Oil on canvas

33 × 55 cm. 13 × 21 5/8 in.

Signed in French on bottom right; titled and signed in French and dated on the reverse
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Europe
5 Oct 2015, Sotheby's Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 5012
Acquired directly by present private important Asian collector from the above

This work is accompanied by an electronic certificate of authenticity issued and signed by Jean-Michel Beurdeley

The Fragrance of the Thoughts, the Journey of the Mind
The Artistic Charm of Lalan

In 1921, Lalan was born in an intellectual family in Guiyang, studying music and calligraphy from her parents when she was young. She was admitted to Hangzhou Art College then the Shanghai National Music College to study vocal music. In 1935, she met Zao Wou-Ki, who was studying at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou and married him six years later. The couple left China in 1948 for Paris, which was the World Art Center at that time. Unlike Zao Wou-Ki's focus on painting, from figurative to abstract creation, Lalan went to the National Paris Conservatory of Music and the American Cultural Center immediately after arriving in France to study composition and dance and was deeply influenced by modern dance pioneer Martha Graham. She also learned composition from the father of electronic music, Edgar Varese, so that she proposed to fully integrate the performance art of music and dance with her “visual creation” as a kind of “comprehensive art” performance. Let the body language of dancing and rhythm of music led the creation of the painting, driving and turning emotions and thoughts into profound expressions of rhythmic beauty. The form was extremely rare in the art world at that time, deeply moving the future generations.

By the year 2021 of Lalan's centennial, we will present three beautiful and dynamic works from the 60s and 80s in the autumn auction and listen to the aura of poems from Lalan's heart.

In the Graceful Light and Shadow, See the Vitality of the Dance of Calligraphy

“Right away, I was struck by the artist's use of gestural brushwork. It was a kind of improvised motion, but the power of her dynamism has a passion that resonates with the viewers. The way the brushstrokes delineate form is full of rhythm like a raging rapid conquered. Lalan has absolute command of the painting medium, and she judiciously unleashes her self-expressions as well as controls her intensity of emotions in order diversify the picture.”
——Playwright Eugene Ionesco wrote for Lalan on her 1963 solo exhibition

In 1960, Lalan held her first solo exhibition at Creuze Gallery in Paris, receiving great reflection. “Driven by inner sound and power”, she further pursued her pattern of creation, as an artist, dancer, and composer. During the prosperous period of Western abstract art in the 1960s, she used her origin in the East as nourishment, combining the rich Chinese elements such as oracle bone inscriptions, calligraphy, and seal carving patterns. Combined with dance and electronic rhythm, these elements turn into thick and powerful abstract lines, forming her special art style. Through the Trees, completed in 1965, is a fruit of her perfect fusion of Chinese and Western line expression and light and shadow shaping.

In the straight scroll painting, she uses brown and amber full of earth's power as the basic tone, forming a layered change of color in the space, guiding the flow of light. Affected by the French artists Pierre Soulages and Pollock Jackson's dominating abstract black lines, she also traced her cultural traditions, intertwined with black solid ink lines derived from calligraphy. Sometimes, her line is as majestic as a mountain, forming the upward growth of the middle-large branch. Sometimes, her line is as slender as a thread, like a fairy in the forest. She seeks inspiration from inscriptions on stone tablets and seals, writing powerfully like carving. The construction of strokes is full of movement, forming a surging space that extends infinitely all around.

Lanlan particularly admires Baroque period artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Georges de La Tour and applies their light and shade construction of unidirectional light sources and the environment into this work. A beam of light radiates from the flowing white lines at the bottom, passing through the dense forests shaped by black pens, lighting up the vitality of life in the gaps. The interweaving of black and white records the flow of light and the traces of shadows, such as the interlaced pulsating melody on the staff. In the dynamic brushwork of calligraphy, seal cutting and dance, it tells the endless thoughts and rhythm of ancient culture and nature.

Among the Spectacular Mountain, Within the Flowing Water

Since the 1970s, she has taken inspiration from traditional Chinese landscape paintings, depicting natural elements such as the sun, the moon, mountains, rocks, and flowing water with delicate and long lines. She presents a gentle and melodious tone through soft milky white, ivory, and pastel colors, expressing both “Poetry-like scenery” with beautiful rhythm and artistic conception.

Take L'ile as an example. She especially selects a flat and long canvas to “spread out” the vast space, which almost presents Xia Gui's painting style that focuses on half of the paper. In the painting, the light brown paintbrush on the left moves from low to high in a whirlpool-like posture, condensing mountains and rocks layer by layer. The slender and flexible lines guide the turnover of ups and downs. Rich colors such as blue-purple, goose yellow, and ocher are applied to shape the infinite changes in the “real” place. With the continuous extension of the mountains, the brushstrokes gradually fade into the endless vagueness on the right. In the disappearing outline of the island, Lalan added cream-white paint to form the image of the flowing river, while the sky is left with a touch of a pink glow. The upper and lower reflections remind viewers of the ancient Chinese poem, “the sky, the clouds, and the shadows wandering together.”

In Côté de La Rivière, she adopts the famous “One River and Two Banks” composing theory proposed by Yuan Dynasty painter Ni Zan. The river in the center separates the front and back sceneries, and the diagonal composition spreads the space mostly outward on the canvas, guiding the ethereal realm of simplification and lofty. Compared with the work L'ile, this work has a stronger momentum, presenting fluctuations of musical rhythm. The heart and mind of the artist dance with the rhythm, expressing the understanding of landscape beauty in the moving melody. Following the spread and flow of the lines, we can see the further forest in the delicate blue and stone green colors, and the mountains in the foreground in the warm yellow-brown and ocher. In the back and forth, the viewers seem to disappear into the quiet and distant white of the middle scene and meet their spirits unexpectedly, full of the Eastern philosophical imagination, “mountains and rivers become sceneries because of the meeting with me.”

Price estimate:
HKD: 220,000 - 320,000
USD: 28,300 - 41,100

Auction Result:
HKD: 600,000