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拍品专文
‘Suddenly the wind rises, whitening the earth, the morning frost fading, slowly carried away by the moon. ’——Lalan
Created in 1968, Lalan’s triptych La mère de nuage merges the spirit of the universe and the grandeur of ancient epics. The composition is filled with dark green hues and a jade-like resonance, with light and shadow flowing between heavy shades of ink and colours. It showcases Lalan’s extraordinary creativity as a pioneering female artist who integrated music, dance, and painting in her work. La mère de nuage reflects the artist's longing for free expression and intense emotional power, and it is a rare work both in subject matter and size. According to existing records, Lalan only created eight triptychs in her lifetime, with La mère de nuage being one of the largest in size and the only triptych from the 1960s. Another famous triptych by the artist, Soudain Blue, is in the permanent collection of the Ministry of Culture of France.
La mère de nuage is imbued with a uniquely feminine sensitivity and the close connection between a mother and the natural world. The title Mother of the Clouds may refer to the sky, where the viewer traverses through the gaps in nebulae, with the universe being the mother of clouds. It may also refer to the sea, where the viewer sees furious waves rising between the four seas, with the vast blue ocean becoming the mother of clouds, giving birth to clouds between heaven and earth. La mère de nuage encapsulates Lalan’s selfless love for her son as a mother, and her role as a groundbreaking female artist who paved the way for post-war Chinese female artists through her extraordinary talent and effort. The dark green hues in the painting are profound and serene, resembling the graceful restraint of traditional women; they also evoke the sudden burst of currents, where the viewer’s gaze is submerged in large areas of emerald green, dark brown, and dark turquoise. The artist's brushwork carries a vigour rivalling that of male artists, as her strokes resound like drumbeats on the canvas, accompanying her steps in an impassioned dance. Each step and stroke is powerful and majestic, declaring the will of a female pioneer who writes a new chapter in history.
Lalan was born in 1921 to a scholarly family in Guiyang. She showed talent in music and dance from an early age, and she majored in music at school. In 1948, she moved to Paris with her first husband, Zao Wou-Ki. Amidst the blooming of avant-garde art in Paris in the post-war years, the couple were neighbours with sculptor Diego Giacometti and became close friends with prominent cultural figures such as artist Sanyu, Pierre Soulages and his wife, and famous poet Henri Michaux. At the time, Lalan sought to pursue her passion for music and dance, and she studied composition in Paris. Inspired by a documentary about American modern dance master Martha Graham, she developed a strong interest in modern dance and trained in the “Graham Technique".
While dance, music, and painting differ in form, they share similarities in the creative process: Martha Graham sought to transform the dancer’s psychological state and subconscious into a physical rhythm, and her principle of extreme contraction and release of the body calls to mind the unique dance rhythm in Lalan’s La mère de nuage. In pursuit of dynamism in composition, Lalan rarely made drafts for her paintings. Considering the massive scale of this work, it is not hard to imagine the artist making large, full-body movements to propel the motion of her arms and wrists, injecting into it rapid rhythms that are manifested as vibrant marks on the canvas. The swift and upward spiralling lines in the painting are a reflection of the artist’s inner passion, a vitality that only Lalan, versed in music and dance, could present. In the late 1950s, Lalan grew discontent with only being a muse for others. Driven by a desire to express her inner self, she took up painting. She once noted, '…Only when I shed the guise of a muse did I realise I could no longer live without painting' (Lalan, quoted in My Vision of Paradise: Retrospective of Lalan's Art, exh. cat, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai 2009, p.7). During this period, she met another important figure in her life, sculptor Marcel Van Thienen. She reemerged as “Lalan” and embarked on her lifelong journey as a pioneering female artist.
A prominent movement in the French art scene at the time, “Lyrical Abstraction” led by Georges Mathieu emphasised the “performativity” of the act of painting, which resonated with the pursuit of free expression of one’s self and spirit in music and dance. It was mirrored by Lalan’s natural transition to abstract art: she merged her brushwork, body and emotions to reach a state where her hand and heart became one. La mère de nuage is the perfect portrayal of this unity of man and nature. The emotions in the painting are implicit and profound; they are accentuated by the interplay between dark and bright colours, calling to mind the Taoist conception of yin and yang as opposing yet complementary forces that make up all phenomena in the universe. Compared to the intense emotion and highly rhythmic strokes in Georges Mathieu's La Bataille de Bouvines (Centre Pompidou, Paris), the brushwork in the present work is more gentle, with light and shadow flowing through the brushstrokes, depicting the tenderness and vitality of nature.
