Lot 13: YU YOUHAN (B. 1943) Yi Mengshan 02 2002 signed and dated 2002.10; dated

YU YOUHAN (B. 1943) Yi Mengshan 02 2002 signed and dated 2002.10; dated 2002.10.5 on the reverse acrylic on canvas 112 x 260 cm (44 1/8 x 102 3/8 in)

Provenance ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai Dr Walid Juffali Collection, London Gift from the above to the present owner Exhibited Shanghai, ShanghART Gallery, Yu Youhan, Landscape of Yi Meng Shan, 2004, p. 3, illustrated in color 2 2002 :2002.10 : Dr Walid Juffali : ,,,2004,3, 48 Paul Cézanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, circa1887-90. Oil on canvas. ,«»,1887-90, © Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images Yu began a series of landscape paintings after visiting the Yimeng mountains in 2002 with his colleagues of the Shanghai Art and Design Academy. Inspired by the serenity of nature and kindness of the locals, Yu described life in Yimeng as what life was like before we had been alienated, when we were pure of mind (the artist in an interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, ‘Yu Youhan: Abstract, Concrete’, shanghartgallery.com, 2009). Living in Shanghai, Yu resented rapid urbanization of the city and often referred to skyscrapers and buildings as empty shells. The trip to Yimeng was his way of leaving society and retreating from the hustle and bustle of city life, reminiscent of Chinese literati in the Song-Dynasty who longed to find sanctuary from chaos by retreating into the mountains to paint. Upon returning to Shanghai, Yu painted vast landscapes of the mountains based on photographs he took on the trip. Instead of focusing on the resemblance of nature, Yu combined different photographs for each composition, constructing his own idea of the mountains. In a monograph of Yu, author Paul Gladstone mentioned the Yi Mengshan series as hybrid landscapes that aimed to arrive at a sense of synthetic harmony and combinatory stylistic uplift. Achieving pictorial harmony between each component of his compositions has always been critical to Yu’s oeuvre. In Yi Mengshan 02, Yu renders the mountains in a distinctive style of abstraction heavily embedded in traditional Chinese aesthetics, achieving a harmonious tranquility and peacefulness of the mountains. Depicted in blurred muted gray brushstrokes in the background, it is difficult to decipher exactly how far the mountains lie from the vast field as they almost merge into the sky. Moving along the exquisite landscape, our eyes are guided to accents of red and brown staccato brushstrokes amid the fields and finally, to a tree on the left with dark voluminous foliage rendered in dotted form. Limiting his palette to gray, blue, green, and gold, Yu renders the landscape in a painterly technique that traces to methods carried out by the Impressionists in nineteenth-century Europe, particularly displaying striking correspondence to Cézanne’s landscapes of Mount Saint Victoire. Both Cézanne and Yu longed to create pictorial effects, apparent in their simplification of brushstrokes and precision of color, balancing the heaviness of the mountains with lighter details. Highly adept at achieving coloristic harmonies and linear rhythm, Cézanne focuses on colors and shapes to depict depth and the majestic grandeur of mountains. In a similar manner, Yu creates breadth through meandering brushstrokes of musk green to lime green across Yi Mengshan 02, outlining each of the lush green fields with fluid gray lines. Yu graduated from the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing in 1973. As a groundbreaking artist of Chinese contemporary art, he represented China at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and Sao Paulo Art Biennial in 1994. Spanning various artistic approaches, Yu’s creative process is an ongoing exploration and response to the shifts of the political and socioeconomic landscape in China in relation to his personal consciousness. He has experimented with abstract paintings and landscapes, and is widely recognized as a pioneer of Political Pop, a movement that responded to the rapid sociopolitical changes in China. In an interview with Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Yu mentioned that change is natural to him and believed that if the outside world changes, an artist should respond to these changes accordingly. In the catalogue accompanying the exhibition at ShanghART gallery in 2004, Yu speaks of Political Pop as a tool, heavily influenced by Western stylistic approaches, that he has finished working with: Pop Art is like a western tree to Chinese soil, like breeding a Western tree with a Chinese tree. I want to make an art that is like a Chinese tree growing naturally from Chinese soil. Painted when Yu was in his sixties, this exceptional pastoral landscape is archetypal of his transition into a new artistic approach, registering a plurality of meanings from his various aesthetics and response to sociopolitical changes, serving ultimately as an expression of the artist’s voice deeply rooted in Chinese culture. ,, ,,— ,200466 ,, , , , ,,, , ,, ·(Paul Gladstone) , «02», , , ,, , , ,(Cézanne) (Mount Saint Victoire) ,, ,« 02», , ,(Sao Paulo Art Biennial), , -·(Hans Ulrich Obrist),, , , ,,: , , , ,,, 50 MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART