Oil and acrylic on canvas

130 × 100 cm. 51 1/8 × 39 3/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on bottom right

LITERATURE
1989, Chuang Che, Lung Men Art Gallery, Alisan Fine Arts & Contemporary Art Gallery, Taipei, Hong Kong & Taichung, p.9
EXHIBITED
4 – 21 Nov 1989, Chuang Che, Lung Men Art Gallery, Taipei
9 – 22 Nov 1989, Chuang Che, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
25 Nov – 10 Dec 1989, Chuang Che, Contemporary Art Gallery, Taichung

PROVENANCE
Important Private Collection, Asia

Capturing the Rustling Sounds of the Wind in Painting
Chuang Che's Artistic Realm

Built upon common aesthetic interests, music and visual art has always been connected. Therefore, in the Yin and Shang Dynasties of China, there was a theory that the five sounds of the Chinese characters, gong, shang, jue, zhi, and yu, corresponded to the five colours of blue, red, white, black, and yellow. In the West, since the debut of the Dutch painter Mondrian's paintings, different combinations of geometric colour blocks have been explored to stimulate the auditory sensory through visual interpretation. Chuang Che is familiar with the concept of visual and auditory sensory as he has long been devoted to deep exploration between artistic creation and abstract theory and has lived overseas for half of his life. He was born in Beijing in 1934. In 1957, Chuang Che graduated from the Department of Fine Arts of The National Taiwan Normal University. Together with Liu Guosong and Chen Tingshi, he is a core member of the “Fifth Moon Group”, an important group for the development of modern art in Taiwan. His father, Chuang Yan was a well-known calligrapher and art historian. He was the vice president of The National Palace Museum. From a young age, Chuang Che was able to learn Chinese and Western art, so his works are not limited to one style. They are rich and dynamic.

Reverberant Timbre without Sounds, Remarkable Font without Meanings

In Colourful Melody (Lot 153), Chuang Che adopted the archetypal vertical composition of traditional Chinese landscape painting. At the top of the painting, thin paint in light ochre, light green, and pink ash colours meets in the centre, forming an intersection in the mid-section of the frame. The paint drips like a meandering stream originating from a distant mountain top, gurgling downwards until they gathers into a well of refreshing water, surrounded by trees. The inscription on the lower right of the painting looks like a person who comes to view the waterfall at the foot of the mountain. The scene alluding to the Ming Dynasty scholar Tang Yin's Viewing the Waterfall in Lushan Mountain, which illustrates the waterfall rumbling across rough rocks, plunging into the stream, and making roaring sounds that is comparable to a pack of galloping horses. Through the use of colours and the direction of the brushstrokes that goes from up to down and shallow to deep, the piece composes a vivid sound of nature in the movement, stillness, virtuality, and reality of each element.

Untitled (Lot 154) is painted in warm ochre red and pink-purple colours. A broad mountain shape is outlined with black lines. The centre of the painting employs black and white vigorous brushstrokes to depict the exploding volcanic cyclone. The yellow paint in the mid-section represents the treasures born from the ground. It could also be interpreted as the splendid vitality of life. Chuang Che captured the galvanizing shock of the volcanic eruption, further manifesting his passionate interest in observing natural phenomena and the wonders of life. He extracted the composition of depicting natural changes in Chinese traditional painting and applies the artistic concept to the work, allowing the proportions of shapes and rhythm to interact, creating infinite possibilities. The work is built upon the artistic concept of “creating through automatism”.

Price estimate:
HKD: 200,000 - 250,000
USD: 25,500 - 31,800

Auction Result:
HKD: --