Ink and colour on paper

65.8 × 67 cm. 25 7/8 × 26 3/8 in.

Signed in Chinese with an artist's seal on bottom left
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly by present important private Asian collector Wong Lian Fon from the artist in the late 1970s

The Dyeing Autumn Forest, Painting My Heart in the Scene
Lin Fengmian's Glorious Heavenly Scenery from the Wong Lian Fon Collection

In October 1977, Lin Fengmian moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong, where he temporarily lived in a penthouse above the Chung Kiu Chinese Products Emporium. The tranquillity of his life and financial prosperity enabled him to devote himself to art and enter another peak of his creative career. In his landscape paintings, he changed the sombre tone of his early years to a brighter one and started using a freer style to paint. The painting, completed in the late 1970s, brings the Western impressionist view of light and colour to the interplay of ink and colour on rice paper, incorporating nostalgia and an expansive vitality into the work Heavenly Scenery.

A Rare and Exquisite Autumn Scene from an Orderly Source

One of Lin Fengmian's most distinctive subjects is the autumn scene. With its rich detail, magnificent use of colour, horizontal and vertical structure, and full-bodied aesthetic mood, Heavenly Scenery is a masterpiece among Lin Fengmian's many landscapes. The work is from an orderly source and was in the collection of Wong Lian Fon, an important collector in Hong Kong, He recalled that Heavenly Scenery was one of the first two works by Lin Fengmian in his collection. When he first met Lin Fengmian in 1978, he was so taken with his majestic use of colour and poetic artistic expression that he visited him every day for two weeks, eventually taking the lead in collecting this work and a Peking Opera theme work. The work has been in perfect condition for over forty years, and this is the first time it has been released to the discerning eyes of collectors.

A Poem of Nature in Light and Colour

After a trip to Tianping Mountain in Suzhou in the autumn of 1953, Lin Fengmian said he had "discovered a poetic landscape in terms of colour, form and space". Relying on the vivid expression of coloured ink, he boldly and sensitively adopted the colouring technique of "ink over colour, colour over ink" in Heavenly Scenery to create a unique visual rhythm of hazy light. The light ink underlay and the ink lines outline the shapes. The orange, gold and lemon yellows of the autumn forest, the ultramarine and violet colours of the mountains, and the gradation of the white space of the waterfall create a strong visual contrast and showcase the intensity of autumn. The clouds floating between the hills break up the visible points, making viewers feel like they are experiencing an open moment of golden light shining on the earth. The lighter colours of the trees in the distance, such as green, purple, pink and silver, are echoed by the darker colours below, drawing the light further down into the thousand-foot waterfall. The painting's long, delicate white lines reveal a thousand refractions of light and vapour, creating an unforgettable flow of light and colour.

Vertical and Horizontal, Illusion and Reality, the Spiritual Essence of Tranquility and Simplicity

Lin Fengmian's most iconic "horizontal-straight-horizontal" landscape composition is the horizontal mountains, vertical rowan trees and flowing streams. It divides heaven and earth in a balanced manner, reflecting his thoughts on western spatial construction and pictorial tension. Building on this, Heavenly Scenery expands the structure again, deepening the horizontal, multi-layered structure with a succession of puffy clouds and the flat ground of the houses. The vertical waterfalls and towering pines are transformed into points of visual depth, bringing together the traditional eastern painting of "deep, high, and flat" in Lin's consistent square layout, revealing a new artistic pattern of highly integrated east and west.

Rarely, in the bottom left of the painting, he introduced a waterfall, which is a genius stroke, bringing out the relationship between the height of the space and the distance. Three ancient pines stand before it, echoing as a close-up composition. They are staggered, bringing the view to the hut in the autumn forest on one side and the gurgling stream on the other, recreating the depth of the foreground in the plainness. As the winding stream moves upwards, everything that is clear is transformed into a hazy faraway landscape, where bright orange and yellow colours are interwoven with elegant floral green ink. A layer of mist interspersed with autumnal colours and a layer of clouds dotting the green hills extend further into the mountains and the beautiful sunglow. Lin Fengmian brought the essence of Chinese landscape painting to its fullest potential here. The realm of illusion and reality gradually unfolds, describing the higher state of the painting, in which the simplicity of the east and the openness of life are all present, together constructing Lin Fengmian's incredible spiritual landscape!

Price estimate:
HKD: 1,500,000 - 2,500,000
USD: 191,100 - 318,500

Auction Result:
HKD: 2,040,000