XIANGSHAN / 香山公园 PEINTES PAR WU GUANZHONG / 吴冠中

WU GUANZHONG (1919-2010)
Xiangshan (Les Collines Parfumées) (nr)
Chine

In " les Collines Parfumées" 2001, série de 10 lithographies

Les Collines
Le parc Xiangshan (香山公园) ou " Jardin public des collines parfumées ", est un jardin impérial de la dynastie Ming, situé au pied des montagnes de l'ouestdans le district de Haidian, dans la partie nord-ouest de Pékin, en Chine. Il était autrefois appelé Jardin Jingyi / 静宜园 / 靜宜園,  "jardin paisible et convenable ". Initialement créé en 1186, sous la Dynastie Jin (1115-1234), il a été refait en 1441, sous la Dynastie Ming. Il a une superficie de 1,6 km2 et se compose pour l'essentiel d'un paysage boisé. Un hôtel dessiné par Ieoh Ming Pei s'y trouve, le  " Fragrant Hill Hotel ". 

L'artiste
Wu Guanzhong /吴冠中  est un peintre et un théoricien de l'art chinois. Il a travaillé à la modernisation de la peinture chinoise. Wu Guanzhong rencontre Chu Teh-Chun lors de son service militaire, les deux artistes peintres y deviennent amis. Wu Guanzhong devient un artiste très en vue de la fin du 20e siècle. Il est l’un des rares peintres chinois contemporains qui bénéficie d’une audience internationale. En 1992, le British Museum à Londres a présenté, pour la première fois, une rétrospective du peintre de son vivant. En 1991, la France le le promeut officier des Arts et des Lettres. Ses idées sur la modernisation de la peinture chinoise, traitées et publiées dans les magazines d’art, notamment au sujet du Bi Mo (pinceau et encre), ont suscité de nombreux débats entre artistes et critiques d’art chinois. L'article paru dans la revue Meishu (Beaux-arts ) a eu, dès sa parution en 1979, un impact considérable car il portait sur des valeurs formelles alors que celles-ci avaient été condamnées pendant la révolution culturelle. En 1978, de nombreux intellectuels victimes de la révolution culturelle sont réhabilités. L'année 1979 sert aujourd'hui, pour de nombreux analystes et historiens d'art, de point de départ à l'art contemporain chinois, et la position novatrice à ce moment-là de Wu Guanzhong, fut pour beaucoup à cette inversion de tendance. Le travail de Wu Guanzhong est le fruit de deux influences. Celle de sa propre culture, issue en particulier de l’art lettré, et celle de l’impressionnisme, qu’il a notamment découvert en France. Il a fait preuve d’une maîtrise exceptionnelle dans les domaines de la peinture à l'huile, des lavis, des aquarelles et des croquis. Il aborde ses œuvres sous un angle moderne tout en conservant l’influence de l’esthétique chinoise, fondatrice de sa propre culture.
 Sa première exposition en France a eu lieu à Paris au musée Cernuschi en 1993. Le premier catalogue français de peintures de Wu Guanzhong a été publié aux Éditions de la Différence.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau
 

MOUNT SHANDIZOU PAINTED BY WU GUANZHONG

 

WU GUANZHONG (1919-2010)
Mount Shandizou ( 5,596 m -18,360 ft)

 China

 In Yulong Mountain  under moonlight, Ink on paper, Christie's Hong Kong 

The mountain
Shandizou ( 5,596 m -18,360 ft)  is the highest peak in the  Yùlóng Xuěshān also called  Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a mountain massif or small mountain range in Yulong Naxi Autonomous County, Lijiang, in Yunnan province, China. The Jade Dragon Snow Mountain massif forms the bulk of the larger Yulong Mountains, that stretch further north. The northwestern flank of the massif forms one side of the Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡), which has a popular trekking route on the other side. In this gorge, the Jinsha (upper Yangtze) River descends dramatically between Jade Dragon and Haba Snow Mountain. The Yulong Mountains lie to the south of the Yun Range and are part of Southwest China's greater Hengduan Mountains.
In 1938, an expedition lead by the Australian lawyer, feminist, conservationist, and mountaineer, Marie Byles, failed to reach the summit due to bad weather.  Shanzidou has been climbed only once, on May 8, 1987, by an American expedition. The summit team comprised Phil Peralta-Ramos and Eric Perlman. They climbed snow gullies and limestone headwalls, and encountered high avalanche danger and sparse opportunities for protection. 
The Austro-American botanist and explorer Joseph Rock spent many years living in the vicinity of Mt Satseto, and wrote about the region and the Naxi people who occupy it. An interest in Rock later drew the travel writer Bruce Chatwin to the mountain, which he wrote about in an article that appeared in the New York Times and later, retitled, in his essay collection What Am I Doing Here? Chatwin's article inspired many subsequent travellers, including Michael Palin, to visit the region.

The Artist
Wu Guanzhong (吴冠中) was a contemporary Chinese painter widely recognized as a founder of modern Chinese painting.  He is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary Chinese painters. Wu's artworks had both Western and Eastern influences, such as the Western style of Fauvism and the Eastern style of Chinese calligraphy. Wu had painted various aspects of China, including much of its architecture, plants, animals, people, as well as many of its landscapes and waterscapes in a style reminiscent of the impressionist painters of the early 1900s. He was also a writer on contemporary Chinese art.  Wu has written many articles based on his version of form and how it applies to modernism. He considered himself as primarily a painter and not as a theorist. Wu had the approach of going out and looking at nature to find something that piqued his interest. Then he would start with a preliminary sketch of what it was that he saw. Next he spent a great deal of time in the studio trying to figure out the best way to show the power of the form of the object. He would then paint quickly and impulsively with whatever European of Chinese brush felt right. Wu would go on painting for hours until he was too emotionally drained to continue. He had his first professional solo exhibition in 1979, and his career took off in the 1980s. He has been the solo exhibitionist in over 10 and been part of a joint exhibition in over 10 others.
In 1991 Wu was made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of CultureEarly in his career Guanzhong adopted the pen name Tu, which he used to sign his work.

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2020 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau