Watercolour on paper

58 × 77.2 cm. 22 7/8 × 30 3/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and dated on upper left of the front
EXHIBITED
9 – 12 Nov 2012, Art Taipei, Lipen Art Galerie Booth A25, Taipei

PROVENANCE
Lipen Art Galerie, Taipei
Private Collection, Asia

Paint the Purity of the Gorgeous, Find the Purity in the Complex
Shiy De-Jinn's Supreme Watercolour

“My Landscape painting is meant to express the easterner's profound grace by using western watercolour and defining to new explanations for nature. My colours also contain amusing elements of Chinese ink and embody freshness and vigour of life.”
——Shiy De-Jinn

Among Shiy De-Jin's lifelong creations, watercolour paintings are considered to be the most distinctive and representative ones. Since 1948, he began to use watercolor as a medium for sketching and regarded it as his most important creation form for over 30 years after that. Born in Sichuan, Shiy studied in Hangzhou, United States, and France, and settled in his second hometown, Taiwan, where his watercolour was truly nourished. In 1948, Shiy relocated to Chiayi. The common sceneries like wide plain and fresh plants in this Taiwan city enabled him to have a new understanding of the colors of nature. At the same time, the ancient temples, houses, and misty landscapes on this island fascinated him. Since then, he had chosen to experience and paint the subjects with watercolour, to obtain the most real and vivid scenes. Shiy had been committed to fusing ink and watercolour. Since the 1970s, he had turned his attention to the more eternal and far-reaching beauty of the nature, and expressed the simple and sincere feelings from the humanistic perspective through his paintings.

Ode to the Splendor of Flowers, Praise of the Beauty of Nature

“The artist extols life with a merry ease and verve and articulates this sense of dynamism through everything roaring in nature with just the right amount of power.”
——Taiwanese poet Shiy Mu-Rong

Landscape and flowers are both important themes in Shiy's watercolor paintings. The painting presented, Poinsettia/Guandu Plain (Lot85), which was completed in 1975, is a rare collection of these two themes in the form of double-sided painting. It combines poinsettia and Guandu Plain on the back, which highly presents the dual aura of the painting, “shine like the flowers in summer, elegant like the leaves in autumn”. Double-sided paintings are unique and rare in Shiy's creations. Among five of those ever appeared in the market till this moment, this work is the one of two with different genre on two sides.

Poinsettia stands for the plant celebrating during the Christmas season in the West. Instead of placing in a bonsai, the plant in this painting grows upward in nature. Through the simplification of the ink painting technique and the superimposition and rendering of the watercolour technique, it shows the oriental aesthetic expression, balancing the hardness and softness, artificial yet natural. Lines dominate the painting. The flower stems start from the bottom of the left side with sonorous thick straight lines, and incorporate the artist's calligraphy-learned vigor, to reach the picture with one stroke, showing the upright belief of life.

The elegant and bright red watercolor reveals the blooming posture of the flowers and leaves vividly. The intensely red color is extremely infectious and pure, swaying in the softly rendered green leaves, which reflects Shiy's eternal sincerity and passion for life. Poinsettia that blooms at the end of the year represents “blessings” and “rebirth”. Through a realistic depiction of the natural beauty of flowers, Shiy shows his passion, faith, and wishes for life.

The painting on the back depicts the poetic paddy fields on the Guandu Plain, with the leisureliness corresponding to the florid flowers. Shiy often sketches in the vast landscape of Guandu Plain, taking watercolour as the best expression tool at that time. In the painting, the spatial hierarchy is natural yet distinct. The white on the left is used to add a sense of continuity to space. The five-color of the ink blends with the twists and turns of the stream and blends the rich changes of color, leading the direction of the visual space, forming a flow of light and shadow of charm. A small boat anchored in the far-reaching island in the river, adding a touch of humanity to the painting. The grass growing in the nearby riverside water is luxuriant. The dripping watercolor rendering presents all of these in a continuous change of dots and lines. As for the foreground, the filamentous texture of the brush and ink mimics the appearance of streams converging, from far to near, and finally to the viewers. While experiencing the vastness of the universe silently and subtly, the viewers would yearn for the boundless and peaceful world.

The splendor of flowers represents the newborn, while the exquisiteness of water reveals the eternity. The works use different themes and double artistic conceptions on two sides, demonstrating Shiy's different moods when he faces landscapes and flowers, which establishes the uniqueness of this watercolor work.

The Portrait of Life: Sound Love Only Comes from Simplicity

In the painting In the Woods (Lot86) that Sihy completed in 1973, he set his sights on the combination of humanities and natural sceneries. The main part of the painting is the towering casuarina trees that used to be seen on the coast of Taiwan. This tall and tropical plant with dense leaves is a symbol of vigorous and upward life. Shiy uses a special and exaggerated perspective with the calligraphy line skills he specializes in. Through the brushstrokes that are full of tension and speed, the artist overlaps the leaves and branches of the trees upward, forming prosperous and full vitality. The black and dark green watercolor smudge a natural change of intensity and softness, further presenting the charming forest. In the shade of the tree, a few simple lines outline a figure of a farmer wearing a hat. Artist especially applies blue-violet and bright red colors for the farmer to highlight the image of the character against the background of cold tones. By embedding himself in the industrious oxen in the painting, and the vigorous casuarina forest, Shiy expresses his pursuit of life for sincerity, simplicity, and diligence.

Price estimate:
HKD: 320,000 - 650,000
USD: 41,100 - 83,500

Auction Result:
HKD: 384,000