Landscape
See also : Top 10 Midi The Man France Monet Monet before 1900 Holland Van Gogh Austria Russia Kandinsky China Song and Yuan Chinese art Modern China New Chinese painting Current art Chinese calligraphy
Chronology : 1000-1150 14th century 19th Century 1880-1889 1890-1899 20th century 1913 1915 1920-1929 1925 1950-1959 1955 1963 1964 2010 to now
Chronology : 1000-1150 14th century 19th Century 1880-1889 1890-1899 20th century 1913 1915 1920-1929 1925 1950-1959 1955 1963 1964 2010 to now
Northern Song - The Tree of the Calligrapher
2018 SOLD for HK$ 460M including premium
Under the Song, the literati are philosophers and humanists who sometimes have the audacity to oppose imperial politics. Their supreme mode of expression is calligraphy, which conveys to their readers the firmness and rhythm of their thought.
In 1071 CE, Su Shi had been expelled from the capital, starting at the age of 34 a second career as a provincial servant with increasingly mediocre missions despite his immense talent. He died in 1101. His younger friend Mi Fu escaped political persecution by his reputation for eccentricity. They were the two best calligraphers in their lifetime.
A nine-character autograph message on a 28 x 9.5 cm sheet sent by Su Shi to the governor of a locality that he was leaving was sold for $ 8.2M including premium by Sotheby's on September 19, 2013.
Graphic art is exceptional in their works. The movement of the artist's hand is the same as for calligraphy. The rare drawings by Su Shi translate emotions too deep to be expressed in words. Mi Fu will only paint in the last years of his life, mostly after Su Shi's death.
On November 26 in Hong Kong, Christie's sells as lot 8008 a 26 x 50 cm ink on paper painted by Su Shi. This piece is extended by many colophons including an appreciation calligraphed by Mi Fu, and includes many seals. Please watch two videos shared by the auction house.
The image consists of two elements that join together : a leafless tree twisted into several undulations and a bulky rock. The dryness of the tree expresses the desolation of the artist in his exile while at the opposite edge on the left flank of the rock the sparse bamboos bring the hope of a new vitality.
In 1071 CE, Su Shi had been expelled from the capital, starting at the age of 34 a second career as a provincial servant with increasingly mediocre missions despite his immense talent. He died in 1101. His younger friend Mi Fu escaped political persecution by his reputation for eccentricity. They were the two best calligraphers in their lifetime.
A nine-character autograph message on a 28 x 9.5 cm sheet sent by Su Shi to the governor of a locality that he was leaving was sold for $ 8.2M including premium by Sotheby's on September 19, 2013.
Graphic art is exceptional in their works. The movement of the artist's hand is the same as for calligraphy. The rare drawings by Su Shi translate emotions too deep to be expressed in words. Mi Fu will only paint in the last years of his life, mostly after Su Shi's death.
On November 26 in Hong Kong, Christie's sells as lot 8008 a 26 x 50 cm ink on paper painted by Su Shi. This piece is extended by many colophons including an appreciation calligraphed by Mi Fu, and includes many seals. Please watch two videos shared by the auction house.
The image consists of two elements that join together : a leafless tree twisted into several undulations and a bulky rock. The dryness of the tree expresses the desolation of the artist in his exile while at the opposite edge on the left flank of the rock the sparse bamboos bring the hope of a new vitality.
Christie’s Announces 1000-year-old $50m Su Shi Scroll https://t.co/eVdovdYFyr pic.twitter.com/XpeTTOdBby
— Art Market Monitor (@artmarket) August 30, 2018
1350 Zhichuan Resettlement by Wang Meng
2011 SOLD for RMB yuan 400M including premium by Poly
1888 The Studio of the South
2015 SOLD for $ 66M including premium
Arrived at Arles in 1888 at the end of winter, Vincent van Goghengaged with nature in Provence, with the wonderful colors of spring from the hill of Montmajour and the hard summer sun over the works in the fields.
