Anchoring at Guazhou
Wang Anshi

Beyond the River lies Jingkou, from which Zhongshan

Is but a span of several mountains away.

Now that the spring breezes have reverdur'd the south bank,

When will the bright moon see me on my homebound way?

From 1966 to 1972, Wu Guanzhong was prohibited from creating art during the Cultural Revolution. Not only did no works appear during this period, but also very few works before 1966 survived. According to the Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong, Wu Guanzhong has created more than 500 works in his life, but only about 50 oil paintings from the 1960s were recorded in Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong. Created in 1963, Old pier at Guazhou (Lot 14) is a rare treasure created before the Cultrual Revolution that is a testament to the artist's artistic career before the trying time. This work first appeared in auction at Sotheby's Hong Kong in 2002, then in 2017, it resurfaced again at Christie's Hong Kong. After which the work entered the private collection of the current owner, showing a clear provenance that makes it a rare piece.

According to the chronological record in The Complete Works of Wu Guanzhong, the artist traveled to Jiangsu and Zhejiang in 1963 and painted the sceneries of the regions. Perhaps it was during this trip that Wu Guanzhong visited the old pier of Guazhou in Jiangsu Province. The old pier of Guazhou has been an important transportation center on the north bank of the Yangtze River since the Jin Dynasty. Many poets and literati in the past dynasties left famous poems after being inspired by this location and its rich stories, such as Song poet Wang Anshi’s famous Anchoring at Guazhou. Perhaps inspired by its reach historic and literary significance, Wu Guanzhong captured the poetic scenery of this pier in Old pier at Guazhou. 

Employign a bird's-eye view composition in this work, Wu Guanzhong captures the vast view of this location, creating a majestic spirit of "viewing all the mountains from above". The artist boldly left the middle and lower part of the composition blank to depict the Yangtze River, which not only creates a broad field of vision, but also echoes the commonly used "blank space" technique in Chinese traditional landscape. In traditional landscape paintings, "boating on the lake" is often depicted with one singular small boat on a body of water, but Wu Guanzhong cleverly added a new twist to this traditional theme by using fishing boats in the foreground, sailing boats in the middle and steamboats in the background. These three distinct boats express the intersection of China's rapidly developing industrial society and the traditional culture in the 1960s. From far to near, the three distinctly different kinds of ships convey the changes of the times and the fusion of ancient and modern, making this painting more valuable as a portrayal of Chinese society in the 1960s.

《泊船瓜洲》
王安石
京口瓜洲一水間，鐘山只隔數重山。
春風又綠江南岸，明月何時照我還？

一九六六年至一九七二年，吳冠中於文革期間被禁止藝術創作，不但此時期沒有作品面世，一九六六年以前的作品亦所剩無幾。按《吳冠中全集》記載，吳冠中生平共創作逾500幅作品，但記錄在全集中，藝術家六〇年代所創作的油畫作品僅有約50幅。而創作於一九六三年的《瓜州古渡》（拍品編號14）正是創作於一九六六年之前，紀錄藝術家文革前藝術創作歷程的罕見遺珍。本作於二〇〇二年首次於香港蘇富比登上拍場，繼後於二〇一七年在香港佳士得拍賣，繼而進入現任藏家的私人收藏中，其來源十分清晰有序，確實難得珍貴。

按《吳冠中全集》的年表紀錄，吳冠中於一九六三年在江浙一帶遊歷並進行藝術創造，或正是這趟旅程中，吳冠中曾到位於江蘇省的瓜州古渡觀光。瓜州古渡自晉朝起便是長江北岸重要的水上交通樞紐處，歷代有不少詩人、文人以此處為題，留下許多流芳百世的詩句，宋朝詩人王安石《泊船瓜洲》中的「春風又綠江南岸，明月何時照我還。」便正是詩人在此處有感而發所寫下的詩句。《瓜州古渡》亦或是藝術家觀光自此，受此古渡深厚歷史文化意義啟發所創作的畫作。

吳冠中在本作中採用了鳥瞰的構圖，從上往下將景色收入畫中，營造出‘一覽眾山小’的澎湃氣概。藝術家更是大膽留空畫面的中下部分以描繪長江，不僅營造出廣闊的視野，更呼應了中國書畫中常用的‘留白’手法。傳統山水畫中「泛舟湖上」的往往是寂靜水面上的孤舟，而吳冠中用前景的漁船，中景的帆船和遠景的汽船，巧妙地為這一傳統主題增添了一絲新的韻味。這三種截然不同的船隻表達出六〇年代中國飛速發展的工業社會和傳統環境的交匯傳承。由遠至近，三種各有特色的船傳遞出時代變遷，古今交匯的韻味，亦使得此畫作為六〇年代中國社會的寫照，更加難能可貴。