Ink and colour on paper

67.5 × 67 cm. 26 5/8 × 26 3/8 in.

Signed in Chinese with an artist's stamp on bottom left
PROVENANCE
Caves Art Gallery, Taipei
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector from the above

Unworldly Autumn Scenery, Strong Beat of Time
Lin Fengmian's Classic Landscape

Lin Fengmian's biggest innovation in Chinese painting is to draw from nature. His landscape paintings demonstrate ease in lushness and nature in elegance, which embodies his most innovative breakthrough in traditional Chinese painting. Landscape is paradigmatic of Lin's landscape painting. It depicts the autumn scenery of West Lake that he deeply longs for. The ink color is flowing and exuberant, showing confidence and boldness. These colors are as bright as stars, as enchanting as the wind blowing onto the cedar woods, which reveals Wang Wei's affective atmosphere of “paintings in the poetry and poetry in the paintings”.

Return to Nature and Establish New Compositions
In 1937, Lin Fengmian switches from oil paintings to ink paintings. He creates square composition, which not only adds a sense of modernity to the structure of the painting, but also reflects the artist's longing for spiritual tranquility and peace in the mid 1930s.

In Landscape, Lin Fengmian disregards the vertical composition in traditional landscape painting; instead, he divides the squared painting into three sections horizontally, compressing the zigzag-shaped traditional landscape composition and locating the main body of the painting on the back. In a way, Lin has shifts the emphasis on width in traditional landscape painting to depth, forming a perspective depth favored by traditional European painting. Chinese landscape paintings have always preferred to use “blank space” in the background to imply endless space and artistic conception. On the contrary, Lin Fengmian paints the entire paper fully, deliberately uses robust colors and overlays them with lighter ink. Through the use of ink and color, Lin has injected a fluent and rich texture into the painting. The multi-color blocks of yellow and green overlap, which has morphed into a grove of early autumn trees with rich layers. Guided by the thick white color on top of the ink, the meandering stream stretches across the sky through the gray clouds of distant mountains. The overall spatial layout is smooth and poised, just like flowing clouds and running water.

Dazzling Colors that Speaks to the Heart
Lin Fengmian uses color as the beautiful note to express emotions. He is skillful at using robust colors to fill the picture with life and he is also proficient in making use of “complementary in unity”, displaying softness amid intensity and endowing a calm and open visual balance. In Landscape, there is no flat-painted color, but an interlaced combination of light and shades, a dazzling visual effect.

In the center of the picture, bathed in the glimmering sunlight, the maple trees transition from green to yellow, catching the sun's subtle movement, which has dyed the leaves with various transparent colors. This painting has exemplified both the weighty power of oil painting and the flowing elegance of ink painting. Lin uses backlit method to paint the leaves with dazzling gold edges. Under the refraction of the water wave below, Lin has put the earth in spring clothing, blooming in dazzling ink colors, like the fruition of art, or the eternal light of ideal, or even the strong beat that mark the new chapter of the era.

Price estimate:
HKD: 800,000 – 1,200,000
USD: 103,200 – 154,700

Auction Result:
HKD: 944,000