He moved to the maison jaune where he wanted to create a community of artists named by him L'Atelier du Midi. Paul Gauguin arrived as his first guest on 23 October.
A period of fine weather, from October 29 to November 2, allows a first outdoor session. The two artists set their easels in the Alyscamps dominated by the bright yellow of the autumn leaves.
They must come to some understanding. Two of van Gogh paintings include forms within sharp outlines that could appeal to Gauguin. Their very different conceptions of artistic creation begin however to oppose the two artists from that first trials. Gauguin is a cerebral man for whom the achievement must be consistent with the original design, van Gogh is an impulsive wishing that the spontaneous gesture contributes to the artwork.
On May 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells a view of the Alyscamps painted on November 1, 1888, oil on canvas 92 x 74 cm, lot 18. The press release of April 13 is expecting a price in excess of $ 40M.
The composition is geometric, with its perspective view of the allée of trees. The contrast between the warm colors of soil and trees and the cold blue sky make this van Gogh painting resolutely away from the flat colors of Gauguin. The expression is enhanced by the rich shades of the palette. This painting contains the elements that will generate misunderstanding and estrangement between the two great artists.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's. Its image is also shared by Wikimedia.
He moved to the maison jaune where he wanted to create a community of artists named by him L'Atelier du Midi. Paul Gauguin arrived as his first guest on 23 October.
A period of fine weather, from October 29 to November 2, allows a first outdoor session. The two artists set their easels in the Alyscamps dominated by the bright yellow of the autumn leaves.
They must come to some understanding. Two of van Gogh paintings include forms within sharp outlines that could appeal to Gauguin. Their very different conceptions of artistic creation begin however to oppose the two artists from that first trials. Gauguin is a cerebral man for whom the achievement must be consistent with the original design, van Gogh is an impulsive wishing that the spontaneous gesture contributes to the artwork.
On May 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells a view of the Alyscamps painted on November 1, 1888, oil on canvas 92 x 74 cm, lot 18. The press release of April 13 is expecting a price in excess of $ 40M.
The composition is geometric, with its perspective view of the allée of trees. The contrast between the warm colors of soil and trees and the cold blue sky make this van Gogh painting resolutely away from the flat colors of Gauguin. The expression is enhanced by the rich shades of the palette. This painting contains the elements that will generate misunderstanding and estrangement between the two great artists.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's. Its image is also shared by Wikimedia.
1889 The Field beyond the Window
2017 SOLD for $ 81M including premium
On May 8, 1889 Vincent van Gogh enters the asylum for insanes of Dr. Peyron in Saint-Rémy de Provence. Rightly considered as dangerous for himself, he is not allowed to walk outside but a small workshop is attributed to him. In this narrow universe Vincent interprets the works of other artists and looks beyond the window through the thick bars.
On June 18, Vincent paints La Nuit étoilée in which the stars are transformed into whirlwinds of fire. Anxious about the loss of control of his mental health, Vincent believes being appeased by the energy of his hallucination. Doctors fear another major crisis. They are right : it happens in mid-July.
Supervised by the doctors, Vincent does not paint during his crises. He takes his brushes again in the last days of August. The window of his room looks to the east. The sun rising above the wheat field is blinding and hypnotic, and also reveals the bright colors that constitute the soil. The colors are intermingled like swirls, scars and tongues of fire with an extreme violence.
This oil on canvas 50 x 65 cm is titled Laboureur dans un champ. The man, the horse and the plow in mid-distance against the light offer a new opus of the favorite theme of Vincent's career, a result of his lifelong empathy with the soil workers.
Healing through hard work that released his impulses was only an illusion but it produced unprecedented masterpieces. The next crisis comes in December.
Laboureur dans un champ will be sold as lot 28 A by Christie's in New York on November 13. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image below is shared by Wikimedia.
