Page 131 - Beyond Compare Christie's Hong Kong RU WARE .pdf

“ To paint one must create, and one should not completely imitate nature.

Studying nature allows one to understand the self, but do not be captured by nature,

instead seek to capture nature. If you can take the beauty and power of nature,

emphasize it, showcase its changes, then you have produced your own creation.”

- Ran In-Ting, Ran In-Ting Watercolor Album

he artist Ran In-Ting was born in Luodong, in Taiwan’s Yilan County in 1903. His
Tfather Ran Chien, a former Qing scholar, taught him the basics of Chinese ink
painting techniques as a young child. In a stroke of fate, Ran found a mentor in Japanese
painter Kinochiro Ishikawa when he was twenty-one years old, and studied painting under
Ishikawa’s tutelage for four years. Ran’s early works were highly influenced by Ishikawa’s artistic
style, utilizing clean, simple techniques. Later on, influenced by the humid, rainy, and misty
climate in which he lived, Ran In-Ting began to incorporate the ink painting technique of cun
ca (dry-brush rubbing) into his work to create a unique artistic style of his own. Landscape of
Taloco (Lot 8013) is about 5.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, was painted in 1965, and is claimed by
some to be the seminal work of Ran In-Ting’s late years.

Ran In-Ting studied abroad in Japan in his youth, and studied British watercolour painting
under Ishikawa, with watercolour masters such as J.M.W. Turner (fig.2) and John Constable
serving as models and inspirational touchstones. At the height of his creativity, however, he
began to incorporate traditional Chinese ink painting techniques into his watercolours,
highlighting the natural textures of his paper and visually bringing forth the grandeur of
Chinese landscapes.

In terms of technique, Landscape of Taloco combines transparent, translucent, and opaque layers
of paint. Ran has utilized ink-black as a dominant colour, with a unified colour scheme.
The painting features fine brushstrokes and a multi-point perspective, with clear layers in
the depiction of spatial distance: pavilions interspersed across the left, middle, right, and high
fig.1 Song Dynasty, Guo Xi, Early Spring, National Palace
Museum, Taipei, Taiwan and low ground gives the painting a sense of visual balance. The winding pathway in the
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foreground acts as a starting point, passing through tunnels and stepped paths, and leading
our eye through the wooden bridge to the other set of mountaintops. Mist covers the entire
landscape to settle at the foot of the mountains, enhancing the gleaming, scenic Taroko Gorge
springtime in all its glory.
Chiang Chao-shen, an accomplished artist and former Deputy Director of the National Palace
Museum, once pointed out Ran In-Ting’s attention to stone in the mountains that he painted,
and the diverse lines Ran used to convey the quality of rock— lines that were created using the
“rubbing” technique often found in Chinese paintings. He felt Ran’s art synthesized elements
of both Chinese painting and watercolour painting. Another painting that skilfully conveys the
glories of springtime landscapes is the painting Early Spring (fig.1) by Song dynasty painter
Guo Xi, who painted his rocks in swirls, giving a cloud-like texture to the stony peaks—
the atmosphere feels transformative and almost alive. Landscape of Taloco utilizes techniques
borrowed from the Song painters in its use of ink-wash lines and layered brushstrokes,
breaking away from traditional British watercolour methods and Ishikawa’s own ethereal style
and instead echoing the grandeur of Song shan-shui landscape paintings.

This painting, depicting the scenic Taroko Gorge, is an homage to Ran’s native landscape,
which he called a natural wonder. Deep mountains and eerie hollows, steep cliffs, waterfalls and
streams… everywhere the sight of high mountains and flowing water, and ancient trees dotting
the mountainside. Zhang Daqian once described Taroko Gorge as a “wonder of the world”.
His painting Central Cross-Island Highway (fig.3) is filled with meandering mists, torrential
waterfalls, and staggering slopes—a distinctly Chinese shan-shui painting. In Ran In-Ting’s
fig.2 J.M.W. Turner, The Passage of the St. Gothard, painting, however, the travellers scattered across the scene highlights the contrast between them
1804, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria, UK and the grandeur of the massive natural landscape. It also reveals his nostalgic attention to
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⢺࿍ḓ "CCPU )BMM ₝༞ humanity, along with his sensitivity to the natural world and love for his homeland.

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