Lot 907: Landscape in the Northern Song Style

LI HUAYI (B. 1948) Landscape in the Northern Song Style Scroll, mounted and framed Ink and colour on paper 152.5 x 83 cm. (60 x 32 3/4 in.) Executed in 2009

152.5 x 83 cm.

Wooster, The College of Wooster Art Museum, Chinese and Japanese Art, October-December 2011.

Li Huayi, Beijing Center for the Arts, Beijing, 2011, pp. 114-115.

Directly acquired by the present owner from the artist.

The intricate landscape by Li Huayi resembles the monumental Northern Song painting in spirit, yet the method with which the artist experiments is fundamentally is a mix of new and old. To create the architectonic formations of grotesque mountains and cliffs, Li splashes ink onto paper, allowing it to flow freely to form the underlying composition - a process most notably associated with Zhang Daqian. Photo-realistic details are then arduously added, using the gongbi technique and often over a few months, to depict unyielding pine trees and jagged rocks rising from the abyss. With fantastical grey and black clouds obscuring the mountainscape in a dramatic light, the resulting image is at once monumental and intimate, radiating a quiet energy.