Lot 906: WANG YIDONG

WANG YIDONG
(b. 1955)
Tobacco House
signed 'Wang Yidong' in Pinyin; dated '1987' (lower right)
oil on canvas
76 x 60.8 cm. (30 x 24 in.)
Painted in 1987

Hefner Galleries, USA
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1980s

Wang Yidong was born in Linyi County in Shandong, whose Yi-meng mountain region gave birth to China's Longshan culture in the late Neolithic period, and where many ancient customs and traditions are still preserved. In the 1980s Wang began a series of paintings depicting the life and customs of Yimeng; early works in the series portrayed the physical laborers and local elders of the region, often in dark, subdued tones. Tobacco House (Lot 906), painted in 1989, is an early, representative work. To achieve its mood of strong but understated beauty required close attention by the artist to spatial relationships, color relationships, and the textures of objects. For Wang Yidong, "textures are something that can be 'close, yet not really close,'" because "textures are always subordinate to the overall artistic sense of the painting." Here the artist builds up space out of blocks of differing colors and textures; the entire painting comprises five principal planes of color: a blue-grey sky, the walls of the house in grey-white, dark umber in the roof, deep grey hills, and the earthy yellows of the tobacco. The artist's refined technique, careful choice of detail, handling of color tonalities, and contrasting areas of darkness and light express the varied textures of the stone building, countryside, tobacco leaves, and sky, while also clearly defining their relative distances in space. Other seemingly casual details such as the chimney, drifting smoke, and the silhouette of the worker in the doorway provide additional color and interest. The red garment of that worker also provides an early glimpse of the special red palettes that would later become a hallmark of this artist.

Journey with the Bird of Luck (Lot 907) has been held for many years as a valued part of the collection of German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop. Joop's taste for the beautiful clearly extends beyond the clothing he designs, as can be seen in the fine collection of art he owns, which includes works by western Impressionists as well as modern Chinese artists.

Journey with the Bird of Luck depicts a folk wedding custom, called "returning to the door," in which the bride, now married for three days, returns to her parental home. This return on the third day is an important event for the elder members of her family, in part because her new husband has prepared gifts to ensure he is well looked-upon by his new father and mother-in-law. The return home usually begins around nine or ten o'clock in the morning as the bride and groom once again dress in their finest wedding attire to maintain the beautiful atmosphere of the wedding ceremony, and the new bride dons the red outfit from her wedding day.

To ensure that the happiness and celebration connected with this occasion would be vividly communicated, Wang made "China red" the principal color of his composition, a bold and original choice which does indeed project an auspicious and celebratory mood, while also evoking aspects of China's age-old history and culture. The China red color is associated with another part of the great cultural heritage of the Chinese people, the porcelains that were invented in China. Porcelain ware is known in English as "China," as is the name of its country of its origin, while the term "Chinese red," or "China red," is linked with some of its most striking red porcelains. During the Yongle (1403-24) and Xuande (1426-35) periods, the Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen produced porcelains with an exceptional red glaze, but because the red pigments tended to break down at high temperatures, firing these glazes was a difficult process. Nevertheless, no precious material was spared in the production of these precious red porcelains, whether coral, agate, jade, pearls, or gold, because they were usually intended only for the emperor's enjoyment, and today are rare and very valuable (Fig. 1). Over the long span of history, the China red color has gradually instilled itself in the consciousness of the Chinese people and become a deeply-rooted symbol of their own nation and culture. China red stands for wellness, good fortune, happiness, luck, long life, honor, peace, unity, success, devotion, courage, prosperity, romance, warmth, sexuality, zeal, rich feeling, and tact.

One aspect worth noting in Journey with the Bird of Luck, in addition to Wang Yidong's unique artistic vocabulary, is his attention to symbolism. Wang believes that that what the artist should seek is not symbolic forms in themselves, but the psychological meanings they represent. Journey shows this young girl, now a man's wife, on the road back to her parental home, carrying a basket filled with gifts and leaning against a tree for a moment of rest. Her own form and the branch on which she leans slant in one direction and mirror the direction of flight by the bird of luck, which symbolizes the girl's future path in married life and the gift of lasting happiness. Wang has imbued Journey with the Bird of Luck with a wealth of psychological symbolism that helps create its spirited, imaginative, and dreamlike quality.