Oil on paper mounted on canvas

56×76 cm. 22×29 7/8 in.

Signed in Chinese and English, dated on bottom right
PROVENANCE
22 Nov 2010, Chengxuan Beijing Autumn Auction, Lot 737
8 Oct 2020, China Guardian Hong Kong Autumn Auction, Lot 86
Important Private Collection, Asia

Spring Scenery and Immeasurable Landscapes
Chu Teh-Chun's 1980s Eastern-Western Masterpiece Here Comes Spring

"I employ Western experience to develop Tang and Song aesthetic thinking and paint formless paintings, which extend the spirit of Chinese painting. I found myself in abstract painting."
—Chu Teh-Chun

In 1999, Chu Teh-Chun reached the pinnacle of his artistic career, when he became the first Chinese artist to be made a lifetime member of the Académie Française by the French government, after 40 years of involvement in the Western art world with his "transcendent landscape paintings."

Throughout his artistic career, Chu spent 60 years experimenting with abstraction combining calligraphic and painting lines. In the 1970s, he was inspired by Rembrandt van Rijn to infuse his works with light sources that "awakened the creation of tension among imagery and rhythm." By the 1980s, Chu's creative skill at integrating light, shade and colour reached its apogee in terms of spatial configuration and use of media, with his works freely transcending traditional approaches to landscape painting, while also embracing his own unique interpretations of natural phenomena. Here Comes Spring was completed in 1985 and is a classic example of the creative peak scaled by the artist in the 1980s.

Wild Fire and Thriving Poetic Spectacle

Here Comes Spring employs the classic "horizontal distancing" three section composition seen in traditional Song Dynasty painting. In this way, Chu clearly depicts the distant mountains, rivers and land in three different layers, but also employs vivid depictions that use three types of completely different abstract brushwork, making this a masterful achievement in terms of Chu Teh-Chun's efforts to refine Eastern-Western art.

At the top of the work, the artist uses large bold strokes to create in one go the undulating flow of a mountain range, employing the dragging of the brush to highlight the sense of a "wandering dragon" from Chinese calligraphy. In addition, he also utilizes the sharp twists and turns of mountain peaks seen in Mi Youren's (1074-1151) The Spectacular Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, extended into abstract tension, with a spirit as lofty as a rainbow spanning the sky, which gives the work a grand magnificence that showcases the landscape. Within this scene, a large area of fire red oils map-out the blazing light of an erupting volcano. At the centre of the painting, Chu ingeniously employs blank space refracted from light and shade, to craft something akin to an exploding moment, which with the sudden transformation into gas radiates and creates a visual white light. Passionate orange, yellow and blue are presented in an array of rich forms, including dots, pauses, lifted and dragged brushstrokes, that combine in a moment of hot, exciting and soul-stirring colour.

Moreover, as the light takes refuge in the vast and remote space, the brushstroke momentum in the foreground moderates. The strokes are like silk thread, with fine elegant brushwork depicting the natural texture of lush green flora that speaks to the revitalization of life reflected in the phrase "When Spring returns the grass and trees know." Through a painting rhythm informed by strong calligraphic brushstrokes, Song painting composition and abstract imaginings, Chu Teh-Chun gives voice to his artistic journey living in France for 30 years. The powerful contrast between light and dark, cold and warm colours, reflects the eastern philosophy of "Yin and Yang harmony." This life message in turn imbues the work with a sense of harmony that directly reaches the boundless brightness felt by the human heart at the returning spring.

Price estimate:
HKD 800,000 – 1,500,000
USD 102,600 – 192,300

Auction Result:
HKD: 1,080,000