‘Lalan's painting is the creation of the universe. ’——Kenneth White
The Eastern artistic philosophy of integrating man and nature is another central theme in Lalan’s La mère de nuage. In the mid-1960s, Lalan immersed herself in Taoist philosophy and the works of Song dynasty ink landscape masters such as Xia Gui and Ma Yuen. Combining the artist’s newfound insights and her foundation in calligraphy from her youth, her works incorporated natural landscapes and Eastern concepts as the unity of man and nature. Meanwhile, she began to experiment with canvases and scrolls of different sizes, perfecting her grasp of large-scale canvases, leading viewers into abstract landscapes of transcendent beauty. Taking the iconic work of Southern Song master Xia Gui, Pure and Remote Mountains and Streams, as an example: in the long stroll, one sees in the forefront clusters of massive rocks and mountain ridges; in the distance, there are clear streams flowing towards a vast open space. Each steps reveals a new scene amidst the intertwining of reality and illusion, as it unveils the beautiful realm of nature. Influenced by the ancient masters, Lalan moved further away from figurative expression, using symbols to depict myriad images. In the present work, the viewer sees traces of mountain ridges and clouds. The heavy shades of ink and colours evoke the unpredictable power of nature, also reflecting Lalan’s thoughts during this period.
In Chinese landscape paintings, clouds are often expressed with the use of blank space. Throughout the ages, Chinese and Western painters have used clouds and mist to accentuate the mysterious atmosphere in their paintings. Yet it has rarely been the subject of a painting, which makes it a perfect metaphor to the women who have played side characters and become overshadowed in the history of art. La mère de nuage is not only a magnificent painting but a work of profound meaning. Lalan’s themes of “clouds” and “mother” inspire endless associations, while paying tribute to the dream of a female.
Created in 1968, Lalan’s triptych La mère de nuage merges the spirit of the universe and the grandeur of ancient epics. The composition is filled with dark green hues and a jade-like resonance, with light and shadow flowing between heavy shades of ink and colours. It showcases Lalan’s extraordinary creativity as a pioneering female artist who integrated music, dance, and painting in her work. La mère de nuage reflects the artist's longing for free expression and intense emotional power, and it is a rare work both in subject matter and size. According to existing records, Lalan only created eight triptychs in her lifetime, with La mère de nuage being one of the largest in size and the only triptych from the 1960s. Another famous triptych by the artist, Soudain Blue, is in the permanent collection of the Ministry of Culture of France.
La mère de nuage is imbued with a uniquely feminine sensitivity and the close connection between a mother and the natural world. The title Mother of the Clouds may refer to the sky, where the viewer traverses through the gaps in nebulae, with the universe being the mother of clouds. It may also refer to the sea, where the viewer sees furious waves rising between the four seas, with the vast blue ocean becoming the mother of clouds, giving birth to clouds between heaven and earth. La mère de nuage encapsulates Lalan’s selfless love for her son as a mother, and her role as a groundbreaking female artist who paved the way for post-war Chinese female artists through her extraordinary talent and effort. The dark green hues in the painting are profound and serene, resembling the graceful restraint of traditional women; they also evoke the sudden burst of currents, where the viewer’s gaze is submerged in large areas of emerald green, dark brown, and dark turquoise. The artist's brushwork carries a vigour rivalling that of male artists, as her strokes resound like drumbeats on the canvas, accompanying her steps in an impassioned dance. Each step and stroke is powerful and majestic, declaring the will of a female pioneer who writes a new chapter in history.
