吳冠中於上世紀四十年代末赴法國接受西方藝術教育，回國後專注油彩創作，以現代藝術手法描繪母土景色。自七十年代中，他有系統地投入彩墨創作，一九七九年發表〈繪畫形式美〉文章，提出形式美對中國繪畫的重要性，矢言尋求中西互融的藝術形式，於中國改革開放初期的藝壇激起迴響，此亦其藝術生涯之轉捩點。本幅彩墨〈林〉即寫於同年，取西畫之骨而寫國畫之神，繪畫內容、形式仍深深流露西方現代藝術底蘊，乃畫家藝術轉型時期代表作。

吳冠中鍾愛層林深貌，六十年代起屢以油彩繪之，如〈海南島木棉林〉(1960)、〈松林〉(1974)、〈海濱樹苗〉(1976)，風格寫實。自畫家投身水墨創作，則「不擇手段努力在水墨中引進油畫之所長」，致力捕捉物象的抽象美，呈現中國傳統繪畫的意象，他嘗道︰

本幅取方形結構，屏障式近寫層林深貌。「林」獨霸畫面，且擺脫高山流水的背景配置，固非傳統水墨畫慣見面貌，創作形式更類近西方的「樹林地景畫」(sous-bois) 。此繪畫題材流行於十九世紀的法國畫壇，多見於巴比松派及印象派畫家筆下，吳冠中尤為傾心的梵高亦多次以此為題創作，近焦描寫森林底部層層叠叠之境。

本幅林樹從地拔起，高不見頂，直如鐵杵，前後密佈，樹影幢幢，重覆的垂直結構分割畫面，構成豐富之層次感，突顯疏密變化之美。畫面中，兩株巨木左右佔據，其幹粗碩如輪，如樹之靈鎮守山林入口。前景樹形寫實，輪廓以烏墨粗筆勾出，幹塗深褐，放目探林，遠景漸化作虛影森森，樹隙透光，針葉之綠尤顯鮮亮，細視更見彩點迸發其中，沉實之色隨距離拉闊而漸次明亮，豈非向探林者預告前方之景豁然開朗！樹幹倏直分明，枝杈則橫向交織，打破垂直結構的統一性。橫枝一律以烏墨寫出，或斜出，或蜿蜒舒張，仿似招手相邀，遠近分野已難以稽考！畫面縱橫交錯，疏密迷離，觀者直如置身森林底層，縱目高聳入雲的樹群，當被攝入此視覺迷宮矣！

畫家取一米見方高麗紙作畫，因其性韌，早期對景寫生作彩墨畫，多選用之。畫上無標注取景所自，署年「七九」，是年吳冠中至四川大巴山寫生，該處勢高積寒，遍佈冷杉及雲杉等針葉喬木，樹高逾四十米，積密成林，本幅或此行寫生之作，亦未可知。寫畢，已盡耗紙上所有空間，故鈐印只能另紙糊上，署年亦退居畫面邊沿。按一九八二年出版物照片，畫上只具署年及鈐印，可知日後撿贈「吳棣榕先生」，方題上款。吳棣榕乃香港中僑國貨公司秘書，林風眠一九七七年到港後，寓居九龍彌敦道中僑國貨同座大廈的單位，作品多付中僑工藝品分公司代售，吳棣榕即主理其事，故他與藝圈中人往還密切。吳冠中贈畫甚少，且屬鉅幅，復題上款，更屬鮮見，本幅罕而為之，或印證畫家於國內藝壇冰雪消融之際，向外推廣其藝術之決心！

畫家自同年提出「繪畫形式美」宣言後，漸多以屏障式垂直結構創作彩墨畫，如〈筍林〉（1979）、〈新疆白樺林〉（1981），八十年代中起，創作面貌更趨抽象，如〈竹海〉（1985），近乎只以覆疊的幾何結構組成。回首其作品的演變過程，可知〈林〉不僅屬以此創作彩墨畫之濫觴，亦見證畫家於尋求形式美之征途上，為彩墨畫開拓新氣象之雄心！

In the late 1940s, Wu Guanzhong travelled to France to study Western art. After he returned to China, he focused on oil painting and depicting his homeland using techniques from modern art. In the mid-1970s, he began to systematically work with ink painting. In 1979, he published ‘The Formal Beauty of Painting’, in which he highlighted the importance of formal beauty in Chinese painting and vowed to seek out an art form that blended the Chinese and the Western. In the early years of Chinese economic reform, , this idea resonated in the art world and marked a turning point in Wu’s artistic career. Trees was painted the same year, taking its form from Western painting and its spirit from Chinese painting. The work’s content and form have deep foundations in Western modernism, representing a transitional period in Wu’s art.

Wu Guanzhong enjoyed painting deep forests. Beginning in the 1960s, he applied the techniques of realist oil painting to his work on forests, creating Bombax Woods on Hainan Island (1960), Pines (1974), and Saplings on the Seashore (1976). Once he immersed himself in ink painting, he ‘would do whatever it took to bring the strengths of oil painting into ink’. He devoted himself to capturing the abstract beauty of objects and presenting the creative realm of Chinese traditional painting. He wrote:

In this square composition, Wu presents a close view of a screen-like row of trees. In this non-traditional ink painting, the forest dominates the image, entirely shutting out a backdrop of lofty mountains and flowing rivers which characterised traditional Chinese paintings. In form, it is closer to Western paintings of the sous-bois or undergrowth. This subject was popular in nineteenth-century French painting, appearing frequently in the work of Barbizon School and Impressionist painters. Wu Guanzhong was particularly partial to van Gogh and his numerous paintings of trees, which often feature close-ups of the bases of tree trunks.

The trees in this painting rise from the earth, straight as iron posts and so tall that their tops are not visible. The density of the forest, the dancing shadows, and the recurring vertical structure divide up the plane of the painting, creating a boundless, rich sense of form and highlighting the beauty of a mutable forest. Two large trees, each with huge tree trunks, occupy the left and right sides of the image, like spirits guarding the entrance to the forest. The trees in the foreground are depicted realistically, and the contours are painted in rough ink brushstrokes, with dark brown applied to the trunks. When we look into the forest, the background is transformed into a shadowy denseness. Light filters between the trees, and the green of the conifer needles is particularly striking. Closer examination reveals dots of brilliant colour scattered among the trees, and the deep colours become brighter with distance, announcing to the forest explorer that there are brighter times ahead. The upright tree trunks are clearly defined, but the intersecting horizontal branches break the monotony of the vertical structure. The perpendicular branches are invariably painted with ink; whether diagonal or twisted, they seem to beckon to us, making the division between far and near difficult to ascertain. We are placed at the base of the forest, as the towering grove of trees pulls us into this visual labyrinth.

Wu Guanzhong painted this work on a one-metre-square piece of Korean paper. Because of its tenacity, he often chose this type of paper for his earlyplein-air paintings. Wu did not indicate the location on the present piece, but it is dated 1979, the year that he went on a sketching trip to the Daba Mountains in Sichuan. The mountains are steep and cold, covered with spruces, firs, and other conifers. The trees are more than 40 metres tall, and the forest is quite dense. While we are not certain, the work may have been painted en plein air during the trip. Given most pictorial space has been taken up by the forest, he had to place his seal on another piece of paper that he then affixed to the edge of the work. According to the image of the work published in a 1982 catalogue, the work was simply dated and stamped with a seal, and it is evident that the recipient’s name, ‘Wu Dirong’[BN1] , was added later. Wu was the secretary of the Chung Kiu Chinese Products Company in Hong Kong. After Lin Fengmian arrived in Hong Kong in 1977, he lived in the same building as Chung Kiu Chinese Products on Nathan Road in Kowloon, and many of his works were sold through the Chung Kiu Arts and Crafts Company. Ng managed this business, so he had close relationships within the art community. Wu Guanzhong seldom gave paintings as gifts, particularly a work this large and with a named recipient. The rarity of this piece may reflect Wu’s determination to promote his art to the world at a time when the freeze in the Chinese art world was starting to thaw.

After publishing ‘The Formal Beauty of Painting’, Wu created more ink and wash works with screen-like vertical structures such as Bamboo Forest (1979) and White Birch Forest in Xinjiang (1981). In the mid-1980s, his work became more abstract, as evidenced by Sea of Bamboo (1985), which is almost entirely comprised of layered geometric structures. In the evolution of Wu Guanzhong’s oeuvre, Trees is the source of his ink and wash work and a testament to his journey in search of formal beauty and his ambition to inject new life into ink and wash painting.