On June 18, Vincent paints La Nuit étoilée in which the stars are transformed into whirlwinds of fire. Anxious about the loss of control of his mental health, Vincent believes being appeased by the energy of his hallucination. Doctors fear another major crisis. They are right : it happens in mid-July.
Supervised by the doctors, Vincent does not paint during his crises. He takes his brushes again in the last days of August. The window of his room looks to the east. The sun rising above the wheat field is blinding and hypnotic, and also reveals the bright colors that constitute the soil. The colors are intermingled like swirls, scars and tongues of fire with an extreme violence.
This oil on canvas 50 x 65 cm is titled Laboureur dans un champ. The man, the horse and the plow in mid-distance against the light offer a new opus of the favorite theme of Vincent's career, a result of his lifelong empathy with the soil workers.
Healing through hard work that released his impulses was only an illusion but it produced unprecedented masterpieces. The next crisis comes in December.
Laboureur dans un champ will be sold as lot 28 A by Christie's in New York on November 13. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. The image below is shared by Wikimedia.
1889 Threats on Arles
2015 SOLD for $ 54M including premium
Vincent van Gogh arrived in Arles in February 1888. He decided to stay there, charmed by the beauty of the surrounding countryside. His paintings of blooming orchards are joyous.
His mental health had always been fragile. The tension in his relationship with Gauguin rushed his delirious crises requiring his internment in psychiatric hospitals. His anguished questioning about the unknown cause of his illness worsens his condition. He cannot work during his crises.
On November 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé, oil on canvas 60 x 74 cm, lot 14 estimated $ 50M. This artwork was made in mid-April 1889 within a very short period of lull that allowed him again to paint outdoors. This insignificant countryside surrounding Arles cannot be located with more accuracy.
That new spring looked very different to him from that of the previous year. The flowery meadow that occupies the foreground is not welcoming although a little character is coming to pick flowers. It is well lit but not sunny. The trees are twisted off by the wind.
The clouds are processed in a thick impasto involving all shades of gray, with a great violence that anticipates the whirlpools in the starry sky of the following months. This tormented painting is already attesting the fatal drift of his genius into dementia.
His mental health had always been fragile. The tension in his relationship with Gauguin rushed his delirious crises requiring his internment in psychiatric hospitals. His anguished questioning about the unknown cause of his illness worsens his condition. He cannot work during his crises.
On November 5 in New York, Sotheby's sells Paysage sous un ciel mouvementé, oil on canvas 60 x 74 cm, lot 14 estimated $ 50M. This artwork was made in mid-April 1889 within a very short period of lull that allowed him again to paint outdoors. This insignificant countryside surrounding Arles cannot be located with more accuracy.
That new spring looked very different to him from that of the previous year. The flowery meadow that occupies the foreground is not welcoming although a little character is coming to pick flowers. It is well lit but not sunny. The trees are twisted off by the wind.
The clouds are processed in a thick impasto involving all shades of gray, with a great violence that anticipates the whirlpools in the starry sky of the following months. This tormented painting is already attesting the fatal drift of his genius into dementia.
Discover the unique connoisseurship of Evelyn and Louis Franck #VanGogh http://t.co/phe5dtq0Lp pic.twitter.com/FAiGFBbBim
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) October 14, 20151891 A Stack in Winter
2016 SOLD for $ 81M including premium
Claude Monet was not a theorist. He progressed by releasing his emotion. The Impression soleil levant painted in 1872 fades within the fog the real features of the view. This painting is a burst of intuition and is described in the history of art as the cornerstone of Impressionnisme. However it took nearly two decades for the artist to jump to a still more decisive step, with the Meules.
He had been very active throughout that period. His paintings of the Gare St Lazare in 1877 constituted a series that displayed the variations in color depending on the intensity of sunlight and on the thickness of smoke from the trains. His solitary travel in Normandy in 1882 for comforting after the death of Camille is very important : Monet demonstrates to himself that lighting is better than topography for expressing a mood.
