Ink and colour on paper

47 x 32 cm. 18 1/2 x 12 5/8 in.

Stamped with an artist's seal on upper left; inscribed and dated with an artist's seal on bottom right

LITERATURE
1 Jun 1979, Artist issue no.8, Artist Publishing, Hong Kong
PROVENANCE
Received as a gift directly from the artist by Mr. Gu Fusheng, the consultant of Jiangsu Province government and the vice-president of provincial CPPCC
Private Collection, Asia

Pure and Simple Ink
Guan Liang's Chinese Opera Characters

Tang Yun said, “Guan Liang is one of the most innovative artists after Huang Binhong and Qi Baishi,” the man's artistic innovation perfectly reflected by his portrayals of Chinese opera characters.

Guan Liang used his superb artistic skills to express the beauty of simplicity, awkwardness, and tenderness, thus showing the true humanity of his protagonists. He often captured the beauty of Chinese opera, which is easily overlooked by most spectators. This autumn auction features three portraits of three characters of well-documented provenance, all of which can be counted among Guan Liang's most famous themes. These works show the artist's unique creative approach when depicting different characters and offers viewers a wonderful experience in Chinese opera.

Expressive Depiction: Catching and Releasing Cao
In 1935, Guan Liang began to study Chinese Opera. In the process of learning, he paid attention to the gestures, postures, and steps of the characters, which allowed him to portray them accurately in his artistic creation. The first play he researched was Catching and Releasing Cao (Lot 80), the entire drama of which he spent two months fully familiarizing himself with so that he could paint the legendary General Cao Cao with utter proficiency.

The vertically oriented picture features adviser Chen Gong, depicted in black and white, facing viewers, while General Cao Cao, painted in color, is sitting on the side. This composition reflects the mood of both characters. Chen Gong's eyes are fixed in an exaggerated look of surprise, his legs far apart and his right foot extended slightly forward, causing his body to tilt backwards. He holds onto his sword to maintain balance. Through this depiction of posture and demeanor, the artist expresses Chen Gong's inner struggle and anxiety upon discovering Cao Cao's true face. Guan used almost only black paint while portraying Chen Gong, forming a visual weight and further reflecting the heavy emotions of the character. In contrast, Cao Cao, sitting in the rear and napping with his hands on a table, is wearing a green robe and a red hat. The pastel-colored desk adds a dreamy quality to the picture, as if Chen Gong is finally seeing through Cao Cao's hypocritical mask. This technique embodies the essence of Chinese painting that emphasizes imagination, artistic conception, and overall charm.

Novel Colors: Drunken Concubine
At the beginning of the 20th century, famous Beijing opera performer Mei Lanfang added emotional changes and inner struggles to the role of concubine Yang Yuhuan in the classic play Drunken Concubine (Lot 78), completely changing the public's stereotype. Mei's poised style became known in the opera circles as the “Mei School”, with his portrayal of Yang Yuhuan having since become canonical. Guan Liang was deeply touched by this play and applied Mei's understanding of drama and shaping of the character's personality to his own painting practices.

In Drunken Concubine, Guan Liang unexpectedly omitted the character Gao Lishi and only depicted Yang Yuhuan. The artist used “clumsy” brushstrokes to outline her phoenix coronet, clothing, and posture. The lines painted with light ink are soft and elegant, showing the famous scene of Yang dancing after intoxicating herself. She has a fan on her right arm and seems to want to swing it, but the slender lines of her sleeves indicate she has no strength to do so and change her position into a drunken and charming gesture, vividly showing her inner feelings.

In terms of color, surprisingly, Guan did not use the bright colors associated with grace and elegance, but instead turned to fresh and simple colors, giving the picture a feeling of novelty and strangeness. However, when depicting Yang's face, the artist's strokes became strong: her eyebrows are raised up; her pupils are in the lower right corners of her eyes; her gaze shows deep anxiety; and her red lips and cheeks echo the ornamentation of her gown. Yang Guifei seems like a drunken beauty, but upon closer inspection, she shows a lot of anger.

In this work, Guan boldly broke away from the original plot of the drama, focusing on his own feelings and understanding of the character. He also revealed his own attitude toward life, namely longing for freedom and the liberation of humankind. In 1963, Guan Liang gave this work to Gu Fusheng, a revolutionary and old friend, with whom he had not met for 20 years, which truly shows the deep revolutionary connotations of Drunken Concubine.

Mature and Simple Beauty: Farewell My Concubine
In the early 1980s, Guan Liang's creations came to yet another peak. At that time, his works focused on the artistic conception and inner understanding of various characters. His simple and clumsy lines had already matured; they seem powerful and have a lingering charm. Farewell My Concubine (Lot 79), dated 1981, became the masterpiece of that period.

The right side of the picture features an amazing depiction of Concubine Yu dancing with a sword. The artist used hard strokes to paint Yu's rounded eyes, which show her complex mentality in the face of death: helpless and reluctant, yet unswerving. The way Guan depicted her eyes truly puts his superb skill under the spotlight.

In addition, the colors used to depict the Hegemon-King of Western Chu and Concubine Yu are echoes of each other. For example, the Hegemon-King's blue clothes are in complement to Yu's headwear, and the jade cup in his hands finds unity in her collar. The Hegemon-King's skin color (yellowish-green) is close to the shade of Yu's clothes. The two seem to have no real interaction here, but in their hearts, there is a strong emotional and psychological struggle, the things they want to say presented through the correspondence of colors. Such a clever composition leads the viewer's line of sight from one character to the other, deepening the artistic conception of the painting.

Price estimate:
HKD: 120,000 – 220,000
USD: 15,300 – 28,100

Auction Result:
HKD: 590,000