Literature
Artist Publishing Co., Taiwan Fine Arts Series 1: Chen Cheng Po, Taipei, Taiwan, 1992 (illustrated, plate 16, p. 71).
Hsiung-Shih Art Book Co. Ltd., The Home-Museum: Collected Paintings of the Older Generation of Artists: The Enthusiasm of Chen Cheng Po, Taipei, Taiwan, 2000 (illustrated, plate 2-26, p. 64).
Notes
"If you take the time to first study the scene, to project into it a sense of the era, then you've got the prerequisites for a good painting. To the extent that there is any formula for painting well, it starts from this KK" - Chen Cheng-Po
According to Taiwan Art Series - Chen Cheng-po, landscape paintings amount to four-fifths of Chen Cheng-po's works throughout his life. They were at the core of Chen's creativity, and are an indispensable link to the study of his various artistic styles. For Chen, the particular features and spirit of an era form the soul of landscape paintings, as seen in Spring in the West Lake and Sunset at Danshui, his personal style is reflected in the unique characteristics of landscape and humanity of a particular scene. Villa by Lake Tai (Lot 1015) offered in this Evening Sale, not only captures the special historical significance of the place, but also represents one of the most important works painted by Chen during his sojourn years in Shanghai.
Chen graduated from Tokyo Fine Arts Institute in March 1929, and upon the invitation of Wang JiYuan, became director at Xinhua Art Academy, Changming Art Academy, and professor at Yiyuan Painting Research Institute. He also joined the renowned Storm Art Society, and through this organization acquainted himself with some of the most prolific painters involved in the contemporary Shanghai art scene, such as Zhang Daqian and Pan Yuliang. In 1933 Chen returned to Taiwan because of the war. Chen had maintained close correspondence with his teacher Kinichiro Ishikawa, and had once consulted him on the possibility of studying in Europe. Ishikawa, however, recommended that he should concentrate on learning about the East, including art and civilization of India and China. Under his teacher's advice, Chen gave up his initial idea and delved into his own cultural origins. Chen's training in Tokyo and his own cultural influence brought about a turning point in his artistic career, equipping him with a unique perception of the melding of Eastern and Western artistic endeavours. Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s saw many artists standing at the crossroads between traditional and modern Chinese art expressions. Synthesizing Chinese and Western arts to create a new contemporary art form in China had become a subject of preeminent concern and debate. Villa by Lake Tai can be regarded as Chen's personal response to the vibrant and kaleidoscope-like art scene in Shanghai during this historic and dynamic period.
"A few tea pavilions scatter across the fields and fishing boats all depart from the pier. After a peal of rain, swans cry, we hear aloft on the seventy-two green hills." - Drifting on Lake Tai by Wu Chang-shi, Qing Dynasty
Lake Tai is among the five most famous freshwater lakes in China. Spanning over Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, it contains forty eight islands and is surrounded by seventy two mountains. Both striking and elegant, the lake occupies a vast area of green water, with moody waves, smooth and turbulent, graced by the veils of mist and contrasted with glimpses of mountains and hills. With such a spectacular landscape, Lake Tai has been a popular scenic spot among literati since ancient times, and Chen would come to Lake Tai often to do landscape sketches during his time in Shanghai. Villa by Lake Tai is a portrait of "Turtle Head", a peninsula to the northwest. As described by poet Guo Mo-yao, 'The very best of Lake Tai, all lies in Turtle Head.' The two stone carvings along the cliff as depicted in the painting are historically significant; their inscriptions praise the grandeur of the lake, its nurturing of the beautiful ancient lands of Wu and Yue. By 1918, gardens were built on Turtle Head, from then on it became a popular destination for socialites and aristocrats alike to build their private villas and residences.
During his five years in Tokyo, Chen had an in-depth study of Western oil paintings. The influences from Impressionism and Post- Impressionism can be seen in Villa by Lake Tai . The depiction of trees and bushes in the foreground shows a departure from his previous pursuit of three-dimensionality, instead he employs vivid colours and variations of brushwork to create a layering effect. Line has become a conceptual tool, it changes in application according to the changing landscape portrayed. From the drawing of ripples to slanting power masts, Chen's lines resemble those of Renoir's (Fig. 1). The warm tones of the rocks present a sharp contrast of brightness; while clean, simple brushstrokes give shape to them. The geometric formation Chen employs clearly relates to that of Cezanne, the Father of Modernism. At the same time, Chen uses darker, broken brushstrokes to outline mountains in close distance, which reminds the viewer of the Chinese ink painting technique of "moss dots" dating back to the styles of Southern Song painters Ma Yuan and Xia Gui. Focusing on the humid landscapes in the South of Yangtze River, these artists cleverly and naturally employed "moss dots" to depict the green mosses clustered in niches of stones and cliffs. Chen skillfully incorporated his experience with traditional Chinese ink painting with his direct observation of nature; the result combines the strokes and lines of Western oil paintings and the formation of dots and lines in traditional Chinese ink paintings. A unique, personal creative style for Chen has thus come into formation.
Chen stated that he had the opportunity to study traditional Chinese ink paintings during his stay in Shanghai, of which he particularly appreciated the works of Ni Zan and Bada Shanren (the Eight Eccentrics of the Mountains). He said, "Ni sketched the whole scene with lines, but Bada Shanren used strokes instead of lines to indicate the sublimity of landscape. Under the influence of their painterly styles, there has been a significant change in my works in recent years." The pinnacle of Ni's career came in his old age, when he spent his time leisurely exploring Lake Tai. His mature style was developed after his keen observation, through distilling, summarizing, and extracting the beauty of Lake Tai, hence inventing novel compositions and brushwork. Plain slopes, sparse vegetation, shallow water, and far-stretching mountain range were the motifs of his paintings. There was often a desolate depth of complexities beneath his apparently simple imageries. For Chen, who was born in Southern Taiwan and educated in Tokyo, moving to Shanghai was a golden opportunity to visit a multitude of landscapes so as to develop a comprehensive understanding of traditional Chinese ink paintings. His personal experience at Lake Tai enabled him to internalize Ni's styles and skills. Even though Chen had incorporated the style of Western modernists and their penchant for simplification, in Villa by Lake Tai , he was inspired by Ni in technique, who was an expert in Ts'un, the folding-belt brushstrokes. This kind of slanting brushwork was particularly applicable to outlining the abrupt, cross-section- like geographic formations around Lake Tai. Ni's masterpiece The Jung-hsi Studio (Fig. 2) was a celebration of brushstrokes, which were later applied by Chen in his oil paintings. The synthesis of Chinese and Western styles by the artist was based on a profound understanding of landscape paintings, ranging from the basic elements of form to the internalization and restructuring of his entire composition.
Chen was inspired by the concept of traditional Chinese landscape painting composition, where the foreground falls on a wider horizon, the boat on the lake is captured from a levelled angle. As for the remote waterfront at top right part of the painting, Chen portrays it by the dabbing of layers and layers of washes in similar proportion, theoretically abandoning the principle fixed-point perspective in traditional Western art. Like Ni Zan's painting compositions, Chen portrays his subjects, near and far, from multiple perspectives, bringing the faraway landscape closer to the heart of the viewer. This painting can wholly be seen as the foundation of Chen's fusion of Eastern and Western art. Villa by Lake Tai combines Western formal elements and Eastern concept in the extension of space; it marks the artistic importance of Chen's Shanghai period as well as opens the doors for his future stylistic diversity.