When comes the end of summer 1890 Monet is ready for a new experience. The vegetation will disappear with winter. As for every year the grain stacks will remain alone in the middle of the fields until the wheat threshing of the spring. They will be the perfect support for Monet to perform his observations of colors through all weather conditions and at all moments of time. This series totaled 25 paintings.
Three of them have been specifically grouped as a ultimate achievement of the Meules in the catalogue raisonné prepared by Daniel Wildenstein. Only one stack is visible in front of a retracted landscape. It is truncated either from top or from one side. The color emotion is not challenged by that figurative feature reduced to nothing more than a bulky triangle. In 1896, in front of one of these paintings, Kandinsky was dazzled.
Another Meule from that group of three, oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm painted in 1891, reference Wildenstein 1290, was sold for $ 12M including premium by Sotheby's on 11 May 1999. It is now for sale by Christie's in New York on November 16, lot 9 B. The targeted price was disclosed at around $ 45M by the specialized press.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's. The image below is shared by Wikimedia.
He had been very active throughout that period. His paintings of the Gare St Lazare in 1877 constituted a series that displayed the variations in color depending on the intensity of sunlight and on the thickness of smoke from the trains. His solitary travel in Normandy in 1882 for comforting after the death of Camille is very important : Monet demonstrates to himself that lighting is better than topography for expressing a mood.
When comes the end of summer 1890 Monet is ready for a new experience. The vegetation will disappear with winter. As for every year the grain stacks will remain alone in the middle of the fields until the wheat threshing of the spring. They will be the perfect support for Monet to perform his observations of colors through all weather conditions and at all moments of time. This series totaled 25 paintings.
Three of them have been specifically grouped as a ultimate achievement of the Meules in the catalogue raisonné prepared by Daniel Wildenstein. Only one stack is visible in front of a retracted landscape. It is truncated either from top or from one side. The color emotion is not challenged by that figurative feature reduced to nothing more than a bulky triangle. In 1896, in front of one of these paintings, Kandinsky was dazzled.
Another Meule from that group of three, oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm painted in 1891, reference Wildenstein 1290, was sold for $ 12M including premium by Sotheby's on 11 May 1999. It is now for sale by Christie's in New York on November 16, lot 9 B. The targeted price was disclosed at around $ 45M by the specialized press.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's. The image below is shared by Wikimedia.
1913 Tilting the Perspective
2017 SOLD for £ 33M including premium
The summers 1908 and 1909 spent by Kandinsky in Murnau are important for the evolution of his creative vision but are in fact only an intermediate phase. In reconstructing the figuration he is still in the wake of Cézanne. In using pure and bright colors he follows Matisse.
The anecdote that Kandinsky did not recognize one of his own paintings because it was turned on another side is often considered the founding act of abstract art. Reported much later by the artist this story is mainly symbolic and is not really dated. It marks the awareness by Kandinsky that the identification of the theme undermines the aesthetic appreciation of an artwork.
After 1909 Kandinsky suppressed the classical perspective in favor of tilted sceneries for which his preparatory sketches were figurative. He copies the positions, the proportions and the masses from the sketch into the final work. The figurative details disappear and the title suggests that it was an abstract conception from the beginning. The loss of the perspective gives the artist the opportunity to reinforce the musicalist interpretation of the colors. The balance of the masses becomes a symphony.
On June 21 in London, Sotheby's sells at lot 53 Bild mit weissen Linien, oil on canvas 120 x 110 cm painted in 1913. The press release of May 29 announces an estimate in excess of US $ 35M.
A sketch in watercolor and ink for this work is known, dated from the same year. The towers of a Russian city are clearly visible along with a red bridge over the river and two harnessed horses. The comparison is obvious when we watch simultaneously the sketch and the painting. When we only see the ultimate image it is a brilliantly colored amalgam forming an oblique mass.
