- 121
Chu Teh-Chun (Zhu Dequn)
Estimate
8,000,000 - 15,000,000 HKD
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Description
- Chu Teh-Chun
- La transparence du silence (Transparency of Silence)
- oil on canvas
signed in Chinese and Pinyin and dated 89; signed in Chinese and Pinyin, titled and dated 1989 on the reverse
Provenance
Versailles Enchères Perrin-Royère-Lajeunesse, Versailles, 19 July, 1998, lot 147
Private European Collection
Important Private Asian Collection
Private European Collection
Important Private Asian Collection
Exhibited
Singapore, Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre, Singapore Art Fair, 2006
Literature
Chang Loshan and Wang Sufeng, ed., Chu Teh-Chun, King Ling Art Centre, Taipei, 1989, p.156
Liao Chiung-fang, Overseas Chinese Fine Arts Series II: Chu Teh-Chun, Artist Publishing Co., Taipei, 1999, p. 180
Liao Chiung-fang, Overseas Chinese Fine Arts Series II: Chu Teh-Chun, Artist Publishing Co., Taipei, 1999, p. 180
Condition
This work is in excellent condition. There is some hairline craquelure only visible under very close inspection, 70 cm to the left edge and 50 cm to the bottom. Under UV light, there are few very minor spots of retouching scattered across the canvas, predominantly in the area 80 cm to the left edge and 50 cm to the bottom.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
La Transparence du Silence by Chu Teh-Chun
Utmost beauty in silence: painting and calligraphy fused into a lyrical masterpiece
The ideographic characters of the Chinese language have gone through many evolutions since the emergence of semi-pictorial characters in ancient times. Over thousands of years, different calligraphy styles such as Standard, Cursive, Seal, Clerical, Regular and Running Scripts were developed. Each character can be written in different calligraphy styles, or Scripts, which change the character’s composition, whilst keeping the same pronunciation and meaning. Generations of people have been able to read and understand characters written in different calligraphy styles. Such characteristics of the Chinese language are indeed rather unusual among various languages of the world. Even more extraordinary is perhaps the development of nuanced and sophisticated techniques via highly-developed control of the calligraphy brush, to create varying points, lines, shapes and quality and evoke the sensations of tilting, slanting, bending, straightening, lengthening, shortening, stretching, contracting, relaxing, compressing, as well as unexpected turning and dropping, generating a wealth of aesthetic interests. The result is a unique and enduring art form widely practiced and celebrated throughout the long history of China. From ancient times to modern years, generations of calligraphy masters have created numerous exceptional artworks of calligraphy, as well as ink paintings that are both vigorous in spirit and highly accomplished in portraying physical forms. Undoubtedly, these are among the great treasures of human civilization. Chu Teh-Chun trained to a high level in Chinese calligraphy when he was young, and its spirit often emanates naturally from his paintings. One of the most distinguished examples of such influences is La Transparence du Silence (Lot 121), completed in 1989.
Spirit of calligraphy in abstract painting; meandering lines weaving rapturously across the canvas
Around the 1950s, British critic of literature and art Herbert Read made some profound observations on the subtle link between Abstractionist art from the West and Chinese calligraphy. He cited examples of works by Pierre Soulages and Georges Mathieu from France, Hans Hartung from Germany, as well as Franz Jozef Kline and Jackson Pollock from America, and asserted that, to different degrees, they all had incorporated influences from the art form of Chinese calligraphy. Chu Teh-Chun travelled to France when such a trend was growing across the international art communities. Not only was he intimately familiar with the phenomenon, but also, such influences could be detected in his subsequent creations, in which spontaneously composed lines, rapturous and meandering, weave across the canvas, clearly displaying the influence of calligraphy. The result is an artistic vision imbued with an Eastern humanistic sprit, reaching to the artist’s cultural roots from a distance.
It was not until mid-1980s and afterwards when Chu Teh-Chun began writing Chinese calligraphy frequently and prolifically again. The composition, from a simple black-and-white contrast on paper and from a formation of dots and lines, became growingly free-spirited, filled with an ethereal vitality. He wrote in a style that was both Cursive and Running simultaneously, with dramatic size contrasts. His calligraphy brush strokes are thin yet energetic, beginnings and endings are decisive, purely and liberally expressing the artist’s internal emotions and thoughts. On his calligraphy works, Chu Teh-Chun often used a “leisure” seal (“xian zhang”) which contained the message: “I write as I wish, without any law” (a quote from renowned Song Dynasty poet Su Shi), showing the artist’s desire to release himself from set conventions in his calligraphy.
