I love Spring in Blossom
Since my first exhibition as a young man, I have grown old, now finding myself in my seventy-sixth year. Of my innumerable works, my paintings of flowers are most comforting to me. All of them were painted as I listened to the music of Mozart and Chopin. The subtropics, where it feels like spring year-round and I have resided for the last few decades, have honed my eye and enriched my sense of colour. I am grateful to my parents, who gave me eyes that were naturally sensitive to colour. Since childhood, I have loved the colours of Impressionist and Fauvist works. While it is unlikely that you would see or perceive these beautiful, affecting colours in daily life, they are art. With the passage of time and decades of artistic practice, I found or created my own world of colour, an innate metaphysical sensibility.
In the course of painting this work, I often forgot how my previous stroke was mixed, so I could only bring two colours together on my palette with my brush. These colours are the product of flashes of inspiration. The laws of art are difficult to define. We cannot be without these laws, but it is even less realistic to have a final set of laws. When pushed to their ultimate point, laws become lawless, naturally elevating the imitation of nature to the creation of nature. I feel that painting trees, flowers, and other plants becomes easier the more freedom you have; you can achieve an artistic state of pure spirituality. I am rather proud of my oil paintings of flowers and trees, but it is useless to believe that I have surpassed my predecessors. Spring in Blossom is the result of decades of experience with painting. In the work, I fuse a landscape and a still life into a single composition. I do not care whether it is logical for the flowers, plants, gourds, trees, maple leaves, and lotus pond to all appear on an April day; I was only concerned with creating a dream world that was akin to spring, or even surpassed spring, yet was not spring. I believe that free works of art inspired by realism do not need to please others, like the work of the poet Song Yu or an uncommon piece of music or art, echoing Laozi's idea that the less known something is, the more prized it will be. The pursuit of an image that is different from any other in the creation of nature, brushwork, colour, and composition—something without precedent or antecedent—is an artist's highest goal and one I am always working towards. Coincidentally, I have written this text on an April day.
April 2023
Pang Jiun
Pang Jiun, best known as a ‘literati expressionist’, was born in Shanghai, with ancestral roots in Changshu, Jiangsu. The magnificent lotus ponds of southern China hold deep meaning for him, informing the idyllic scenes that he creates. They are endless sources of inspiration and provide an excellent way to combine Chinese ink and oil painting techniques. Pang Jiun lived in Paris briefly in 2007, and in 2020 he stated “When I finally visited Monet’s garden, everything there felt so familiar. I am from Jiangnan, China and I studied art in Hangzhou from a young age, I had lived in a similar environment. The White Embankment and the Su Embankment are lined with shady willows, and Solitary Hill is covered with trees, flowers, and other plants. The ubiquitous lotuses and water lilies surpass those in Monet’s garden.” In Spring in Blossom (Lot 1017) Pang Jiun combines the best of the Eastern and Western spirit and technique to create a dreamworld. Among Pang Jiun’s large-scale paintings, he employs the triptych format in very few works—only two have appeared in the auction market. In the present lot, the three massive panels overall measure an astounding 200 by 600 cm. In addition to a boundless realm that allows Pang Jiun to freely express himself, the painting also has distinct symbolic meaning—the lotus flowers emerge from the water, supported by verdant leaves, viewers can almost smell the fragrance. The pond is reminiscent of the garden of Impressionist master Claude Monet. The trees are hung with bottle gourds, symbolizing luck, longevity, and good health—the favourite subject of modern Chinese painter Qi Baishi. Pang Jiun pays homage to two great masters in the history of art, reflecting his knowledge of Eastern and Western art-- by deriving his personal style through constant exploration and fusion. In Sotheby’s Hong Kong Spring 2020 Evening Auction, Monet’s Garden sold for HK$7.4 million, setting a new record for the artist. Monet’s Garden is a masterpiece that pays tribute to the master, and Spring in Blossom is also said to come from the same line. This is the first time Spring in Blossom is appearing on the auction market, and it will sure continue the excellent performance of large-scale paintings by the artist.
Spring in Blossom is named after a poem ‘I Compare You to Lovely April Days’ created in 1934 by the Republican-era poet Lin Huiyin. Since ancient times, countless scholars have written poems about spring. April is a beautiful month, and the picturesque scenes have inspired many wonderful landscape paintings. In ‘I Compare You to Lovely April Days’, Lin engages various senses to create the mood in the poem. In the multi-sensory experience of her April scene, you can see the flowers dotting the trees, you can hear the swallow twittering between the beams, and you can feel the ‘warmth’ of the atmosphere. She used an ambiguity and softness to express the still of an April day, while also evoking the motion of springtime with blowing breezes, twinkling stars, and gentle rain on the flowers. She flawlessly blends the static and dynamic composition in a perfect harmony. Pang Jiun painted this work in April 2020, reflecting his perceptions of life during the pandemic. He hoped to convey the vitality of spring-- in return to bring himself some comfort, instill hope in others, and spread positive energy to the world.