After his return to Russia, Kandinsky continues to proceed with a similar method. In 1916 Moskau I is a tilted sketch where some features of the big city are recognizable. Moskau II is closer to abstraction and requires an effort of interpretation. This oil on canvas 53 x 38 cm was sold for £ 6.3M including premium by Sotheby's on February 3, 2015.
The anecdote that Kandinsky did not recognize one of his own paintings because it was turned on another side is often considered the founding act of abstract art. Reported much later by the artist this story is mainly symbolic and is not really dated. It marks the awareness by Kandinsky that the identification of the theme undermines the aesthetic appreciation of an artwork.
After 1909 Kandinsky suppressed the classical perspective in favor of tilted sceneries for which his preparatory sketches were figurative. He copies the positions, the proportions and the masses from the sketch into the final work. The figurative details disappear and the title suggests that it was an abstract conception from the beginning. The loss of the perspective gives the artist the opportunity to reinforce the musicalist interpretation of the colors. The balance of the masses becomes a symphony.
On June 21 in London, Sotheby's sells at lot 53 Bild mit weissen Linien, oil on canvas 120 x 110 cm painted in 1913. The press release of May 29 announces an estimate in excess of US $ 35M.
A sketch in watercolor and ink for this work is known, dated from the same year. The towers of a Russian city are clearly visible along with a red bridge over the river and two harnessed horses. The comparison is obvious when we watch simultaneously the sketch and the painting. When we only see the ultimate image it is a brilliantly colored amalgam forming an oblique mass.
After his return to Russia, Kandinsky continues to proceed with a similar method. In 1916 Moskau I is a tilted sketch where some features of the big city are recognizable. Moskau II is closer to abstraction and requires an effort of interpretation. This oil on canvas 53 x 38 cm was sold for £ 6.3M including premium by Sotheby's on February 3, 2015.
Big Bang of Modern art: #Kandinsky’s explosive canvas marks breakthrough moment, heading to NY and #London this June https://t.co/E6qgytSkzF pic.twitter.com/oaVJ18ngLa
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 2, 2017
1915 The Role of the Tree in Klimt's Landscapes
2011 SOLD 40.4 M$ including premium
Whether viewed from near or far, alone or in a forest, the tree offers to the artists the texture of its foliage.
It was a powerful source of inspiration for Klimt, who expressed it as a continuation of colored spots. This effect, precursor of abstraction, is of the same kind as the sumptuous backgrounds of his portraits of women. At the same time, another poet of color, Monet, studies the water lilies.
Yet Klimt does not push it up to abstraction. The view of the Attersee, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 2, is a real landscape, but the boldness of the composition makes it a masterpiece of the master. It is illustrated in the article shared by ARTINFO.
In a narrow stripe at the bottom, the village by the lake and its reflection in the water are schematic and almost naive, like the details of the Krumau views of his former student Schiele at the same time. At the top, a small piece of the sky stresses the grandiose scale of the landscape. And the rest of the image only shows the side of the mountain covered by the forest.
This painting was made in the workshop in 1915, in Vienna. It is leaving the museum of Salzburg following a property dispute related to a Nazi plunder. The price announced by the auction house, in excess of $ 25M, is considered low by some observers of the art market. I will indicate its size later.
POST SALE COMMENT
Announced several months ago, this landscape by Klimt is a masterpiece. Its price, $ 40.4 million including premium, is consistent with market expectations. I noted in the discussion above that $ 25M would not be sufficient.
The dimensions, as promised: 110 x 110 cm.
In 2011, the top level art market requires masterpieces, and becomes more and more discerning. Thus, in the same sale, an Argenteuil bridge by Caillebotte reached $ 18M including premium, only three years after being sold for $ 8.5 million including premium by Christie's.
Here is the video shared by Sotheby's :
It was a powerful source of inspiration for Klimt, who expressed it as a continuation of colored spots. This effect, precursor of abstraction, is of the same kind as the sumptuous backgrounds of his portraits of women. At the same time, another poet of color, Monet, studies the water lilies.
