Li Huayi - Forever Young
Forever Young (Lot 1019), offered at this season’s Evening Sale, reflects Li Huayi’s determined pursuit of innovation in Chinese ink art. The piece blends the Northern and Southern Schools of Chinese shanshui (landscape) painting and evokes the unique spirituality of Song-era literati painting. For four months bridging 2019 and 2020, the Honolulu Museum of Art held a major solo exhibition for Li Huayi, focused on his Gilded Screens series and fully showcasing his innovations in ink painting. According to the artist’s official website, there are only 28 works in Li’s Gilded Screens series. Free Mind in Peace (I), the work in the series with the largest dimensions and most panels, sold for HK$11 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong last year and set a new record for the artist. Li’s top three auction records have been set at Sotheby’s, and two of those three have been works from Gilded Screens. Only two sets of his paired two-fold screens, including Forever Young, have been presented at auction, and only one of them was exhibited at Li’s major solo show at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Forever Young, offered at this season’s Spring Sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, represents a golden opportunity for collectors.
Forever Young is a two-fold screen, and its grand atmosphere draws deeply from the boldness and vision of Northern Song landscapes. Early Spring (Zaochun tu), an extant masterpiece by famed Northern Song painter Guo Xi, is Li Huayi’s favourite work. In it, the main peak rises in the centre of the image, and the large stones and pine trees in the foreground stretch outward and upward through the mists. The brush and ink effects hover, balanced and complementary, between the clear and the shadowy, presenting a scene of early spring in which the snow is melting, and all living things are being reborn. The overall composition of Forever Young is symmetrical, like Early Spring. Li focuses on portions of the trees, the placement of which continues in the spirit of Southern Song paintings with relatively spare compositions concentrated in a corner or along an edge. The voids seem intangible—by turns, they could be curling clouds or gently running waters that guide the viewer’s imagination beyond the painting. Overall, this work tempers the powerful vigour of the Northern School of landscape with the mild elegance of the Southern School, but it also reflects the artist’s interest in photography and video work. From a distance, everything about the painting from the composition to the arrangement of the trees appears as if through a camera’s viewfinder, offering a glimpse into a landscape that the artist saw in person.
宋 郭熙《早春圖》國立故宮博物院典藏
Pine trees are revered for their longevity, and the literati have, since ancient times, extolled the fact that pines are evergreen, even in winter. Forever Young draws on the auspicious associations of evergreen trees. The formal beauty of this balanced and symmetrical composition echoes the Doctrine of the Mean from Chinese traditional philosophy: yin and yang are opposing forces that generate and harmonize with one another. It is a relationship of constant interdependence. Forever Young is designed as a pair of two-panelled works, and the leaves can be separated for installation and display. During Li Huayi’s solo show at the Honolulu Museum of Art, panels flanked the exhibition entrance, showing the unique flexibility of its design. In Forever Young, the tall and straight evergreen branches extend from the edges toward the central axis. The trees’ volume, weight, and branches are arranged in a clear and balanced way, offering a harmonious visual experience. The meaning of the composition extends from the image itself into the physical construction of the screens; the spread of the tree branches echoes the paired screen format. As Bai Juyi so movingly wrote in the “Song of Everlasting Sorrow”, “To fly together in the sky, two birds on the same wing, / To grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.”
A close examination of the trees’ texture reveals that Li has introduced chiaroscuro techniques from Western painting into his ink work. This makes a visual break with the limitations of the expressive methods of Chinese painting, adding some rigidity and rigor to natural, unrestrained, and not entirely realistic literati painting. Forever Young balances and combines the brilliance of Eastern and Western cultural sources in technique and formal expression. The background of the nearly four-meter painting is adorned with gold leaf, drawing inspiration from the bright and brilliant unearthly realm created in Tang gold-and-green landscape paintings. The lofty and unyielding spirit of these evergreen trees is elevated to new heights by the golden light flickering between the branches.
