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Lot Essay
The fish is an often-seen design engraved in precious fragments of jade and carved into the back of antique Yoke-Back Chinese chairs made of rare Huanghuali. It is a ubiquitous motif in Chinese mythology due to the homophonic association that the Chinese word for fish 'yu', has with 'abundance' and 'affluence'. Bearing that in mind, then Carps in the Reeds (Lot 357) is a work that is inordinately auspicious with its sixty-nine fish darting across the paper appearing almost as if to come alive.
This is not unexpected from Pioneer Nanyang artist Chen Wen Hsi who renders some of the most exquisite animal subjects burgeoning with life and vigour in Chinese ink – a theme that has interested and brought him much joy since his childhood, which the purity of village life in Guangzhou afforded him. Through his avant-garde 'Nanyang style' of borrowing techniques from both Eastern and Western artistic approaches, Chen simultaneously contributed to the reinvigoration of the centuries-old Chinese painting traditions, while promoting distinctively local subjects and sentiments through his new visual vernacular. Chen was not a purist in any sense of the word, he drew similarly from Western oil painting by the likes of Picasso and Matisse, in addition to various Chinese ink painting methods. Despite Chen's references to many famous Chinese ink masters, it would be highly reductive to suggest that his work simply combines their techniques. Rather that he understood the underlying principles of Eastern and Western artistic practices and reimagined them into one of the most significant features of his oeuvre and a hallmark of his body of work. His resulting new style was a response to the socio-political changes happening in the region at the time, and Chen's artistic developments was a conscious effort to encapsulate a new perspective and a new kind of belonging.
Chen displayed his interest in artistic experimentation from a young age, grinding up organic indigenous materials such as red stone and extracting the juice of leaves to create his own pigments. This fascination drove him to leave for Shanghai to study art formally, where he was exposed to various schools of Chinese ink painting styles such as the Wu school and the Lingnan school. He immersed himself in the world of traditional Chinese art at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Art, practicing alongside other pioneer Nanyang artists such as Liu Kang and Chen Chong Swee. In Carp in the Reeds, we behold Chen's application of both the looser strokes of the xieyi style in the depiction of the reeds, and the delineated lines of his gongbi style in the representation of the carp, contrasting with one another to stunning effect and giving his work a sense of realism that makes one want to reach out and run one's fingers through the water. Such is the beauty of Chen's works; often, he creates a tension through the pushing and pulling of opposites. Even the way in which the vertical aquatic verdure is juxtaposed against the more horizontal flow of the fish, creates a bold and daring composition.
Indeed, Carps in the Reeds features one of Chen's most definitive and singular structural techniques within his ink paintings – that of the oval – which he maintains is "a compositional structure that should have an oval or two rotund forms". For Chen, this "long parabolic curve on the plane" creates a sense of dynamism in the work that gives it movement and life. Some believe that that this feature was inspired by one of Chen's greatest influences, that of the important 20th Century traditional Chinese painter, Pan Tianshou. Pan had had developed a style in which the privileged the articulation of the void as much as the formulation of solid forms, as exemplified by his work Bamboo and Orchid with the dramatic sweeping curves of the bamboos, creating a circular space of nothingness in the painting. Chen Wen Hsi extrapolated and simplified this philosophy, amalgamating it with that of Western visual principles such as contrast, balance and rhythm, resulting in a breath-taking work of majestic proportions. Every line in the work is carefully considered to produce the most visual delight and maximum impact; no brushstroke is superfluous and multiple layers of swiftly-applied translucent ink washes compels Carps in the Reeds to ripple and vibrate, eliciting an atmospheric depth with overwhelming feeling and emotion.
Colour was also exceptionally important to Chen, and his use of colour within the composition of Carps in the Reeds is one which characterises his thirst for constant innovation; in addition to the use of other smaller fish to intersperse with the carp to create compositional interest and balance, he has deliberately painted a single ultramarine carp amongst a school of traditionally crimson ones, which i s not a common feature of traditional carp paintings. From a classical subject-matter customarily prized purely for its aesthetic and visual harmony, Chen elevates it beyond this conventional appreciation creating an idiosyncratic, almost narrative effect, much in the way in which Bada Shanren does with his moving depiction of a bird perched on a rock.