Such an approach is also reflected in his paintings from the same period, when he successfully created a colourful, three-dimensional sensation using only lines. His steely brushstrokes, robust and powerful like blade marks, exude a kind of robust visual strength. These all reveal a soul of Chinese calligraphy distinct from Western Abstract expressions.
The abstract and the concrete complementing one another, amidst a Yin and Yang contrast
La Transparence du Silence is a perfect example of painting and calligraphy drawing references from and infusing into one another. It is also a monumental masterpiece evidencing the artist’s major achievement in transcending existing conventions to organically develop a style and a school of his own. In the interpretation and expression of Eastern aesthetic spirits within the contemporary art world, his art has certainly made its mark.
From this painting, the viewer can clearly sense that Chu Teh-Chun has completely extracted himself from the traditional structure of Chinese landscape paintings. A glacial landscape which only exists in cold Northern countries is depicted. The viewer can clearly see evidence of time on the majestic landscape, yet the mountains continue its solitary existence within the cosmos. Only when the sun shines, the mountains would reveal a bleak, transparent blue colour. One cannot help but marvel at nature’s creations. Upon closer examination, the viewer can almost hear a fluid and full sound of a mass chorus formed by the abstract and the concrete, the physical form and the spirit, lightness and concrete existence, colours and lines, all interweaving together in a richly melodic and rhythmic song of nature.
In 1999, when Chu Teh-Chun was inducted into Académie des Beaux-Arts, de l'Institut de France, he gave a speech from which an excerpt might offer a key in deciphering this painting’s essence. 'I seek to make visible, through their perpetual mutations, the basic and complementary principles in the philosophy of I Ching. Yang is fiery and bright, whilst Yin is dark and damp. This duality creates a universe of infinite variations that I wish to discuss, combining the brilliant colours inherited from Western paintings and freedom of forms opened up by abstract painters. The only source of inspiration I follow is nature, and its preferred mode of expression is lyricism. The creation comes from pure spontaneity, which means, according to Taoist maxim, “to release inner emotions". This results in my paintings’ pictorial language where colour and design, although they never coincide, move towards the same goal: to awaken the light, shapes and movement.'
La Transparence du Silence is a proof that only when an artist liberates him/herself from conventions, to face the inner self with sincerity, to fully understand his/her traditions, and to assimilate such traditions, the new would be possible. By retracing one’s cultural roots, immense creativity energy could be found. Likewise, in the quietest moment, the sound of utmost beauty and impact may be heard.
Utmost beauty in silence: painting and calligraphy fused into a lyrical masterpiece
The ideographic characters of the Chinese language have gone through many evolutions since the emergence of semi-pictorial characters in ancient times. Over thousands of years, different calligraphy styles such as Standard, Cursive, Seal, Clerical, Regular and Running Scripts were developed. Each character can be written in different calligraphy styles, or Scripts, which change the character’s composition, whilst keeping the same pronunciation and meaning. Generations of people have been able to read and understand characters written in different calligraphy styles. Such characteristics of the Chinese language are indeed rather unusual among various languages of the world. Even more extraordinary is perhaps the development of nuanced and sophisticated techniques via highly-developed control of the calligraphy brush, to create varying points, lines, shapes and quality and evoke the sensations of tilting, slanting, bending, straightening, lengthening, shortening, stretching, contracting, relaxing, compressing, as well as unexpected turning and dropping, generating a wealth of aesthetic interests. The result is a unique and enduring art form widely practiced and celebrated throughout the long history of China. From ancient times to modern years, generations of calligraphy masters have created numerous exceptional artworks of calligraphy, as well as ink paintings that are both vigorous in spirit and highly accomplished in portraying physical forms. Undoubtedly, these are among the great treasures of human civilization. Chu Teh-Chun trained to a high level in Chinese calligraphy when he was young, and its spirit often emanates naturally from his paintings. One of the most distinguished examples of such influences is La Transparence du Silence (Lot 121), completed in 1989.