《不老》
中國藝術在二十世紀的現代化過程中，除了通過留學海外的藝術家引進西方體系，而逐漸熟悉油畫、雕塑、版畫等媒介外，水墨作為傳統繪畫的主要媒介，亦深受時代啟迪，展開了精彩的變革，在全球前衛藝術思潮的激盪下，發展出嶄新的現代觀念。李華弌自小師從海派書畫名家王一亭之子王季眉，少年時則跟隨從比利時皇家藝術學院畢業的張充仁學習西方寫實藝術，養成其兼得東、西方美學精萃之深厚底蘊。藝術家一直致力於將傳統水墨帶入現當代的藝術領域，其創作將水墨結合抽象表現的風格，既富高古意藴，且在傳統之中力尋拓展空間，開創別具個人風格的獨特視界，為備受矚目的現當代藝術家。
本季晚拍呈獻的《不老》（拍品編號1019）體現東方水墨的銳意求變，揉合中國南北宗山水的藝術面貌，展現宋代文人畫獨有的精神氣質。2019至2020年間，美國夏威夷檀香山藝術博物館為李華弌舉行大型個展，更聚焦於其「金屏風」系列，充分體現藝術家革新東方水墨之成就；據藝術家官網的資料所示，李華弌的「金屏風」系列只有28件全幅金箔作品，其中於去年上拍香港蘇富比，並以1100萬港幣的成交高價，創下李華弌拍賣紀錄的《逸意寧遠（一）》，為藝術家所創作尺幅最大、最多聯屏之單體金屏風。現時李華弌之首三位最高拍賣紀錄均由蘇富比所創寫，「金屏風」作品盤踞兩席，，「金屏風」作品盤踞兩席，連計本作，登上拍場的成對創作之兩聯屏作品只有兩組，而兩組之中僅一組曾參加藝術家於檀香山藝術博物館舉行的大型個展。《不老》將於本季春拍登臨香港蘇富比，誠為藏家一睹其鉅作風采之良機。
《不老》創作於兩折式屏風，其寬宏大氣的尺幅深得北宋大山大水的雄偉氣魄，北宋名家郭熙的存世傑作《早春圖》是李華弌最愛的作品：景象以主峰居中，近景的大石及松樹隔著雲霧往外並向上延展，筆墨在清渾互助之間，以均衡且相輔相成的狀態，呈現瑞雪消融，萬物復蘇的初春景色。《不老》的整體構圖則可見與《早春圖》類同的對稱性安排，在物像的分佈描繪方面，則展現藝術家聚焦松拍局部，繼承南宋「邊角山水」的精髓。留白處看似無形，或是雲霧繚繞，或是水流潺潺，帶領觀者的想像延伸至畫幅之外。作品整體不但在北宗山水的剛健上，增潤了南宗柔和雅淡的氣質，更體現藝術家對攝影及影像創作的涉獵和研究，遠觀作品，從構圖到物像的分佈，均猶似從藝術家的相機觀景器之中，窺探其肉眼所見之風景。
松素有「百木之長」之譽，古往今來的志士文人，皆詠松之歷寒不衰，四季長青。本作題名《不老》則取松柏之茂的吉祥寓意；構圖所展現對稱均衡的形式美，猶有呼應中國傳統哲學所推崇的中庸智慧，陰陽之間對立轉化，繼而相生調和，恆久運轉的依存關係。《不老》的兩折式屏風設計實為一雙雙聯屏，在陳設和展示上可作分拆，美國夏威夷檀香山藝術博物館為李華弌舉行的大型個展期間，即於展覽入口處的兩側，呈現作品在展示上所獨具的彈性。《不老》描繪的兩棵松柏枝幹高大挺拔，從畫幅兩邊往中軸延伸，無論是松柏的體積、量感或枝幹延伸的形態方面，在佈局上皆均衡清晰，予人和諧協調之視感；構圖的意藴從畫面延伸至雙聯屏的實體建構上，松柏雙向延展的姿態與成雙成對的屏風形式相互呼應，猶有「在天願作比翼鳥，在地願為連理枝」之深意，細膩動人。
細觀松柏的肌理，更可發現藝術家在水墨創作中，引入了西方繪畫的明暗對照法，從視覺效果上突破國畫描繪手法的局限，為瀟灑豪放而不重寫實的文人畫增添幾分執著與嚴謹。《不老》展現藝術家在技法以至形式表現上，平衡並結合東西兩源文化的巧思；接近四米的畫幅以金箔點綴背景，意取唐代繪畫中「金碧山水」的富麗堂皇，造就璀璨輝煌的極致意境，松柏傲骨崢嶸的氣概，亦在金光閃爍之間獲得了全然的昇華。
