Page 54 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong

Zao Wou-Ki has taken in great
ZAO WOU-KI : TURNING TENSION INTO
HARMONY AT TAINING THE STATE OF WOU-KI
(L I T. I N F I N I T Y )
Zhou Wou-ki was born in an affluent family with good
education in 1921. His grandfather a xiucai scholar of the
Qing dynasty, his father a banker and art aficionado. Zou
immersed in a world of traditional aesthetics from a tender
age, he was tutored by his grandfather on the classics and
the arts of calligraphy and painting. After gaining admission
to the National Academy of Arts, Hangzhou, Zou started
to receive formal academic trainings in painting under Lin
Fengmian, who recently returned from his study in France. It
was also at that time that Zou came into contact with Lin’s
innovative ideas on painting. Zou graduated in 1941 and
remained to teach as a faculty. After the second world war,
Zou travelled to Paris in 1947, where he befriended fellow
artists like Alberto Giacometti. He then started to study the
abstracts in western art and made sharp changes in terms of
style into the avant-garde. From 1952 onwards, Zou’s works
were exhibited regularly in Paris’ galleries and touring in
the United States, Switzerland and London. He befriended
with artists like Franz Kline of the New York School and
started to re-examine the foundations of Chinese painting,
finding the notion of the void from the traditional liubai
(blank-leaving) technique and lyrical abstraction from nature
and ink painting. Following the solo exhibition in the Grand
Palais in the 80s, important art institutions around the world, The two years from 1956 to 1957 were a time of transition
for example, The National Art Museum of China, Kyoto
National Museum, Japan and Galerie de France invited Zou
to hold retrospective exhibitions. Zou’s highly idiosyncratic
art provided an unprecedented link between the arts of the
48 THE PIONEERS 先 鋒 薈 萃
elements of Western art... and has also
discovered brilliant aspects from the
culture of the East.
- Chinese-French member of the Académie
Française, François Cheng
Fig. 2 Zao Wou-Ki, Fleuve, 1956, Private Collection, Paris
© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zurich
圖2 趙無極《Fleuve》 私人收藏 巴黎
East and West. With a spirit that transcends the artist and
the depicted subject, a creative method that is both skilful
and mindful, together with his pursuit of the ultimate, Zou
who had a commanding excellence of arts both east and
west, traditional and modern, came to represent not only
one of the most important pioneers in Chinese modern and
contemporary art, but also a great master of the twentieth
century international art world. Zao Wou-Ki created two
artworks in the mid-1950s that were both titled, Water
Music. This piece (Lot 2506) was executed between 1956
and 1957; the other piece (Fig.1), created in late 1957, is
about half the size and executed with a cooler colour tone
consisting predominately of Prussian blue.
Water Music is the definitive work of Zou’s transition
into lyrical abstraction, a consummation of his deep
understandings of the core cultures of east and west. The
abstract symbols of Chinese bronze inscriptions traversed
among a mysterious void of colours, rendering tension into
harmony, attaining a sophisticated state of infinity.
L I F E A N D A R T, A D O U B L E T U R N
in Zao Wou-Ki's personal life and artistic career, and it was
during this time that he created several works, such as
Fleuve (Fig.2) and Marais, depicting floating water and his
circumstances. Marais, or swamp, signifies a low point in
Zao's career in the 50s and also his dissolving marriage. The
floating water represents the fleeting time, insinuating the
minuteness and impermanence of all things in life under the
steady grandeur of nature. The artworks also encompass the
artist's anticipation for the future and eagerness for creative