Carps in the Reeds is one of the most exquisite and superb examples of Chen's carp paintings to be offered on the market. An elegant and deeply poignant work that showcases the artist's skills and unique creative flair, alongside his thoughtful compositional techniques, Chen was truly a beacon of innovation and genius for the many generations of artists that followed after.
This is not unexpected from Pioneer Nanyang artist Chen Wen Hsi who renders some of the most exquisite animal subjects burgeoning with life and vigour in Chinese ink – a theme that has interested and brought him much joy since his childhood, which the purity of village life in Guangzhou afforded him. Through his avant-garde 'Nanyang style' of borrowing techniques from both Eastern and Western artistic approaches, Chen simultaneously contributed to the reinvigoration of the centuries-old Chinese painting traditions, while promoting distinctively local subjects and sentiments through his new visual vernacular. Chen was not a purist in any sense of the word, he drew similarly from Western oil painting by the likes of Picasso and Matisse, in addition to various Chinese ink painting methods. Despite Chen's references to many famous Chinese ink masters, it would be highly reductive to suggest that his work simply combines their techniques. Rather that he understood the underlying principles of Eastern and Western artistic practices and reimagined them into one of the most significant features of his oeuvre and a hallmark of his body of work. His resulting new style was a response to the socio-political changes happening in the region at the time, and Chen's artistic developments was a conscious effort to encapsulate a new perspective and a new kind of belonging.
Chen displayed his interest in artistic experimentation from a young age, grinding up organic indigenous materials such as red stone and extracting the juice of leaves to create his own pigments. This fascination drove him to leave for Shanghai to study art formally, where he was exposed to various schools of Chinese ink painting styles such as the Wu school and the Lingnan school. He immersed himself in the world of traditional Chinese art at the Xin Hua Academy of Fine Art, practicing alongside other pioneer Nanyang artists such as Liu Kang and Chen Chong Swee. In Carp in the Reeds, we behold Chen's application of both the looser strokes of the xieyi style in the depiction of the reeds, and the delineated lines of his gongbi style in the representation of the carp, contrasting with one another to stunning effect and giving his work a sense of realism that makes one want to reach out and run one's fingers through the water. Such is the beauty of Chen's works; often, he creates a tension through the pushing and pulling of opposites. Even the way in which the vertical aquatic verdure is juxtaposed against the more horizontal flow of the fish, creates a bold and daring composition.
Indeed, Carps in the Reeds features one of Chen's most definitive and singular structural techniques within his ink paintings – that of the oval – which he maintains is "a compositional structure that should have an oval or two rotund forms". For Chen, this "long parabolic curve on the plane" creates a sense of dynamism in the work that gives it movement and life. Some believe that that this feature was inspired by one of Chen's greatest influences, that of the important 20th Century traditional Chinese painter, Pan Tianshou. Pan had had developed a style in which the privileged the articulation of the void as much as the formulation of solid forms, as exemplified by his work Bamboo and Orchid with the dramatic sweeping curves of the bamboos, creating a circular space of nothingness in the painting. Chen Wen Hsi extrapolated and simplified this philosophy, amalgamating it with that of Western visual principles such as contrast, balance and rhythm, resulting in a breath-taking work of majestic proportions. Every line in the work is carefully considered to produce the most visual delight and maximum impact; no brushstroke is superfluous and multiple layers of swiftly-applied translucent ink washes compels Carps in the Reeds to ripple and vibrate, eliciting an atmospheric depth with overwhelming feeling and emotion.
Colour was also exceptionally important to Chen, and his use of colour within the composition of Carps in the Reeds is one which characterises his thirst for constant innovation; in addition to the use of other smaller fish to intersperse with the carp to create compositional interest and balance, he has deliberately painted a single ultramarine carp amongst a school of traditionally crimson ones, which i s not a common feature of traditional carp paintings. From a classical subject-matter customarily prized purely for its aesthetic and visual harmony, Chen elevates it beyond this conventional appreciation creating an idiosyncratic, almost narrative effect, much in the way in which Bada Shanren does with his moving depiction of a bird perched on a rock.
Carps in the Reeds is one of the most exquisite and superb examples of Chen's carp paintings to be offered on the market. An elegant and deeply poignant work that showcases the artist's skills and unique creative flair, alongside his thoughtful compositional techniques, Chen was truly a beacon of innovation and genius for the many generations of artists that followed after.