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拍品专文
“I constantly strive to combine traditional Western colours with the modern free-form of abstract art like the concept of yin and yang to create boundless cosmic phenomenas.” —— Chu Teh-Chun
Épisode flamboyant was created in 2001, four years after Chu Teh-Chun was elected as a member of the prestigious l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de France. He was the first academician of Chinese descent in the institute’s 200-year history, and the only Chinese artist to hold the distinction in the 20th century. In the same year this work was completed, Chu was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. This work was featured in Chu’s first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia, held at Galerie Darga in Bali in 2002. It has been held in private collection for more than twenty years and is now appearing at auction for the first time, making it a truly rare and exceptional masterpiece.
After the turn of the millennium, Chu gravitated towards freely applying oil paint on large-scale canvases. With his masterful command of colour, brushwork, and gradations of light and shadow, he took his lifelong aesthetic pursuit of light and the rhythm of colour to its zenith. Épisode flamboyant epitomizes Chu’s exquisite artistic style during this period that elevated him to the pinnacle of the international art scene. It demonstrates how he extracted colours from nature to recreate the rhythmic vitality of the universe, while he also used varying densities of oil paint to create effects reminiscent of ink splashing, conveying the quintessential spirit of Chinese ink painting. The lower part of the painting is covered with broad, heavy brushstrokes of weighty ink tones, with gemlike colours such as emerald and peacock blue subtly embedded within the black, evoking the grandeur of undulating mountain ranges. The upper layer of pigments is thin and translucent, with a soft orange light blending in. The dark tones in the upper and lower sections propel the radiant neon hues in the centre to a visual climax. The intense radiance emerges as if piercing through layers of dark clouds, with flowing light and colours revealing a harmonious vision of the universe where all things are interconnected.
Learning calligraphy at an early age under his father’s tutelage, Chu had deep understandings of traditional calligraphy and ink painting. His admission to the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts, then headed by the acclaimed artist, Lin Fengmian, in 1935, was what inspired his ambition of adopting the best from both Chinese and Western paintings. It is after his travel in France in 1955 that he started to explore the visual language of oil painting, changing his style from one that is figurative to abstract. Chu not only successfully imbued the monumental landscape aesthetics of the Song dynasty and calligraphy brushworks into oil painting but also brought revolutionary changes to the traditional Chinese literati art aesthetics.
The renowned French art critic Pierre Cabanne commented on Chu’s paintings: “Spots of light and clusters of incandescent dots attract the eye, dispelling the menacing darkness. The murky atmosphere suffocates the distant view, while bustling colours unfold a new world, where rhythms collide with one another in an ever-changing and boundless field. Beneath the surface abstraction, the cosmos resides here, alongside the eternal truths upheld by Confucianism and Daoism. Colours and contrast coalesce into a rhythmic chaos, conjuring up the essence of mountains, antiquity, clouds, and water in the Chinese tradition” (T. Chu, quoted in G. Wu, Chu Teh-Chun, Shijiazhuang, 2009, p.140). Épisode flamboyant reflects Chu’s poetic expression of musical rhythm. In the composition, light and colours emerge as brushstrokes leap up and down, layering upon one another between the real and the abstract. It calls to mind a symphony where soaring, passionate notes are interwoven with deep, solemn bass notes, with dramatically rhythmic cadences reverberating throughout the painting.
Épisode flamboyant was created in 2001, four years after Chu Teh-Chun was elected as a member of the prestigious l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de France. He was the first academician of Chinese descent in the institute’s 200-year history, and the only Chinese artist to hold the distinction in the 20th century. In the same year this work was completed, Chu was awarded Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. This work was featured in Chu’s first solo exhibition in Southeast Asia, held at Galerie Darga in Bali in 2002. It has been held in private collection for more than twenty years and is now appearing at auction for the first time, making it a truly rare and exceptional masterpiece.
After the turn of the millennium, Chu gravitated towards freely applying oil paint on large-scale canvases. With his masterful command of colour, brushwork, and gradations of light and shadow, he took his lifelong aesthetic pursuit of light and the rhythm of colour to its zenith. Épisode flamboyant epitomizes Chu’s exquisite artistic style during this period that elevated him to the pinnacle of the international art scene. It demonstrates how he extracted colours from nature to recreate the rhythmic vitality of the universe, while he also used varying densities of oil paint to create effects reminiscent of ink splashing, conveying the quintessential spirit of Chinese ink painting. The lower part of the painting is covered with broad, heavy brushstrokes of weighty ink tones, with gemlike colours such as emerald and peacock blue subtly embedded within the black, evoking the grandeur of undulating mountain ranges. The upper layer of pigments is thin and translucent, with a soft orange light blending in. The dark tones in the upper and lower sections propel the radiant neon hues in the centre to a visual climax. The intense radiance emerges as if piercing through layers of dark clouds, with flowing light and colours revealing a harmonious vision of the universe where all things are interconnected.
Learning calligraphy at an early age under his father’s tutelage, Chu had deep understandings of traditional calligraphy and ink painting. His admission to the Hangzhou School of Fine Arts, then headed by the acclaimed artist, Lin Fengmian, in 1935, was what inspired his ambition of adopting the best from both Chinese and Western paintings. It is after his travel in France in 1955 that he started to explore the visual language of oil painting, changing his style from one that is figurative to abstract. Chu not only successfully imbued the monumental landscape aesthetics of the Song dynasty and calligraphy brushworks into oil painting but also brought revolutionary changes to the traditional Chinese literati art aesthetics.
The renowned French art critic Pierre Cabanne commented on Chu’s paintings: “Spots of light and clusters of incandescent dots attract the eye, dispelling the menacing darkness. The murky atmosphere suffocates the distant view, while bustling colours unfold a new world, where rhythms collide with one another in an ever-changing and boundless field. Beneath the surface abstraction, the cosmos resides here, alongside the eternal truths upheld by Confucianism and Daoism. Colours and contrast coalesce into a rhythmic chaos, conjuring up the essence of mountains, antiquity, clouds, and water in the Chinese tradition” (T. Chu, quoted in G. Wu, Chu Teh-Chun, Shijiazhuang, 2009, p.140). Épisode flamboyant reflects Chu’s poetic expression of musical rhythm. In the composition, light and colours emerge as brushstrokes leap up and down, layering upon one another between the real and the abstract. It calls to mind a symphony where soaring, passionate notes are interwoven with deep, solemn bass notes, with dramatically rhythmic cadences reverberating throughout the painting.