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Lot Essay
‘Painting is the artist’s perception of nature. It is also a fleeting moment of truth in the universe.’ — Wu Dayu
Marking the pinnacle of Wu Dayu’s exploration of colour and abstraction, Colour Rhymes 1 unfolds with a dazzling array of hues where yellow intertwines with luminous blues and greens to create an energy-charged still-life of flowers in a vase. The painting exemplifies the artist’s lifelong investigation on the nature of colours, whilst departing from his signature Prussian-blue dominated palette by centering on a highly saturated yellow. Despite the virtual absence of shadows on the canvas, a glistening radiance bursts forth amidst the clash and flow of oil paint. The work was originally acquired directly from the artist’s family by Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei. In 2009, it was purchased by the current owner from Christie’s Hong Kong, and has since stayed in their collection for almost twenty years. Among the approximately 130 known works by Wu Dayu, Colour Rhymes 1 is particularly rare as there are only two works bearing the same title: in addition to this piece, there is one in the collection of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing. Colour Rhymes 2 in the museum collection was exhibited at the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition of China in December 1984, where it also received an honorary award. The important award not only symbolised a renewed recognition of the artist’s original creative vision, but also heralded a new phase in the development of contemporary Chinese art during the early years of the country’s reform and opening-up.
Compared to Colour Rhymes 2 in NAMOC’s collection, this work exhibits a greater complexity in its composition and treatment of space. Unlike the former, the artist’s broad-brush outlines of his objects have not been entirely dissolved, but are, instead, re-invigorated amidst the visual tension created through his mobilisation of colour patches. The thick brown strokes on the left evoke a mirror, with a translucent blue surface that stands in contrast with the bright yellow on the right, creating a spatial structure reminiscent of the interior of a room with a sunlit window. The backdrop injects vitality and three dimensionality into the vase of flowers and green leaves at the foreground. Against the foundation of a still life, Wu’s colours evolve, churn and push to transcend the boundary of the figurative. In contrast to Colour Rhymes 2, where colours fuse with and bleed into each other, this work maintains a delicate yet tension-filled balance between abstraction and figuration, revealing a rare sense of spatial awareness and compositional complexity.
‘The composition is a bouquet on the desk – is it grass or flowers? Colours flow and swirl, forms jump and dance, bursting through the window and soaring into the cosmos.’ – Wu Guanzhong
Wu Guanzhong was deeply moved when he first encountered Colours Rhymes 2 at the 1984 National Fine Arts Exhibition of China. In praising the work, he pointed out that it was neither a ‘still life’ in the traditional sense nor could it be categorised using the Western notion of ‘still life’ or ‘nature morte’ (the French term which literally translates as ‘still nature’). Rather, he believed that it was closer to ‘the capture of a sensation’ – at the point where colour and form intersect, language ceases to be effective. This interpretation precisely and accurately pins down the essence of Colour Rhymes: the work is not a representation of objects, but, through the use of colour as a medium, a visual manifestation of the instant when a sensory and spiritual creation was born.
As Wu Guanzhong noted, the very title of Colour Rhymes (the Chinese title literally means ‘Colour Grass’) invites deep reflection: ‘It is color; it is grass. It is the wild grass of the world of colours, rather than the glamourous flowers that are cultivated and pampered by man.’ (Wu Dayu, The Way of Teaching, Hangzhou, 2002, p. 11) In this work, colour is not merely a formal language, but a space where wild grass grows, spreads, and competes for. As form and colour embrace and merge, Colour Rhymes encapsulates the state of freedom attained in the paintings executed by Wu Dayu in his later years: a pure painterly experience that transcends representation and points directly to an exuberant feeling towards life and the cosmos.
A key pioneer in the design of China’s modern art education system, Wu Dayu belonged to the first generation of Chinese artists who studied oil painting in France. In 1922, at barely twenty years of age, he travelled by ocean liner to France to study oil painting, sculpture and modern art. Returning to Shanghai after completing his studies five years later, he immediately devoted himself to the teaching of Western painting and modern art concepts. The following year, he joined forces with Lin Fengmian and others to found the National Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he headed the Department of Western Painting and poured himself into establishing a system on the teaching of oil painting techniques and modern art concepts. Drawing on Western sculptural theories, he also developed the concept of ‘shixiang’, or dynamic expressionism, for modern Chinese painting. Combining the movement of calligraphy with a compositional structure that integrates both the notion of negative space in Chinese painting and the spatial design concepts in Western architecture, Wu successfully established a two-way dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetic systems. As an art educator, Wu’s influence on the future generations was profound and outstanding. Counting among his students were many prominent artists in China’s modern and contemporary art history, including Wu Guanzhong, Chu Teh-Chun, Zao Wou-Ki, and Min Xiwen. Wu played an instrumental role in shaping the trajectory of both the practice and the education of modern Chinese art, an influence that continues to this day.