Yet Klimt does not push it up to abstraction. The view of the Attersee, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 2, is a real landscape, but the boldness of the composition makes it a masterpiece of the master. It is illustrated in the article shared by ARTINFO.
In a narrow stripe at the bottom, the village by the lake and its reflection in the water are schematic and almost naive, like the details of the Krumau views of his former student Schiele at the same time. At the top, a small piece of the sky stresses the grandiose scale of the landscape. And the rest of the image only shows the side of the mountain covered by the forest.
This painting was made in the workshop in 1915, in Vienna. It is leaving the museum of Salzburg following a property dispute related to a Nazi plunder. The price announced by the auction house, in excess of $ 25M, is considered low by some observers of the art market. I will indicate its size later.
POST SALE COMMENT
Announced several months ago, this landscape by Klimt is a masterpiece. Its price, $ 40.4 million including premium, is consistent with market expectations. I noted in the discussion above that $ 25M would not be sufficient.
The dimensions, as promised: 110 x 110 cm.
In 2011, the top level art market requires masterpieces, and becomes more and more discerning. Thus, in the same sale, an Argenteuil bridge by Caillebotte reached $ 18M including premium, only three years after being sold for $ 8.5 million including premium by Christie's.
Here is the video shared by Sotheby's :
1925 Set of 12 screens on landscapes and mountains by Qi Baishi
2017 SOLD for RMB 930M including premium by Poly
Illustrated before sale by CTV News Vancouver.
1955 The Ultimate Ink of Huang Binhong
2017 SOLD for RMB 345M including premium
Chinese graphic art was not a monopoly for the professional artists. The literati had other occupations and did not need to sell their art. Still better : they have contributed by their appreciation of ancient cultures to the remarkable homogeneity of Chinese art throughout the historical period and almost to present day. In this sense the old man who brought to an unprecedented perfection in the early 1950s the very traditional landscape in ink on hanging scroll was not an artist.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll is estimated RMB 80M for sale by China Guardian in Beijing on June 19, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M including premium by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period. The lower estimate that had been announced at RMB 12M attests a posteriori that the extreme quality of the ultimate art of Huang was rediscovered at that sale.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll is estimated RMB 80M for sale by China Guardian in Beijing on June 19, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M including premium by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period. The lower estimate that had been announced at RMB 12M attests a posteriori that the extreme quality of the ultimate art of Huang was rediscovered at that sale.
1963 Unlimited Landscape by Pan Tianshou
2018 SOLD for RMB 290M including premium by China Guardian
1964 Maoist Landscapes by Li Keran
2012 SOLD 293 M RMB yuan including premium
The art of Li Keran developed during the Cultural Revolution. Westerner artistic circles would like to forget this cultural dictatorship but the Chinese are less resentful and the work of Li is appreciated. It demonstrates in any case that art was not annihilated during this period providing that the themes were politically instigating.
On May 12, 2012, China Guardian sold RMB 124M including premium a painting made by Li in 1974, of very large size, 141 x 243 cm. This colored landscape shows a secular shrine: a former residence of Mao in his hometown of Shaoshan. The yard is animated with groups honoring their hero in different ways.
On June 3 in Beijing, Poly sells two other revolutionary artworks by Li.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted in 1964, ie shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity.
Dated 1976, the year of Mao's death, Jinggang Mountain, 176 x 128 cm, is slightly colored in the grand tradition of classical landscapes, but still politically correct. The animation is not assured by a philosopher and his followers but by a schoolmaster and his pupils under the protection of the red flag.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Landscape in Red reached an exceptional price, RMB 293M including premium, equivalent to US$ 46M.
In the press release issued after the sale, it is indicated that this painting is related by the artist to a poem by Chairman Mao. Anyway, this result is indicative of a growing interest for Maoist art.
The image of this red landscape is shared post sale by Art Market Monitor.
The landscape in Jinggang has not been sold.
