ZHONG CHENG

  • Zhong Cheng 2022 Autumn Auction「Modern And Contemporary Art」
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    CHU TEHCHUN (1920-2014 )

    Série de Fleurs ll

    1957

    Oil on Canvas
    65 x 62 cm

    Signed CHU TEH-CHUN in English and titled in French and Chinese on the reverse

    Estimate TWD 18,000,000-25,000,000
    USD 580,600-806,500
    HKD 0-0

    Hammer Price TWD 20,400,000
    USD 635,316
    HKD 5,000,000

Provenance：

Illustrated：1. OVERSEAS CHINESE FINE ARTS SERIES (ll) CHU THE-CHUN, Artist-Magazine, Taipei Taiwan, 1999, Page 86-87 2. CHU THE-CHUN, Enrico Navarra Gallery, Paris France, 2000, Page 31

Exhibition：

Exposition：This work has been confirmed by Chu Teh-Chun Foundation.

This painting was completed in 1957, the year after Chu Teh-Chun arrived in France. Speaking of flowers and France, Edith Piaf’s song La Vie en Rose came to mind. Even if uncertain about the lyrics, the listener could still feel somewhat emotionally stirred up by the song. Its lyrics and melody are composed with an atiitude of rising slightly above the trite and staying adrift amid the mundane. Minus any superfluous resounding echo of emotional yearnings or lingering allure to entice contact or attention, the song does leave its indelible mark. Likewise, this painting does not present itself with a grand splash visually. At a first glance, the color blocks are sparsely stacked, interlaced with traces of ink shading and smudging, while using strips of color to outline the flowers’ soundscape, tones and contours.

The painter Chu Teh-Chun received training of traditional Chinese painting when he was only a child. Harboring an arden passion for classical poetry, Chu has eastern cultural elements blended into his soul as nutrients for his creations. “Poetry in painting” has been a distinct characteristic of Chu’s works. Besides embedding pooetry in painting, Chu’s adroit charged calligraphic brushwork brings about a visual sense of rhythm, striking a chord between the poem in painting and the viewer so much so that a tune is composed and comes alive between them, a tune that they tacitly dance to. 

The predominant black and white colors in traditional Chinese paintings heighten the contrast between the two. Ink gradations are applied with varied ink load and brushstroke pressure to depict landscapes and objects without the excessive colors that constitute the world as seen by the common folks, thus extending the distance between the painting and the masses standing in front of it. As such, the ink wash paintings are able to retain a wider space for musing and fathoming. Yet each and every fathoming is bereft of the central ideas intended by painter through the work. For instance, if the question is not specific enough, the multitude of answers that it elicits will, at close and repeated inspection, be a far cry from the intended answers. 

Yet Chu’s incorporation of bright colors of western paintings, plus added refinement of the three primary colors, morphs into endless streamed lines within the structure that are stacked horizontally and vertically to render meandering encounters among flowers and unrestrained singular exuberance in the space between the eyes and the canvas where the dots are connected. From whichever angle the painting is viewed, one can detect distinct robust resilience, which is reminiscent of ink wash paintings, holding up the frame of the flower stems. The leaf foliation is smudged to the edges, scattered around like the stars in a orderly haze. This evokes the prelude of eager anticipation that accompanies the moment before a theatre production opens its curtain. The flowers in full gloom are on the left gingerly elbowing to greet the sun. The painter’s nimble brushwork guides the visual focal point expertly upwards to balance the drama and its accompanyng soundtrack to a profound communion. The interspersed height arrangement is akin to tempo in a music score and gradually outlines what turns and twitsts are unfolding in the story of the painting to lure viewers to join the ramble. Meanwhile, those budding flowers awaiting to be dressed in fabulous colors are purportedly expected to hold their solitary space in the corner. But in a quiet way, with no fanfare, no fuss, their opaque self-effacing existance surfacing near the end of the painter’s finishing strokes will somehow catch your attention. Next to the sprawling petals and leaves, they stand tall and strong, ever so eager to vie for the crown of the spring beauty queen. 

Over the years, amid the throng of painters that could place poetry in their work, there has never been one on a par with Chu; they are just about able to put poetry in the painting, poetry that mostly expresses sentiments, but short of a narrative. Generally, a painting only portrays partial aspects of a landscape, and a poem only conveys the twists and turns of sentiments. Even if a painting embedded with a poem manages to contain some poetic infusion, the act of assembling and enacting a story in a two-dimensional world is, suffice to say, no easy feat. 

However, Chu’s painting reaches the state of “poetry in painting; narrative in poetry”. He completes the work as a painter but also turns himself into a narrator. Gazing at the painting, one will hear a blithe voice of Spring almost on a fast tempo, a result of the neatly paced cadence through the pecking and pressing of the brushstrokes. Given such a structured unfolding, the viewers will have their appetite piqued, and the context and content stirred up, pulled apart, and pieced together again, followed by clarification and resolution. Fusing the exposition of a narrative and the outpouring of emotions, this is a painting that tells a story, a painting framed squarely in a rectangular space. In whichever way you cut it, in twos or in fours; from whichever angle you view it, from high above or from down below, obliquely from the left or glancing from the right, seeing any nooks painted by Chu, one will sense an event being brewed with logic on a sizzling fire. It’s like walking on the stairs that cannot be counted for the floor level but with only time and space to hold on to, as if the viewer is being enveloped by one after another streaming projection slide. The more you look, the more you will be lured in. Each step you take will further transpose you to the world of the story. There is no end to this flight of stairs. It will keep the viewer hooked to the end.  

Mengzi said, “When I cannot have both, I shall give up fish and have the bear’s paw instead.” Kandinsky (1866 – 1944) proposed the “Art of Internal Necessity” in his book, The Art of Spiritual Harmony, stating that in expressing the creator’s spiritual state, the colors and lines in painting will leap like music notes to one’s heartbeat or rejoice like fish swimming in water. In the Eight Principles of Yong in Chinese calligraphy, each of the eight brushstroke disciplines exhibits its singular charm and force and yet corresponds to each other to conjure up an undisrupted maneuvering of energy. Much like the intertwining terrains on a bear’s paw, once it strikes, all elements come as one force to hit the mark. The dichotomy of the discipline and the freefall expressivity; the form and the content; the abstract expressionism and calligraphy are often out of reach for regular artists despite a lifetime pursuit. 

However, Chu has uncovered the link between the two, i.e., the abstract expressionism and calligraphy. The musicality that Kandinsky refers to in abstract art is a symbol of spiritual freedom, unchained and fast-paced. This insight sits well with the craft of calligraphy. Where the brushstroke goes, the force moves and follows. As for musicality, Chu has combined his own calligraphy techniques with repeated experimentation to successfully draw ideas from across thousands of miles and years to instill musicality in his cultural disposition. This has propelled his work to a whole different sphere and contain a language of its own. One’s art career cannot possibly always stay at the peak. But there are no rules to the aesthetics of art, no need for compromise either. From being fresh but green, to mature and seasoned, an artist never creates art for anyone’s sake. Chu believes in nonstop trying and pushing boundaries in order to grow and to justify his accomplishments of having dissolved the dichotomy and retaining both the fish and the bear’s paw.

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