PROVENANCE:
Acquired by the present owner's father directly from the artist

EXHIBITED:
Chu Teh-chun 88 Retrospective , National Museum of History, Taipei, September 19- November 23, 2008

ILLUSTRATED:
Chu Teh-Chun , Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, 1998, black and white illustrated, p. 82 (The stated size is incorrect)
Overseas Chinese Fine Arts Series II: Chu Teh-chun , Artist Publishing, Taipei, 1999, black and white illustrated, p. 32 (The stated size is incorrect)
Chu Teh-chun , Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, 2000, black and white illustrated, p. 106
Chu Teh-chun , Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris, 2000, black and white illustrated, p. 322

"Pa-Shian Mountain lies in Taichung County's Heping Township. With an elevation of around 2,000 meters, the mountain is well-known for beautiful scenery and lush forests. In the 1950s, Chu Teh-Chun held a teaching position at National Taiwan University's Department of Fine Arts and — accompanied by his colleague Yuan Chu-Sheng, Chu often brought students here to sketch, draw, and get inspired. It was during this period that Chu passed five years of halcyon days in Taiwan.

Immersed in nature, Chu's artistic understanding reached a new height. Many years later, Chu wrote in Remembering Mr. Wu Dayu, Under the mentorship of Master Wu, I have become an admirer of
Cézanne. During my many years of working in the country, I never
strayed far from the perimeters of post-impressionism until 1953
when I went to Pa-Shiam Mountain to sketch. Amidst the crests and
valleys, clouds and forests of this 2,000 meter-high peak, I suddenly
gained an epiphany to the fundamentals of Chinese ink painting, the
interconnection between the poetic spirit of tradition to nature. From
the permeating mists and the surrounding trees, I envisioned the
brushstrokes of calligraphy incorporated with the past perception of
sketching and painting. Unconsciously, a transformation came about
my understanding of art . Pa-Shian Mountain played a significant role in Chu's art career and undoubtedly provided him the juncture in which he later turned to the integration of Chinese poetical and Western abstract styles.

After the end of WWII, between 1945 to 1949, the Chinese Civil War resumed. From the age of 21, Chu was already a teaching assistant at the National Hangzhou School of Art; at 24, he was transferred to the Department of Architecture at the National Central University to teach sketching. Finally, during the new year of 1949, he boarded the last ferry to Taiwan. From here, he began his career in teaching the sketching course at the Department of Fine Arts at the National Taiwan University. When he thought back to this period, the most memorable for Chu were those times he took the NTU students on sketch sessions to Pa-Shian Mountain.

On the several thousand meter-high Pa-Shian Mountain of Taiwan, I
fully took in the breathtaking view of the magnificent roiling clouds.
The billowing waves of white clouds bring heaven and earth together
in glorious magnificence, their splendor rejuvenates one's soul. All
this brought back the memory of when we returned to Nanjing in
victory after the war, when the ferry passed through the Yangtze
Gorges, we also saw the spectacular view of majestic mountains and
water surrounded by ephemeral cloudy mists. Are all of these not like
the 'Pa-Shian Landscapes' in Chinese painting? Faced with billowing
waves of clouds, I realized the root of Chinese painting lies in that we,
MEMORIES OF HALCYON
DAYS AT PA-SHIAN MOUNTAIN
Paul CÉZANNE, Mont Sainte-Victoire, c.1887, oil on convas, 67 x 92 cm
Courtauld Institute of Art, London
保羅・塞尚《聖維克多山》 c.1887 科陶德藝術學院收藏 倫敦
the Chinese people, were the first to discover the beauty of cloud and
mist and successfully recreated their forms in painting. Impressionism
emphasizes the complex colors of clouds and mists, but only Chinese
painters have discovered and studied in detail the ever-changing
exquisiteness of clouds and mists , Chu said.

Very few of Chu's works from his early days survive; currently, only five paintings with a Pa-Shian Mountain theme are known to exist. This piece, Pa-Shian Mountain, was created in 1954 and incorporates a remote mountainous landscape, floating clouds, Pa-Shian Mountain, as well as people and close-up objects all within a single scene. These all serve as testament to Chu's experience in composition and his skills in capturing real-life essence. The composition of the scene is both serene yet severe, imitating the ""perspective drawing techniques ""for the image construction so that the spatial constructs retain a sense of stability and calm but at the same time, reveal its many-layered depth. Although the painting is small in scale, it is rich in a wealth of color layers. Not only does this give off the style of post-impressionism, it also shows Chu's pursuit for the rhythms and nuances of the scene. This painting is noteworthy in that when compared to other works in the Pa-Shian Mountain series where the scenes depict tall trees and verdant forests, this piece uses almost half of the scene to portray blue skies and white clouds. Chu integrated western oil painting techniques to illustrate the loveliness in the misty forms and the beauty in change. The minute differences of the colors in the sky faintly reflect the ""ink in five shades"" form presented in Chinese ink paintings. Chu had once said, ""As I gaze upon the fantastical mists and clouds of Pa-Shian Mountain, it reminded me of a Tang poem 'Over the thousand peaks float the clouds and mists, heaven and earth mingle and become one, hidden are the trees amongst the haze, faintly the apes can be heard but not seen'. This is a poem by Tang dynasty poet Wang Wei to express the lyrical scenery of cloud and mist. From this moment on, I gained a deeper insight to clouds and mists. This understanding served a crucial function as it accompanied me afterwards throughout my abstract works in France and it enabled me to consciously instill the essence of Chinese landscape painting into my creations. ""

From the ""realistic landscapes"" of the early 1950s in Taiwan to the abstract construction series in the late 1950s, later extended to the brilliantly-colored ink-style paintings, all of the works complement and resonate each other and present Chu's artistic journey from representational to abstract. They reveal fully the Chinese Art Master's half a century journey of exploration and artistic achievements.

In December 1954, three months before Chu went to France to further his studies, he held his first solo exhibition at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei. The exhibit was well-received and many critics gave positive reviews. In particular, Su Xuelin's critique included a detailed account of Chu's styles in his early works: ""His painting techniques stem from the French post-impressionistic Cézanne with a bit of Fauvism thrown in to form his own unique style. Mr. Chu Teh-Chun's oil paintings show his profound sensitivity and versatility with color; he favors using bold colors such as bright reds, greens, blues, and yellows to depict still-life and landscape, but his lines are still powerful. Not only is he a disciple of Cézanne, he can be said to have surpassed Cézanne's legacy. "" This exhibition merited special reports in Taiwan's China Times, Taiwan Daily, and United Daily News to become another prominent art event in addition to the Taiyang Art Exhibition. Chu showcased over 50 paintings - and sold all of them. It was from these proceeds that Chu managed to save enough money to fund his trip to France. The Pa-Shian Mountain series of paintings hold special meaning in Chu's life, and they are highly representative works of Chu's Taiwan period. The style shows many similar features to Cézanne's post-impressionism; special attention was paid to the subtle changes in color and light, and the piece reveals Chu's initial foray into the exploration of representational calligraphic lines. This can be said to be the first mature period and a time of transformation in Chu's artistic career. "