Marking the pinnacle of Wu Dayu’s exploration of colour and abstraction, Colour Rhymes 1 unfolds with a dazzling array of hues where yellow intertwines with luminous blues and greens to create an energy-charged still-life of flowers in a vase. The painting exemplifies the artist’s lifelong investigation on the nature of colours, whilst departing from his signature Prussian-blue dominated palette by centering on a highly saturated yellow. Despite the virtual absence of shadows on the canvas, a glistening radiance bursts forth amidst the clash and flow of oil paint. The work was originally acquired directly from the artist’s family by Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei. In 2009, it was purchased by the current owner from Christie’s Hong Kong, and has since stayed in their collection for almost twenty years. Among the approximately 130 known works by Wu Dayu, Colour Rhymes 1 is particularly rare as there are only two works bearing the same title: in addition to this piece, there is one in the collection of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) in Beijing. Colour Rhymes 2 in the museum collection was exhibited at the Sixth National Fine Arts Exhibition of China in December 1984, where it also received an honorary award. The important award not only symbolised a renewed recognition of the artist’s original creative vision, but also heralded a new phase in the development of contemporary Chinese art during the early years of the country’s reform and opening-up.
Compared to Colour Rhymes 2 in NAMOC’s collection, this work exhibits a greater complexity in its composition and treatment of space. Unlike the former, the artist’s broad-brush outlines of his objects have not been entirely dissolved, but are, instead, re-invigorated amidst the visual tension created through his mobilisation of colour patches. The thick brown strokes on the left evoke a mirror, with a translucent blue surface that stands in contrast with the bright yellow on the right, creating a spatial structure reminiscent of the interior of a room with a sunlit window. The backdrop injects vitality and three dimensionality into the vase of flowers and green leaves at the foreground. Against the foundation of a still life, Wu’s colours evolve, churn and push to transcend the boundary of the figurative. In contrast to Colour Rhymes 2, where colours fuse with and bleed into each other, this work maintains a delicate yet tension-filled balance between abstraction and figuration, revealing a rare sense of spatial awareness and compositional complexity.
‘The composition is a bouquet on the desk – is it grass or flowers? Colours flow and swirl, forms jump and dance, bursting through the window and soaring into the cosmos.’ – Wu Guanzhong
Wu Guanzhong was deeply moved when he first encountered Colours Rhymes 2 at the 1984 National Fine Arts Exhibition of China. In praising the work, he pointed out that it was neither a ‘still life’ in the traditional sense nor could it be categorised using the Western notion of ‘still life’ or ‘nature morte’ (the French term which literally translates as ‘still nature’). Rather, he believed that it was closer to ‘the capture of a sensation’ – at the point where colour and form intersect, language ceases to be effective. This interpretation precisely and accurately pins down the essence of Colour Rhymes: the work is not a representation of objects, but, through the use of colour as a medium, a visual manifestation of the instant when a sensory and spiritual creation was born.
As Wu Guanzhong noted, the very title of Colour Rhymes (the Chinese title literally means ‘Colour Grass’) invites deep reflection: ‘It is color; it is grass. It is the wild grass of the world of colours, rather than the glamourous flowers that are cultivated and pampered by man.’ (Wu Dayu, The Way of Teaching, Hangzhou, 2002, p. 11) In this work, colour is not merely a formal language, but a space where wild grass grows, spreads, and competes for. As form and colour embrace and merge, Colour Rhymes encapsulates the state of freedom attained in the paintings executed by Wu Dayu in his later years: a pure painterly experience that transcends representation and points directly to an exuberant feeling towards life and the cosmos.
A key pioneer in the design of China’s modern art education system, Wu Dayu belonged to the first generation of Chinese artists who studied oil painting in France. In 1922, at barely twenty years of age, he travelled by ocean liner to France to study oil painting, sculpture and modern art. Returning to Shanghai after completing his studies five years later, he immediately devoted himself to the teaching of Western painting and modern art concepts. The following year, he joined forces with Lin Fengmian and others to found the National Academy of Art in Hangzhou, where he headed the Department of Western Painting and poured himself into establishing a system on the teaching of oil painting techniques and modern art concepts. Drawing on Western sculptural theories, he also developed the concept of ‘shixiang’, or dynamic expressionism, for modern Chinese painting. Combining the movement of calligraphy with a compositional structure that integrates both the notion of negative space in Chinese painting and the spatial design concepts in Western architecture, Wu successfully established a two-way dialogue between Eastern and Western aesthetic systems. As an art educator, Wu’s influence on the future generations was profound and outstanding. Counting among his students were many prominent artists in China’s modern and contemporary art history, including Wu Guanzhong, Chu Teh-Chun, Zao Wou-Ki, and Min Xiwen. Wu played an instrumental role in shaping the trajectory of both the practice and the education of modern Chinese art, an influence that continues to this day.