12.12.79

12.12.79 (Lot 3311) also takes the cosmos, space, and moving energy as its themes, though clearly with stylistic innovations that take the artist in a new direction. One aspect of this is its colour and brushwork, which here even more resemble an ink-wash style. The colour here are lighter and more delicately tinted. Large amounts of turpentine were mixed into the pigments, which were spread and splashed onto the triptych canvas in imitation of inks, leading us into a world wrapped in cloud and dense mist. In another area, this work also shows Zao's unique presentation of space during this period, as we gaze in a downward from a perspective located at some point in the sky itself. In this respect, Zao continues exploring different depictions of natural scenes. The themes of his work have moved from his early, poetic cityscapes to the later use of abstraction and linear motifs to convey a hidden harmony of movement and change. Aside from the changing themes of his work, Zao also presented different viewpoints and ways of handling space. In another complete shift in composition, the brilliant use of colour in rocky, craggy textures now fades to the sides of the painting, while the center is taken up with large areas of light and pure colours that express deep space. This empty space is again reminiscent of the manner of composition in certain works by the Southern Song painters. The intermingling of white and green shades in the center evokes a scene of rolling mists, and the glowing, refracted light that emerges and shines from the painting's center demonstrates Zao's ever-greater command of light and shadow. 12.12.79 transports the viewer back to the primordial chaos of the universe, where we feel the surging energies and the chaotic potentials of light and life beginning to emerge from this grandeur. 12.12.79 demonstrates how the artist, from the 1970s on, moved even further away from "figuration," "likenesses," and "imitation of nature," and instead, produced deeper and more abstract expressions of the hidden space, energy, life, and harmony in any landscape scene.