Spirit of calligraphy in abstract painting; meandering lines weaving rapturously across the canvas
Around the 1950s, British critic of literature and art Herbert Read made some profound observations on the subtle link between Abstractionist art from the West and Chinese calligraphy. He cited examples of works by Pierre Soulages and Georges Mathieu from France, Hans Hartung from Germany, as well as Franz Jozef Kline and Jackson Pollock from America, and asserted that, to different degrees, they all had incorporated influences from the art form of Chinese calligraphy. Chu Teh-Chun travelled to France when such a trend was growing across the international art communities. Not only was he intimately familiar with the phenomenon, but also, such influences could be detected in his subsequent creations, in which spontaneously composed lines, rapturous and meandering, weave across the canvas, clearly displaying the influence of calligraphy. The result is an artistic vision imbued with an Eastern humanistic sprit, reaching to the artist’s cultural roots from a distance.
It was not until mid-1980s and afterwards when Chu Teh-Chun began writing Chinese calligraphy frequently and prolifically again. The composition, from a simple black-and-white contrast on paper and from a formation of dots and lines, became growingly free-spirited, filled with an ethereal vitality. He wrote in a style that was both Cursive and Running simultaneously, with dramatic size contrasts. His calligraphy brush strokes are thin yet energetic, beginnings and endings are decisive, purely and liberally expressing the artist’s internal emotions and thoughts. On his calligraphy works, Chu Teh-Chun often used a “leisure” seal (“xian zhang”) which contained the message: “I write as I wish, without any law” (a quote from renowned Song Dynasty poet Su Shi), showing the artist’s desire to release himself from set conventions in his calligraphy.
Such an approach is also reflected in his paintings from the same period, when he successfully created a colourful, three-dimensional sensation using only lines. His steely brushstrokes, robust and powerful like blade marks, exude a kind of robust visual strength. These all reveal a soul of Chinese calligraphy distinct from Western Abstract expressions.
The abstract and the concrete complementing one another, amidst a Yin and Yang contrast
La Transparence du Silence is a perfect example of painting and calligraphy drawing references from and infusing into one another. It is also a monumental masterpiece evidencing the artist’s major achievement in transcending existing conventions to organically develop a style and a school of his own. In the interpretation and expression of Eastern aesthetic spirits within the contemporary art world, his art has certainly made its mark.
From this painting, the viewer can clearly sense that Chu Teh-Chun has completely extracted himself from the traditional structure of Chinese landscape paintings. A glacial landscape which only exists in cold Northern countries is depicted. The viewer can clearly see evidence of time on the majestic landscape, yet the mountains continue its solitary existence within the cosmos. Only when the sun shines, the mountains would reveal a bleak, transparent blue colour. One cannot help but marvel at nature’s creations. Upon closer examination, the viewer can almost hear a fluid and full sound of a mass chorus formed by the abstract and the concrete, the physical form and the spirit, lightness and concrete existence, colours and lines, all interweaving together in a richly melodic and rhythmic song of nature.
In 1999, when Chu Teh-Chun was inducted into Académie des Beaux-Arts, de l'Institut de France, he gave a speech from which an excerpt might offer a key in deciphering this painting’s essence. 'I seek to make visible, through their perpetual mutations, the basic and complementary principles in the philosophy of I Ching. Yang is fiery and bright, whilst Yin is dark and damp. This duality creates a universe of infinite variations that I wish to discuss, combining the brilliant colours inherited from Western paintings and freedom of forms opened up by abstract painters. The only source of inspiration I follow is nature, and its preferred mode of expression is lyricism. The creation comes from pure spontaneity, which means, according to Taoist maxim, “to release inner emotions". This results in my paintings’ pictorial language where colour and design, although they never coincide, move towards the same goal: to awaken the light, shapes and movement.'
La Transparence du Silence is a proof that only when an artist liberates him/herself from conventions, to face the inner self with sincerity, to fully understand his/her traditions, and to assimilate such traditions, the new would be possible. By retracing one’s cultural roots, immense creativity energy could be found. Likewise, in the quietest moment, the sound of utmost beauty and impact may be heard.