Page 30 - Christie's Hong Kong May 30, 2017 Zhang Daqian

Fig. 6
圖六

FIG. 6 LANDSCAPE OF THE MIND:
Zhang Daqian, Panorama of Mount Abstraction and Beyond
Lu, dated 1981-1983, in the collection
of National Palace Museum, Taipei. Abstract in nature, Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds presents one of the most thorough
Published in Shen C.Y. Fu, The World of studies in abstraction that Zhang Daqian had ever undertaken and a landscape of the
Chang Dai-chien, Xi Zhitang, Taipei, pp. mind. The fluid and amorphous forms in the painting are at times entirely built up by
370-371. swathes of ink splashes, with silhouettes of temples and pavilions minimally outlined
by a few simple brushstrokes, not unlike abstract art of Europe and North America
圖六 prevalent at the time. Since leaving China, Zhang Daqian had travelled extensively,
張大千，《廬山圖》，一九八一至一九八三 from Asia, to Europe and South America and was likely exposed to the diverse artistic
年作。台北國立故宮博物院收藏。刊於傅 developments that swept the world at the time. Billed as the meeting of the East and
申，《張大千的世界》，羲之堂，台北， West, Zhang’s famous encounter with Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) at his Cannes villa
第370-371頁。 La Californie in 1956 propelled him in new artistic directions, departing even further
from the aesthetics that shaped the first few decades of his career. Yet, the pursuit of
FIG. 7 abstraction in the work of Zhang Daqian is perhaps a far cry from that of Picasso; for
Zhang Daqian, Dawning Light in Autumn formal likeness holds very different currency for Chinese artists, as Su Shi writes: ‘If
Gorges, dated 1965, private collection. one judges the superiority of a painting by its formal likeness, one is no different from
Published in Shen C.Y. Fu, The World a child.’ Unlike Picasso’s desire to reduce, dissect, and deconstruct forms, the abstract
of Chang Dai-chien, Xi Zhitang, Taipei, expressions conveyed by splashed-ink and splashed-colour composition correspond
p.265. to the expressive (xieyi) style, further transforming and simplifying the boneless
(mogu) style and Zen painting, modernising Chinese painting by adapting the visual
圖七 vocabulary of the twentieth century, in an increasingly globalised world.
張大千，《幽谷圖》，一九六五年作。私人
收藏。刊於傅申，《張大千的世界》，羲之 Compared to earlier splashed-ink works such as Grand View of the Ch’ing-cheng
堂，台北，第265頁。 Mountains, Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds illustrates a previously-unseen confidence and
maturity with which the artist controls the flow of the ink and pigment. A fresh, free,
and unrestrained visual delight, the painting displays an incredible sense of strength
and rhythm that dominates the work. After moving to California in the U.S., and
later returning to Asia to Taiwan, Zhang Daqian to an extent restricted his liberal use
of such an uninhibited splashed-ink method – perhaps catering to a predominately
Chinese audience. In his later years, he employed a process that in a way combines
splashed-ink with figurative expressions, as seen in Panorama of Mount Lu (Fig. 6).
It was only during his time in Brazil in the 1960s, living almost in a state of remote
seclusion, that works such as Ancient Temples Amidst Clouds could ever be possibly
imagined and executed.

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