I Compare You to Lovely April Days
I compare you, my beloved, to lovely April days.
When your giggling charm enlightens the breezes astray,
Rising lightness be your dancing shapes, tiptoeing the gorgeous spring rays.
You are my early April cloud;
Eventide softness where winds linger in steps proud.
Starry sparkles, a careless note,
Modest raindrops over the blooms in a whisper silently loud.
Lightness, fairness, and freshness are your floral crest,
Naïve grandness is the embrace of your chest
You, every touch of a round moon holding my breath.
Yellowish green is your budding blade,
When the wintry snow fades;
Tender rejoicing be your dreamy lilies in the rippling parade.
Your are trees heavy with flowers merry and gay;
Like keen swallows, under every roof, you gently chatter away，
In thy name of love and warm hopes, you are a lovely April day!
– A Piece of Love Eulogy by Lin Huiyin (Translated by Qi Wenyu)
The composition of Spring in Blossom embodies so many details, capturing a riot of blooms and the reinvigoration of all living things. Pang Jiun makes clever use of perspective to express a sense of distance between elements in the scene. He incorporates Chinese literati art and philosophy and uses a large swathe of grey as the undertone for the lotus pond. Technically, he draws on the use of voids in Chinese traditional ink painting. He believes that grey ‘evinces the charm and ambiguity in Chinese poetry’ and imbues a painting with the misty, expansive mood of Eastern literati painting. thus employing a range of different lines to depict a tangle of tree branches. He also paints ornamental hills and decorative rocks, commonly placed on the edges of southern lakes, surrounding the lotus pond. He depicts the white and pink lotuses, morning glories, bottle gourds, cacti, peonies, dahlias, monsteras, and a few maple leaves in dazzling colours, showing his ability to precisely capture the light and colour contrasts and the positions of the plants in a very lifelike way. This work exemplifies the magnificent abundance in Pang Jiun’s still life paintings—the texture of the brushwork is a synthesis of late Impressionism, Expressionism, and Fauvism, conveying endless passion and expressiveness as he creates a contradictory yet harmonious beauty. Spring in Blossom could be considered one of the best Pang Jiun’s outdoor landscape scene paintings—as the artist is now over 90 years of age, this painting clearly shows how precious time is, but also his hopes for the future. He wants to leave the viewer with his good wishes, a message that gives the scene and the elements in it a spiritual aura. The transcendent colours and poetic atmosphere will bring viewers back to savour this scenery over again.
