Page 73 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong

energy and rhythm, expresses instead a commanding of paint in place of figurative depictions look free and
understanding of the use of ink and spatial composition, spontaneous, yet is done meticulously with precision,
what looks like careless spontaneity is in fact highly guiding viewers to the admiration of the hazy distant
complex. Vertige Neigeux is a work with wondrous landscape. The snow on the surface looks untrammeled
panoramic composition, the rhythm created by the and as if dancing in the wind, evoking a poetically
alternation between the depicted and the void, together imagery in the viewer’s mind, creating a delightful
with its nostalgic colours that suggest the pristineness contract with the density and texture of oil paint. Snow
of the ink painting, achieving a variation in quietude in Chu’s painting is not simply a dot, but building on
that evokes the feelings of In Clear View of Streams and the infinite possibility of ‘moss dots’ in Song paintings,
Mountains when one admires the painting from afar. having variation in size, density and opacity, representing
The suggested temporality and multiple perspectives the constant changing of forms in nature. Water vapours,
in Chinese landscape handscrolls are most suitable in clouds, hail and frost are all rendered among the snow.
presenting the naturalism and the artist’s inner spirit. Through the representational power of the dots, Chu
Monet’s The Water Lilies - The Clouds shows the artist created an ultimate expression of the nature. At the
understanding and adoption of this oriental aesthetics. same time, just as the Ming artist Wen Zhengming
painted with brushstrokes of cursive calligraphy, Chu’s
Artistically, in Vertige Neigeux, Chu first uses splash calligraphic lines guided the direction of movement on
colours as the base tone to create a sense of unison, the canvas, enhancing the momentum with swift and
the pale wash of paint creates an illusionistic depth, brittle textual strokes. The changing thickness of the
rendering the wide expanse of the landscape. The traces lines, enriching the multiple dimensions through the

Fig 4 Xia Gui, In Clear View of Streams and
Mountains (detail), Southern Song Dynasty,
National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
圖4 夏珪《溪山清遠圖》（局部）
南宋 國立故宮博物院 台北 台灣

Fig 5 Claude Monet, The Water Lilies
- The Clouds (detail), 1920–1926,
Collection of Musée de l'Orangerie.
圖 5 克 勞 德‧莫內《睡 蓮·雲朵》( 局 部 )
1920–1926年作 橘園美術館 巴黎 法國

Fig 2 Wu Guanzhong, Cypresses, 1992
圖2 吳冠中《漢柏》1992年作

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