Lalan was born in 1921 to a scholarly family in Guiyang. She showed talent in music and dance from an early age, and she majored in music at school. In 1948, she moved to Paris with her first husband, Zao Wou-Ki. Amidst the blooming of avant-garde art in Paris in the post-war years, the couple were neighbours with sculptor Diego Giacometti and became close friends with prominent cultural figures such as artist Sanyu, Pierre Soulages and his wife, and famous poet Henri Michaux. At the time, Lalan sought to pursue her passion for music and dance, and she studied composition in Paris. Inspired by a documentary about American modern dance master Martha Graham, she developed a strong interest in modern dance and trained in the “Graham Technique".
While dance, music, and painting differ in form, they share similarities in the creative process: Martha Graham sought to transform the dancer’s psychological state and subconscious into a physical rhythm, and her principle of extreme contraction and release of the body calls to mind the unique dance rhythm in Lalan’s La mère de nuage. In pursuit of dynamism in composition, Lalan rarely made drafts for her paintings. Considering the massive scale of this work, it is not hard to imagine the artist making large, full-body movements to propel the motion of her arms and wrists, injecting into it rapid rhythms that are manifested as vibrant marks on the canvas. The swift and upward spiralling lines in the painting are a reflection of the artist’s inner passion, a vitality that only Lalan, versed in music and dance, could present. In the late 1950s, Lalan grew discontent with only being a muse for others. Driven by a desire to express her inner self, she took up painting. She once noted, '…Only when I shed the guise of a muse did I realise I could no longer live without painting' (Lalan, quoted in My Vision of Paradise: Retrospective of Lalan's Art, exh. cat, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai 2009, p.7). During this period, she met another important figure in her life, sculptor Marcel Van Thienen. She reemerged as “Lalan” and embarked on her lifelong journey as a pioneering female artist.
A prominent movement in the French art scene at the time, “Lyrical Abstraction” led by Georges Mathieu emphasised the “performativity” of the act of painting, which resonated with the pursuit of free expression of one’s self and spirit in music and dance. It was mirrored by Lalan’s natural transition to abstract art: she merged her brushwork, body and emotions to reach a state where her hand and heart became one. La mère de nuage is the perfect portrayal of this unity of man and nature. The emotions in the painting are implicit and profound; they are accentuated by the interplay between dark and bright colours, calling to mind the Taoist conception of yin and yang as opposing yet complementary forces that make up all phenomena in the universe. Compared to the intense emotion and highly rhythmic strokes in Georges Mathieu's La Bataille de Bouvines (Centre Pompidou, Paris), the brushwork in the present work is more gentle, with light and shadow flowing through the brushstrokes, depicting the tenderness and vitality of nature.
‘Lalan's painting is the creation of the universe. ’——Kenneth White
The Eastern artistic philosophy of integrating man and nature is another central theme in Lalan’s La mère de nuage. In the mid-1960s, Lalan immersed herself in Taoist philosophy and the works of Song dynasty ink landscape masters such as Xia Gui and Ma Yuen. Combining the artist’s newfound insights and her foundation in calligraphy from her youth, her works incorporated natural landscapes and Eastern concepts as the unity of man and nature. Meanwhile, she began to experiment with canvases and scrolls of different sizes, perfecting her grasp of large-scale canvases, leading viewers into abstract landscapes of transcendent beauty. Taking the iconic work of Southern Song master Xia Gui, Pure and Remote Mountains and Streams, as an example: in the long stroll, one sees in the forefront clusters of massive rocks and mountain ridges; in the distance, there are clear streams flowing towards a vast open space. Each steps reveals a new scene amidst the intertwining of reality and illusion, as it unveils the beautiful realm of nature. Influenced by the ancient masters, Lalan moved further away from figurative expression, using symbols to depict myriad images. In the present work, the viewer sees traces of mountain ridges and clouds. The heavy shades of ink and colours evoke the unpredictable power of nature, also reflecting Lalan’s thoughts during this period.
In Chinese landscape paintings, clouds are often expressed with the use of blank space. Throughout the ages, Chinese and Western painters have used clouds and mist to accentuate the mysterious atmosphere in their paintings. Yet it has rarely been the subject of a painting, which makes it a perfect metaphor to the women who have played side characters and become overshadowed in the history of art. La mère de nuage is not only a magnificent painting but a work of profound meaning. Lalan’s themes of “clouds” and “mother” inspire endless associations, while paying tribute to the dream of a female.