Page 30 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong
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A CONSUMMATE UNION OF EASTERN & Lot 2503
WESTERN AESTHETICS
Sanyu was born in 1900 in Sichuan, China. Receiving classic Sanyu work from the 1950s. Chrysanthemums
his education at home, his wealthy family made in a Glass Vase exemplifies the unique success of this
every effort to instill in him a strong foundation artist in his explorations of color, space, and line.
of literary knowledge, and he demonstrated an
interest in calligraphy at an early age. In 1918 he In Sanyu's Chrysanthemums in a Glass Vase (Lot
traveled to Japan, where in a brief stay of two years 2503), dating from the 1950s, each aspect of the
he absorbed new ideas about art unavailable to him painting—light, space, line, and color—corresponds
in China. In 1921 he traveled to France, where he with and finds an answer in every other. Unlike the
would remain for the next 45 years, embarking on light and shade the Impressionists evoked with
a creative career that produced a union of Eastern their rich varieties of color, Sanyu employs only
and Western aesthetics. The historical and artistic ochre, scarlet-black, and gold-sand colors, but sets
importance of Sanyu's art derives from the way he them off against each other to create a surprising
represents creative exploration during a vital phase lustre. Within his seemingly flat visual space, Sanyu
of development in Chinese art. Sanyu was active abandons single-point perspective for a view in which
during the first half of the 20th Century, a time of our eyes focus toward both left and right, enhancing
wide-ranging exchanges between East and West and the painting's depth and spatiality by the transitions
the introduction of Western thought into China. Many between the painting's overlapping three-dimensional
Chinese artists during that period strove to unite spaces. The flowers and vase, proportioned with
Eastern and Western aesthetic ideals, and Sanyu's deliberate inaccuracy, enter into the harmony of
work is perhaps the finest example of that exploratory the composition and create a world of their own
process — a perfect meeting point in Chinese art dimensions; the resolute lines of their stems and
from the classical tradition to modernity, from ink leaves remind one of the rising and falling ridgeline
painting to the oil medium, and from pure line to pure of a mountain range. Sanyu's painting inherits the
color-field abstraction. Sanyu's work played a decisive world of traditional Chinese landscape paintings, and
role in developing and extending the Chinese painting with it, he moves beyond even the innovative use of
tradition, helping to set its course during the 20th perspective, modeling of forms, and colors employed
Century and opening up new areas of exploration. The by the Impressionists, Cubists, and Fauves during
simple but elegant lines of his floral still lifes, animal the period in which he worked. Chrysanthemums in a
subjects, and female nudes embody the finest aspects Glass Vase, stylistically unique, is a pioneering work
of both ancient and modern art, and East and West, of 20th-century Eastern painting by an artist who
which nevertheless converge in a way that reflects a transcended the boundaries of both East and West.
Chinese culture presence and its symbolic meanings.
This season, during the year in which it celebrates the In its handling of space and composition, Eastern
250th anniversary of its founding, Christie's presents painting symbolically communicates emotions
an event of special significance by offering this and perceptions in freely lyrical styles, while
Western painting emphasizes a rational handling
Paul Cezanne, The Card Players, 1890-1892, Musee Orsay, Paris, France of perspective and employs more realistic methods.
塞尚《玩紙牌的人》1890-1892 法國巴黎奧賽美術館 While Sanyu's early painting studies took place
< Lot 2503 Detail 局部 > in China, he traveled to France in 1921, during
the era of the School of Paris, and on his own
forged a unique and personal style that melds