On May 12, 2012, China Guardian sold RMB 124M including premium a painting made by Li in 1974, of very large size, 141 x 243 cm. This colored landscape shows a secular shrine: a former residence of Mao in his hometown of Shaoshan. The yard is animated with groups honoring their hero in different ways.
On June 3 in Beijing, Poly sells two other revolutionary artworks by Li.
Mountains in red, 131 x 84 cm, was painted in 1964, ie shortly before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution. The strident red of the landscape could please the government. Groups of white houses maintain a popular simplicity.
Dated 1976, the year of Mao's death, Jinggang Mountain, 176 x 128 cm, is slightly colored in the grand tradition of classical landscapes, but still politically correct. The animation is not assured by a philosopher and his followers but by a schoolmaster and his pupils under the protection of the red flag.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Landscape in Red reached an exceptional price, RMB 293M including premium, equivalent to US$ 46M.
In the press release issued after the sale, it is indicated that this painting is related by the artist to a poem by Chairman Mao. Anyway, this result is indicative of a growing interest for Maoist art.
The image of this red landscape is shared post sale by Art Market Monitor.
The landscape in Jinggang has not been sold.
2013 Eternal Snows of Today
2016 SOLD for HK$ 306M including premium
Cui Ruzhuo assembles polyptychs composed of vertical panels painted in ink and wash. A single gigantic work may occupy a full wall in an exhibition. His inspiration may be compared to the circular room of the Grandes Décorations of Monet's pond while a direct influence of Monet's art on Cui is unlikely.
The themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity and his art is virtually unknown outside China. On the theme of the lotus, an assembly of eight scrolls 247 x 123 cm each was sold for HK $ 123M including premium by Christie's on 29 November 2011, the very year of the creation of that work.
The favorite theme of Cui is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men. A set of eight panels made in 2005 for a total size of 202 x 988 cm was sold for HK $ 77M including premium by Christie's on May 28, 2013.
Poly Auction regularly includes in its sales a session entirely devoted to Cui. An unfragmented hand scroll of snowy mountains 36 m long made in 2006 was sold for HK $ 184M including premium on April 7, 2014.
On April 4 at Hong Kong, Poly sells 'Grand snowing mountains' inspired by Jiangnan, mounted set of eight panels made in 2013 to an overall size of 300 x 873 cm, lot 1213 estimated HK $ 150M, illustrated in Section V of the press release of the sale.
This work had been sold for HK $ 236M including premium by Poly on 7 April 2015. Announced at that time as a record for the artist, this result is not quoted in the press release of the next sale. I guess that it is listed again because it had not been paid. The similarity between the two lots leaves no doubt that it is the same piece.
The themes chosen by Cui appeal to the Chinese sensitivity and his art is virtually unknown outside China. On the theme of the lotus, an assembly of eight scrolls 247 x 123 cm each was sold for HK $ 123M including premium by Christie's on 29 November 2011, the very year of the creation of that work.
The favorite theme of Cui is the unlimited landscape of snowy mountains, eternally indifferent to men. A set of eight panels made in 2005 for a total size of 202 x 988 cm was sold for HK $ 77M including premium by Christie's on May 28, 2013.
Poly Auction regularly includes in its sales a session entirely devoted to Cui. An unfragmented hand scroll of snowy mountains 36 m long made in 2006 was sold for HK $ 184M including premium on April 7, 2014.
On April 4 at Hong Kong, Poly sells 'Grand snowing mountains' inspired by Jiangnan, mounted set of eight panels made in 2013 to an overall size of 300 x 873 cm, lot 1213 estimated HK $ 150M, illustrated in Section V of the press release of the sale.
This work had been sold for HK $ 236M including premium by Poly on 7 April 2015. Announced at that time as a record for the artist, this result is not quoted in the press release of the next sale. I guess that it is listed again because it had not been paid. The similarity between the two lots leaves no doubt that it is the same piece.
