Catalogue Note:
Wu Guanzhong once made an evaluation of Chu Teh-Chun's style:“In Chinese tradition, the great attention paid to the grains and textures of the papers and silks as well as the brush strokes lends to an Eastern painting, which has the characteristic of revealing more the closer one looks. With his striking and bold oil paintings, Chu Teh-Chun made every effort to broaden the appeal of Chinese ink, with strokes that could speak to a contemporary audience around the world.” The fine detail common to Eastern art and the bold, daring colors common to Western painting can both be found in Chu’s work. From a distance, Chu Teh-Chun's work can appear as Western painting, or as Chinese painting if seen up close. In Chu’s work, the viscosity of the oil painting is woven through a more translucent mode, allowing to obtain a semitransparent effect originally comes from a type of Chinese paper with a distinctive elegance and style.

In 1955, Chu Teh-chun left for Paris, the city of art that once inspired his Hangzhou Arts School teachers like Lin Fengmian, Wu Dayu, and Cai Weilian. It was in Paris that he entered the realm of abstract painting that was so fulfilling to his freedom-desiring soul. Hence, the artist escaped all restrictions of the figurative, thereafter engendering an artistic universe that has since fascinated and intoxicated throes of admiring connoisseurs. If Western art’s pursuit of innovations that reflect the aura of a magnificent epoch and its search for the essences of color representation, lighting, and formal structure contributed greatly to Chu’s artistic achievement, then Chinese spiritual philosophy and its aesthetics of painting and calligraphy are what instilled an unparalleled sense of style and elegance into his works. As a matter of fact, upon arriving in France, beside the amount of time Chu Teh-chun spent on reading the favorite article among French intellectual circle, ''Le Monde''daily, another huge proportion of it was devoted to reading ''Works of Tang Poetry''and ''Works of Song Poetry'' For many years, as his spirit wanders among Chinese classical poetry and prose seeking to make an appreciation of beauty a more joyful process, it often leads to igniting his inspiration, turning it into beautiful forms on paintings.

In this work completed in 1984, the palette is dominated by cool pastels of white and various shades of green and blue, anticipating Chu's later development of his distinctive style of ''white lyricism.'' As far as use of color was concerned, the early 1980s saw a major breakthrough in Chu's art as he experimented with a wide range of hues and tones to evoke images of churning chaos, aiming to capture the essence of life as it springs from the heart of our cosmos. At the same time, however, his vacillating output from that period also includes more pastoral works featuring sublimated scenery bathed in a gentle and idyllic light. Many contemporary artists rely on assistance from external objects in their pursuit towards excellence and bringing forth of new ideas. Under the deep influence of Chinese culture, Chu Teh- chun did not chose the same path as he is a firm believer in Fan K'uan's statement, ''I will rather not rely on external beings but turn to my inner most feelings''. With this in mind, Chu Teh-chun opened new frontiers with his innermost aesthetic sense of judgment. From his brushwork, use of color and structure, viewers can enjoy a spiritual journey.

From traditional Chinese poetic point of view, atoning the stiffness from western art theories, and further creates several cultural and cultivated paintings, not just a picture of a landscape or a form of abstract, Chu poured Chinese culture spirits in his own characteristic painting language and pushed Chinese art to a brand new region that is lively and universal. Chu The-chun, who lives in France for almost sixty years, still maintains his Eastern soul and humanistic spirit. In the European art circle of ''Lyrical Abstract'' that flourished after WWII, he was praised for his unique personal style fused with his intrinsic grounding in traditional Chinese art, as well as for his solid painting skill. He is hailed as one of the best Chinese abstract masters in the 20th century.