Notes
Fan Tchunpi (1898-1986) was born in Fuzhou, China and moved to France with her family at the age of 14 where she furthered her education, and in 1920 became the first Chinese female student to be admitted to Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-arts, (Fig.1); alma mater of many of the first generation Chinese oil painting artists like Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian, Yan Wenliang, Pan Yuliang, Liu Haisu, Liu Kaiqu, Wu Guanzhong and Li Fengbai, Fang was one of the very few Chinese artists who was frequently selected to exhibit at the Salon in Paris. In 1924, Fan's painting The Fluter was exhibited in the Salon, which later established her stance as an "extraordinary female artist from the east" . Since then, she had devoted her life to creating art and actively participated in international exhibitions, exhibiting her works in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjiang, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Britain, France, Brazil, Argentina and Japan. 1974 marked a crucial year when the prestigious Musee Cernuschi in Paris organized a retrospective for the artist entitled The Retrospective of Fan Tschunpi's 60-years career in art, reaffirming Fan's artistic achievement as a Chinese female artist who began her career in Paris.
With privileges to the information and records provided Fan's family, Christie's is honoured to present series of her paintings to exhibit the artist's rich and extensive artistic vision.
In 1936, Fan returned to China, where she studied traditional Chinese paintings in addition to her continuous dedication to painting in oil. Similar to her predecessors such as Xu Beihong and Lin Fengmian, Fan attempted to refine and enhance traditional Chinese painting by investigating on synthesis of eastern and western art, moreover to integrate western art theories on anatomy with Chinese traditional painting's perspective; a harmonic result that is emotionally striking, revealing her passion in the pursuit of art.
In the 1920s, there were indeed very few female artists who were known to the art society, whom along with Fan were Guan Zilan, Cai Weilian, Pan Yuliang and Tang Yunyu. Fan's artistic creation is extremely rich - either in ink or oil paint or whether it be landscapes, figures, nude women, still life or animals, Fang expressed her graceful femininity and delicate sensibility through the subjects she portrayed.
Nude has long been an important theme in western art and its significance can be traced from figure sculptures in ancient Greece, and 15th century renaissance masterpieces such as The Birth of Venus (Fig.1) by Sandro Botticelli in Italy, in which its importance in western academicism has been reflected Nude Ascending from Misty Water (Lot 1149), where Fang's concept and perseverance in amalgamating aesthetics of the east and west is clearly illustrated. According to archival information, Fan took up rigorous training in figurative drawing while in France and had started oil painting of nudes in the 1920s. At that time, figure painting was a controversial subject in China and nudity was not given recognition in the general society. In 1917, Shanghai Fine Arts School was heavily condemned for publicly exhibiting figure paintings, followed by another rebuke in 1924 for the use of nude models. Although Fan had returned to China in 1925 to teach at Guangdong University, shortly after one year, she returned to France to further her education; a transition which may have perhaps been a stepping stone to enriching the development of art in the contemporary Chinese society as France provided a liberal horizon for Chinese artist to flourish, enabling them to pursue their own definition of beauty and realizing it through the practice of art.
Nude Ascending from Misty Water distinctively reflects how Chinese female artist dealt with nudes and of their innovative method of expression by combining eastern and western aesthetics; the standing pose of the nude reminds us of The Birth of Venus by Italian artist Sandro Botticelli in the 15 century, representing the perfect harmony of human proportion with the vitality and energy of nature, also as a pure expression of beauty, and all the same time praising the power of life. With a strong connotation of Buddhism instilled in Nude Ascending from Misty Water, Fan portrays the nude elegantly positioned in the middle of the sea, just like Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara who walks across the sea and comes down to the earth to save lives of suffering souls. The whirlpool-like waves resemble the gauze of Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara's clothing, lightly blown by sea breeze, full of motion like one surfing on the waves. She is often portrayed as the incarnation of truth, virtue and beauty in traditional Chinese ceramics and has even been eulogized as "Eastern Goddess of Beauty" or "Eastern Venus". Successfully blending the vitality, the female body, and beauty of curvy lines that are characteristic in western nude art with the detached mind of disillusion expressed by the art in eastern Buddhism, Fang embodies the female figure with compassion without the vulgarity of the mundane world.
Figure drawing uses line, colour and composition as artistic language and depicts different parts of the human anatomy on a two-dimensional space. If the focus of western oil painting is the variation of light and colour used to paint the three-dimensional human body, then traditional Chinese painting is the line used to delineate the two-dimensional human figure. From Nude Ascending from Misty Water, one sees that Fan incorporated the skills of western realistic painting, at the same time employing the traditional Chinese artistic philosophy. She uses lines that resemble those used in ink painting in oil medium, expressing a goddess-like figure with plumpness and purity. Freely expressing the moving waves by using brushstrokes inspired by Impressionism and depicting the different variations of light and shadow under the illuminating sun, the female face in Nude Ascending from Misty Water also reminds us of the illustrations in commercial advertisement and calendars that were often published by foreign companies in Shanghai during the 1930s, which this unique technique in depicting portraits of the female sex exhibited an aura of tenderness- a feeling also reverberated in Fan's painting.
White Chrysanthemum (Lot 1150) shows how Fan applied the techniques of Chinese ink painting in western oil medium. Though oil paint often elicits an impression that is thick, tough, dense and passionate, Fan utilized the detailed outline one uses in ink painting and the splashing of ink to create different spatial dimensions. The refined depiction of petals of the chrysanthemum reflects the speed of Fan's application of paint and the accurate colours she used, reminding viewers of the pursuit of flowers and birds by traditional Chinese literati. The texture of petals of chrysanthemum painted is meticulously expressed by the oil paint. The emotions and unique understanding to subjects Fan portrayed are clearly manifested in her simple still life painting as she uses images and landscape that are familiar to the Chinese people to communicate her artistic intention through her own unique, highly personal language of painting. While melding the essences of western and eastern aesthetics, Fan also lucratively inherited and cultivated her deeply-rooted Chinese culture.
Paris Rooftops (Lot1148), painted on paper, expresses the beauty of Fan's composition. She took a bird's-eye perspective, depicting only the rooftop of houses to combine an intelligent structure to enrich her canvas. Although Fan uses a deep brown colour in her painting, the various hues of the tone highlights the background, foreground and the change of light and shadow, fully demonstrating the artist's superb skills in her utilization of lines and colours.
Completed in 1949 when Fan was living in the United States, White Birch Trees by Lake Sunapee (Lot 1147) expresses the beauty of strength and tenderness simultaneously. Birch trees, also known as the Tree of Beauties, grow under cold climates in the northern hemisphere with their extraordinary ability in withstanding the cold and their adaptability to the soil that nourish them with vitality. In Fan's painting, she offers the viewer a unique depiction of these birch trees. Growing next to the riverside, Fan's birch trees express a phenomenal beauty, depicted with soft colours and exquisite brushstroke, in contrasting aesthetics with the usual portrayal of birch trees that are typically presented as tough, upright and strong.