我愛四月天
我自從青少時代的第一次畫展之後,至今已歷經了七十六個春秋, 人亦漸地老去。在自己的無數畫作中,最能自我安慰的，還是我的每一幅畫花的作品，所有作品都是在莫扎特和肖邦的音樂旋律中完成的，另一方面，也是因為近幾 十年我生活在亞熱帶，四季如春的自然界，不斷養育着我的眼睛，豐富了我的色彩靈感，我亦感激我的父母，給了我一雙天生對色彩高度敏感的眼睛。我自幼愛上了「印象派」、「野獸派」 作品之色彩，這些美妙動人之色彩是生活中看不到亦難以感覺到的，它就是藝術。久而久之，亦在幾十年的藝術實踐中，悟到並形成了自我精神中獨特的色彩世界，這是一種天生的形而上之感覺。
在作畫的過程中，我時常忘記自己前一筆色彩是如何調出來的，只是用筆在調色盤上顏色同顏色之相碰, 色彩就在瞬間靈動而成。由此可見，藝術之法度是無限的，無法非也，終於有法更非也，有法之極歸於無法，自然而然地會從模仿自然昇華為妙造自然。因此我感覺到畫樹木花草更為自由而得心應手,可達純粹精神性之藝術境界。由此可見，我比較得意自己的油畫花卉、樹木之作品。自以為超越前人之所無。
「人間四月天」作品，就是我累積幾十年繪畫經驗而成之作品，畫面是把風景與静物概念合而為一形 成的構圖，我不在乎花草、瓜木、 荷塘、楓葉、同在四月天是否合理，只求一個更加美麗的似春色、非春色、 不是春色勝似春色之人間仙境。吾認為：凡逸品畫格、本應實自寫性靈，不必求悦於人，比宋玉、「曲高和寡」、老子「知希為貴」 之意。追求畫面與衆不同、造化自然、 筆墨色彩、構圖，前無古人、後無來者，乃是藝術家之最高理想吾將努力之。撰文正是寫在四月天。
2023年4月
龐均
堪稱為「東方人文表現主義」大師龐均生於上海，祖籍在江蘇常熟，於他而言，絢麗飽滿的的江南荷塘對他有深厚的意義，孕育了他內心的詩情畫意，是他筆下取之不盡的素材，更是他結合水墨之道與油畫技法的最佳範例。他2007年在巴黎旅居過，並在2020年曾言：「最後，來到了莫內花園，我太熟悉這裡的一切，因為我這個江南人，自幼就在杭州學藝術，生活在類似的環境中，白堤和蘇堤的兩岸，柳樹成蔭，孤山佈滿樹木花草，處處可見荷花與睡蓮，情調勝於莫內花園。」《人間四月天》（拍品編號1017）中，龐均融合東西之所長的精神及技法，構成出如夢似幻的意境。在龐均巨幅創作的主軸當中，少數作品採用三聯屏的展現形式，在拍賣場上只出現過兩幅，而此作以三幅二米高六米長宏闊的尺度，除了可以讓藝術家能夠揮灑自如、直抒胸臆的無垠境界，亦蘊含獨特的象徵意義。在畫面中央一朵朵出水的荷花，高擎於绿葉之上，花香沁人，不禁令人聯想起西方印象派大師克勞徳・莫內的花園。樹上寓意吉祥長壽、福氣安康的葫蘆更是中國近現代繪畫大師齊白石最為鍾愛的題材。可見龎均先後致敬兩位畫壇巨人，反映其對東、西方藝術均見涉獵，在不斷的摸索與消融間，才悟出個人風格。在2020年春拍，以7,375,000港幣刷新藝術家個人拍賣紀錄的鉅作《莫内花園》即為致敬大師的代表作，亦謂源自一脈。《人間四月天》首度亮相拍賣，將再續龎均巨畫拍賣之精彩篇章。
《人間四月天》的命題出自民國時期詩人林徽因於1934年創作的一首現代詩《你是人間的四月天》。自古以來，文人筆下寫春的詩是數不勝數，四月是一年之中人間美好的季節，處處皆可以詩賦入畫，創作充滿意境的抒情風景畫。在《你是人間的四月天》裡，林徽因善於調動多種感官去表現出詩詞中的意境。對四月景的描寫，視覺上「有一樹一樹的花開」，聽覺上有「燕在梁間呢喃」，觸覺上有佈滿空間的「暖」，帶給觀眾多重感官衝擊。她運用雲煙縹緲的輕柔表現四月天的靜，同時用吹着的風、閃動的星子和灑在花前的細雨點，勾勒出四月天的靈動，動靜結合，相得益彰。龐均於2020年四月完成此作，從而表現出藝術家在疫情期間感悟生活，希望寄著春天生機勃勃的的氣息，給生命一份安暖，將希望播種人間，傳遞出正能量。
你是人間的四月天—一句愛的讚頌
我説 你是人間的四月天；
笑響點亮了四面風；
輕靈在春的光豔中交舞着變。
你是四月早天裏的雲煙，
黃昏吹着風的軟，
星子在無意中閃，
細雨點灑在花前。
那輕，那娉婷，你是，
鮮妍百花的冠冕你戴着，
你是天真，莊嚴，
你是夜夜的月圓。
雪化後那片鵝黃，你像；
新鮮初放芽的綠，你是；
柔嫩喜悦，水光浮動着你夢期待中白蓮。
你是一樹一樹的花開，
是燕在梁間呢喃，
—你是愛，是暖，是希望，
你是人間的四月天！
—林徽因
《人間四月天》的構圖亦相當豐富，捕捉了繁花盛開燦爛的一幕，春天萬物的復甦的景象。龐均非常巧妙地以空氣遠近法去表現景物之間互相的距離感。畫面意境結合了中國人文藝術哲學，他揮灑大片淡淡朦朧的灰色作為荷塘背景的基調，技法概念取自中國傳統水墨畫的留白意識，他認為灰色「應驗了中國詩詞裡的韻味和飄渺」，能夠賦予畫中一種屬於東方文人畫煙波浩渺的詩情畫意。藝術家再以掘、拆、修、幼的線條表現千姿百態的樹枝，繪入江南湖邊常見的假山及奇石站立於荷塘園林的兩側，並採用鮮豔耀眼的色彩描繪近在眼前的白蓮花、荷花、喇叭花、葫蘆、仙人掌、牡丹花、大麗花、龜背芋與數片楓葉，充分展現了龐均對光色對比和景物姿態的精銳捕捉，極富有生活情趣。此作亦包含了龐均靜物畫中常見絢爛與飽滿的色彩，在用筆肌理中，帶出西方印象派後期、表現主義與野獸派的綜合特點、表現出無窮的熱情及表現力，構成一種矛盾的和諧美，可認定為藝術家戶外風景畫當中上乘之作。《人間四月天》無疑是藝術家在耄耋之年珍惜歲月、展望未來的精神體現，亦將美好的願景留在觀者心中，其帶有精神性的刻畫使筆下之景與物皆具有靈性的光彩，超然的色彩和濃鬱的詩情能夠震撼人心再三回味。
