RICHARD LIN 林壽宇 | JUNE JULY 1958 一九五八年六月七月

The Estate of Richard Lin Show Yu

Acquired directly from the above by the present important private Asian collector 

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林壽宇藝術資產

現亞洲重要私人藏家直接購自上述來源

Sense and Sensibility

In 1958, Richard Lin graduated from London’s Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster). That same year, after gaining the support of the Gimpel Fils Gallery, his career as an artist officially began, setting him on a continuously rising trajectory. In an attempt to distil the tenets of Chinese philosophy, Lin sought to embody Daoist “inaction” (wuwei) through art. He used the Western painting style of cool abstraction to visualize philosophy. Lin became the first Chinese artist selected for Documenta, therefore his importance in 20th century post-war Chinese art history cannot be understated. In 1967, Lin was chosen to participate in the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and along with Francis Bacon, was awarded the William Frew Memorial Purchase Award. Subsequently, Lin’s work was inducted into the collection at the Carnegie Institute. In 1983, one of Lin’s paintings set a record as the first contemporary piece acquired by the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

JUNE JULY 1958 (Lot 1030), painted in 1958, is one of the extremely rare oil paintings from Lin’s early career. At the peak of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1950s, Lin was deeply influenced by Mark Rothko’s paintings. He said, “looking at the large blocks of colour in Rothko's paintings is like listening to the deep sounds of large drums coming from far, far away, and those sounds echo in my heart.” Rothko emphasized the expression of an inner spirit, immersing the viewer in compositions with a limited number of colours and shapes, presenting no focal point, so that the viewer merged with the large blocks of colour in the paintings. Rothko’s work prompted Lin to move away from an earlier style, characterized by brushwork full of emotion, and toward a pursuit of simple forms and colours.

Lin observed things in nature, select from its complexities only the elemental and distil them to their essences. He expressed these distillations in minimal colour and the most basic shapes. Painted in indigo and black, JUNE JULY 1958 features a blurry, inky oval in the upper portion of the work. It’s as if the artist was calmly watching the wind kicking up clouds from a distant location. In detaching the work from emotion, he succinctly and simply conveys an internal depth.

Lin carefully controlled the force of the paint application, concealing any movement of the brush. The layered rhythms of colours on canvas come from the varying degrees of translucency produced by different layers of paint. Fields of colour with subtle variations in tone create a peaceful, meditative space in the image. The refined brushstrokes and gradations of colours produce a floating visual space that suggests the Chinese creation story of a primordial egg hatching, embodying the dynamism of all things emerging from primal chaos. Lin’s early work presents the essence of the idea that “the law of the Dao is being what it is,” as well as other Daoism concepts of adaptability, natural action, and returning to the truth. Lin’s early work is significant because it is the foundation upon which he developed his minimalist White Series. Lin’s own works grew more assuredly succinct, transcending the complex noise of reality, and entering a distant realm of profundity. These works, the result of long meditation, announced the birth of an Eastern minimalist master.

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理性與情感

1958年，林壽宇畢業於倫敦綜合工藝學院（今西敏大學），主修建築與美術，同年獲得倫敦著名的金貝爾．斐斯畫廊青睞，舉行辦第一次的個展。林壽宇提煉中國文化的哲學思想，在作品體現老莊思想中「無為」的價值核心，運用西方冷抽象的繪畫語言將中國哲學形象化，並成為首位入選德國卡塞爾文件展的華人，其對二十世紀華人戰後美術史篇章的重要性可謂不言而喻。1967年又入選美國匹茲堡《卡內基國際美術展》，與英國大師培根一同獲得「威廉佛瑞紀念收藏獎」，作品被卡內基學會收藏；1983年，其作品更破天荒成為台北故宮博物院首件現代藝術典藏。

作於1958年《一九五八年六月七月》（拍品編號1030）乃藝術家為數極少的早期油畫創作，是林壽宇創作生涯的萌芽處。1950年代末期，時值抽象表現主義巔峰，林壽宇深受羅斯科的繪畫感召，他說：「羅斯科畫面裡大塊的色彩，彷彿來自很遠很遠，悠揚不斷的大鼓聲沉、渾厚，在心裡來回不停激盪著。」羅斯科著重精神內涵表現，力圖運用有限的色彩與形狀，無焦點的繪畫構圖，使觀者浸淫其中，與創作融為一體的大色域繪畫，帶領林壽宇從飽含情感的筆觸中，進入對簡單形與色構成的追求。

藝術家從旁觀察自然萬物複雜的形象，經過一翻取捨，蒸餾出事物的本質，表現在畫面中低限的色彩和最基本的形狀。《一九五八年六月七月》以靛藍、黑為主調，畫面上方只有若隱若現的墨黑色橢圓形。藝術家猶如冷靜地在從遠方觀看風起雲湧，抽離個人情緒， 簡練樸實卻傳達深度的內涵。

林壽宇縝密控制塗色力道，隱藏筆刷的運行軌跡，畫布上的色彩層次節奏來自不同次數疊加所產生的不同透光性所導致，相近色調細微差異的色面使畫面營造安寧神聖的冥想空間。細緻的筆觸和漸變的色彩產生視覺漂動的空間，如盤古初開，萬物從混沌中誕生的動態。林壽宇早期創作表現了東方思維「道法自然」的本質，隨緣而動，不矯揉造作，回歸事物的真相。在這個基礎之上，林壽宇發展出「少即是多」的「白色系列」，可見早期創作所蘊含的意義。簡練的作品較諸喧鬧更為深刻，而厚積薄發的本作，亦宣示著一位東方極簡主義大師的誕生。