux de Profondes not truly brimming with the mysteries of the deep blue seas?