Lot 1241: ZHANG HONGTU

ZHANG HONGTU
(B. 1943)
Dong Qichang-Cézanne #2
signed, inscribed and dated in Chinese (middle left)
oil on canvas
198 x 91 cm. (78 x 35 7/8 in.)
Painted in 1999, retouched in 2005
two painted seals of the artist

Pennsylvania, USA, Schmuker Art Gallery, Gettysburg College, Reinventing Tradition in a New World - The Arts of Gu Wenda, Wang Mansheng, Xu Bing and Zhang Hongtu, 7 October-15 December 2004.

On-going Publications, Zhang Hongtu: An On-going Painting Project, New York, USA, 2000 (illustrated, p. 30).
Gettysburg College, Reinventing Tradition in a New World - The Arts of Gu Wenda, Wang Mansheng, Xu Bing and Zhang Hongtu, Pennsylvania, USA, 2005 (illustrated, pp. 92-93).

Christie's Hong Kong, 28 May 2006, Lot 353
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Zhang Hongtu resided in New York since 1980 and from 1998, he started the series of "An On-going Painting Project". By reinterpreting Chinese ancient painting with Western oil painting techniques. The artist said he "imagined Chinese masters of traditional landscape paintings travelling to the late 19th century Paris. This idea is one of the origins of my hybrid landscape painting in the last 10 years" In this way, Zhang, startes from a Chinese perspective and reinterpreted these ancient classics in Western format and style, reflecting how a Chinese painter rethink and introspect the aesthetics and culture of traditional Chinese paintings.
In Dong Qichang- Cezanne #2 (Lot 1241), Zhang Hongtu extracted Cezanne format of expression and represented Dong's Mountains of Wonder with Clouds. The worked is themed and based on Mi Fu and Mi Youren's exquisite play of ink, yet, Zhang applied Cezanne's simplified use of color and geometric planes to reshape Mi's landscape. Dong Qichang's work reflected on "the excellence of an artist is in the transient fogs and clouds". And with the modernist reinterpretations, it transformed the traditional Chinese painting into a reflection on the state of mind. The work Dong Qichang- Cezanne #2 also incorporated Western idea of copying and imitating the three-dimensional space which came to the exchange of aesthetic standards of East and West towards the change of landscape. In his 2003 Wu Hong- Van Gogh (Lot 1242), Zhang adapted Van Gogh's bright colors and fluid brushstrokes and reworked it on the Fan-shaped landscape painting of Wu Hong, one of the Eight Great Masters in Jinling during the Qing dynasty. The application of fan-shaped composition also reflects Zhang's detachment of the conventional definition of paintings; landscape no longer occupied the whole surface of the painting as the artist used the fan-shape to leave the surrounding area blank, different from the traditional technique of leaving the space blank for viewer's imagination. Yet, the artist created another style of background by using a monotone palette with various textures of brushstrokes. In the process of reintegrating Wu Hong and Van Gogh's works, the signature and seal are not simply inheriting the traditional format. The pictorial elements are maximized and extended to the conventions of literati painting and calligraphy. Thus, creating the multi-concepts of mixing Eastern and Western art and landscape to subtly incorporat a deeper thoughts and spirit of traditional literati.