Gao Xingjian

signed in pinyin, dated 1997, framed under glass

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, China Onward, Denmark, 2007, p. 77, illustrated in color

This work is generally in very good condition overall. Slight tearing and paper loss along the centre at the top edge and horizontal minor creases to the lower half inherent to the working method of the artist and medium. This work is framed under glass. Not examined out of frame.
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As a polymath man of letters, Gao Xingjian has carried the historical ideals of the Chinese literatus forward into the twenty-first century. An ink painter, writer, translator, critic, dramatist, and director, he was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize for Literature, "for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity, which has opened new paths for the Chinese novel and drama." The bitter insights cited by the Nobel Prize committee derive from politically motivated punishments and restrictions inflicted upon him, including incarceration in a re-education camp during the Cultural Revolution. The political content of Gao's writings was a barrier to publishing in China; following Mao's death he was finally able to publish overseas, but he saw the banning of his major work, The Other Shore, in his native land in 1986 as a major setback.

Traditionally, when faced with the prospect of serving under an unjust or otherwise invalid ruler, Chinese literati chose to withdraw, often seeking solace in nature. Following the banning of The Other Shore Gao Xingjian followed this path, traveling for ten months through the mountains of Sichuan—an experience that has informed his paintings. He then emigrated as a political refugee to Paris, where he has continued his practice of ink painting as a creative outlet for the soul. Typically, he composes his works—such as Fugue III (Lot 75)—from graded ink washes applied in broad brushstrokes: in their deceptive simplicity they hint at the vast universe of the spirit. While landscape forms may emerge in some works—for example, in La Montagne de rêve (Dream Mountains) (Lot 76)—the artist refrains from close description, as if to create a space where the mind may wander. As he stated in his book Return to Painting, "A return to painting is a search . . . for the infinite within the finite limits of art. . . . [It] is . . . freeing oneself of verbiage . . . painting where language fails." (Pp. 54-55)

-Britta Erickson