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Lot Essay
"Looking out from the car window, the tea farm, baptised by the rain, takes on a lush dark green, like an exuberant watercolour piece. Take a closer look: numerous tender new shoots are glittering." 1
- Wu Guanzhong
Throughout his life, Wu Guanzhong is devoted to landscape sketches. He hit his stride in ink painting in the mid 1980s, transitioning with ease between figurative and abstract styles. Wu integrated the essence of traditional Chinese ink painting with a semi-abstract artistic expression to create a natural, richly cultured landscape that is unique yet poetic in brushwork. In Tea Farm (Lot 407), Wu took the beauty and grace of ink painting to its hilt, portraying the mistiness of southern China enshrouded in smokiness and rain beautifully with saturated ink, illustrating the overcast and rainy vista with appreciative aesthetics.
Wu applied appropriately-moist ink and perfectly-cadenced pressure to create dense copses of tea trees that are delightfully rounded and full. Their forms are vividly rendered in lieu of the portrayal of leaves. A few sparsely distributed dots of verdant greens suggest that the tender new shoots have sprouted after the rain, inlaid in the copses to complement the light, bluish greens travelling amongst the dark ink blots, enriching the tea farm with a strong impression of vivacity. The farmhouse is nestled in the richly inked tea trees; its brickwork and tiled roof are illustrated with delicate lines. The slates on the walls are pleasantly arranged, providing a winsome contrast with those haloed ink blots, while adding visual notes of interest to the composition. It is a vivid and idyllic snapshot of farm living in China. The fittingly-applied ink density spotlights the foreground, while fading out the backdrop. Other than imbuing the piece with the timeless grace of ink, Wu's masterful execution also makes the view of an after-rain tea farm refreshingly tranquil.
1 Shan Dong Hua Bao Publishing House, Hua Wai Yin, Wu Guanzhong, Shan Dong, China, 2005, p.86
- Wu Guanzhong
Throughout his life, Wu Guanzhong is devoted to landscape sketches. He hit his stride in ink painting in the mid 1980s, transitioning with ease between figurative and abstract styles. Wu integrated the essence of traditional Chinese ink painting with a semi-abstract artistic expression to create a natural, richly cultured landscape that is unique yet poetic in brushwork. In Tea Farm (Lot 407), Wu took the beauty and grace of ink painting to its hilt, portraying the mistiness of southern China enshrouded in smokiness and rain beautifully with saturated ink, illustrating the overcast and rainy vista with appreciative aesthetics.
Wu applied appropriately-moist ink and perfectly-cadenced pressure to create dense copses of tea trees that are delightfully rounded and full. Their forms are vividly rendered in lieu of the portrayal of leaves. A few sparsely distributed dots of verdant greens suggest that the tender new shoots have sprouted after the rain, inlaid in the copses to complement the light, bluish greens travelling amongst the dark ink blots, enriching the tea farm with a strong impression of vivacity. The farmhouse is nestled in the richly inked tea trees; its brickwork and tiled roof are illustrated with delicate lines. The slates on the walls are pleasantly arranged, providing a winsome contrast with those haloed ink blots, while adding visual notes of interest to the composition. It is a vivid and idyllic snapshot of farm living in China. The fittingly-applied ink density spotlights the foreground, while fading out the backdrop. Other than imbuing the piece with the timeless grace of ink, Wu's masterful execution also makes the view of an after-rain tea farm refreshingly tranquil.
1 Shan Dong Hua Bao Publishing House, Hua Wai Yin, Wu Guanzhong, Shan Dong, China, 2005, p.86