Lin Fengmian was born into a family of stone-masons, and he has been studying painting and calligraphy, stone sculpture with his father and grandfather since childhood. In his youth, he worked and studied in France (1919-1925). During this time, he has thoroughly studied traditional Western realist painting, impressionism and various genres of modern art. While he improved his painting skills, his vision and conceptual understanding have also expanded. In comparison to many artists of the same period, who have studied abroad and returned to China to practice art, Lin Fengmian was particularly keen on reflecting the differences and possibilities of reforms between East and West based on his own cultural context. Since early on, he has proposed to integrate the essence of traditional oriental art with western modern art.

Prior to the 1940s, there have been subjects of social reality in Lin Fengmian’s artworks. His oil paintings are symbolically and expressionistically inclined beyond their realistic basis. At the beginning of War on resisting the Japanese, he devoted more energy in the investigation of the artistic language in a semi-secluded state due to various instabilities. His practice overtime, Lin Fengming has creatively integrated the xieyi tradition of ink painting of the Ming-Qing period, folk ceramic painting, shadow puppet, Han dynasty stone portraiture and etc., with concepts of modernist painting in the West. He was the first to invent “composition on square paper” (that is, a breakthrough of the hanging scroll and handscroll format of traditional Chinese painting, render the composition on square dimensions), and gradually established the “Lin Fengmian style” (known as the Fengmian style) color painting, consisting of the representation through light and color of oil painting and the oriental realm of meaning in Chinese painting. Technically speaking, ink and color intervene with each other to render an integrated effect, expanding the formal language of Chinese painting, assigning unprecedented representational effect to Chinese painting. The subject matters of Lin Fengmian’s artworks vary from landscape, court ladies, birds and flowers, opera singers, still objects and etc.

Lin Fengmian is considered as a representative figure in “integrating China with the West” in modern Chinese painting, besides his artistic breakthroughs and innovations, he has made great efforts in artistic education and cultural promotion. As one of the forefathers of modern Chinese art educator, Lin Fengmian was deeply influenced by Cai Yuanpei’s ideas on art education, who proactively supported the new cultural movements, as a leader in the art academy, he organized “Westernizing Art Movement”, although it was not successful, but his pedagogical ideals and keenness on reform that had “Inclusive and tolerant attitude towards academic freedom”, call on talents in his thoughts on education, and have had profound impact on later art education.

For this exhibition, Lin Fengmian’s Landscape, an oil painting done in the 1940s will be shown. His signature color painting matured over two decades of experimentation, the 1940s was a time when he explored this technique while living in Chongqing and Hangzhou as he honed the style (Lin Fengmian began to integrate ink painting into watercolor and gouache in 1947, and it was only in the 1950s, his color and ink technique was fully realized). Between the 1940s and 1950s, the oil painting components were still prominent in Lin Fengmian’s works, different from his fluid and willful color ink paintings in the later years. Although the specific time of creation is unknown, yet we can determine the work as a representative piece from this transitional period based on the medium of the painting and the details of its techniques. The composition of the painting is done in the typical Lin Fengmian’s “composition on square paper” style, in which the autumn scenery in the mountains is depicted. Even though, it is an oil painting, it has adopted many ink painting techniques, and its realm of meaning is of oriental xieyi. The distant mountain, forest, rivers, houses, all of these typical components in Lin Fengmian’s landscapes are well expressed. The green mountain range at a distance, white houses with black roofs seem especially peaceful being surrounded by gleeful rivers and a few ranges of trees, the red and yellow crown strike a cord with the green earth, the black tree shadow at the center of the image seem especially lonely and mysterious… the overall image displays an expressivity through its warm and gorgeous composition. Although certain brushworks in this painting may seem stagnant and turbid, while its execution on the details are spectacular, for instance, the rendering of the houses and the color of the sky is rich, that reveal the artist’s profound understanding on the use of colors in impressionistic paintings.

(Edited by Su Wenxiang, Xu Chongbao, Huang Si, 2015)