Lot 1310: SUN YUN TAI

SUN YUN TAI
(1913-2004)
Pavilion by the Lake
signed in Chinese; dated '1994' (lower left)
oil on canvas
42.9 x 56.1 cm. (16 7/8 x 22 in.)
Painted in 1994

Private Collection, Asia

Impressionism, the origin of Western modern art, was brought to China through two distinct routes: Japan and Russia. Sun Yun Tai was one of the forerunners to integrate Western art into Chinese contexts, having studied in Russia. He brought about new modernist experiments with deeply-rooted Eastern aesthetics and philosophy. Four archetypal works featured here painted in the 1980s to 1990s each manifest the artist's unique style in depicting colour and evocative scenery.

Depicting rolling clouds with a dramatic impasto in Sun's earlier 1985 Landscape (Lot 1313), the artist pays great attention to the solidity of form with broadly handled and clearly contoured lines. Vibrations of air flood the sky in an unmediated outburst of emotion, the casual composition delivers the naivete and sensuality of his brushstroke under the principles of Impressionism. Embracing natural light, the inviting sun is his instrument in maneuvering proximity and distance between the mountains, lake and the fields; he depicts the prismatic colours, natural light, and the harmony of nature in all its virtue. Continuing to draw influence from Vincent van Gogh, Sun Yuntai focuses on the manipulation of light and colour to depict the ever-changing quality of nature. In Twilight (Lot 1312), nature is captured in unadorned peace but of infinite magnificence. Our eyes are bewildered by the fleeting impressions of the heavens with the open horizon expanding far and high from our view. Through generous opaque brushstrokes, the atmosphere is clouded into the centre in collective force and splendor alluding to a shift in time, of a coming sunset or a sunrise.

Sun's 1990s works retain the same visual sensuality though with much greater definition and assurance, further exploiting the dramatic effects of an enclosing compositional angle to conjure up the evanescent effects of light. Light at Dawn (Lot 1311) brings to mind the cool fragrance of the forest. Its crisp fresh air is presented not only through cold hues of mint blue, frosty white to depict snow, but the subtle placement of the perspective directed from ground to the sky, minimizing our presence and amplifying the majestic atmosphere. Sun's brushstrokes have evolved to become more lean but still densely layered. His impulsive emotions tamed, a new artistic maturity becomes apparent in works such as Pavilion by the Lake (Lot 1310). Here, Sun challenges himself in projecting nature's wonders with disturbances of man-made architecture, resulting in a revelation of deeper wisdom and understanding of nature's divinity and humble benevolence. The juxtaposition of the artificial and the natural can be seen in the pavilion, positioned in the centre with pictorial dominance but compositionally overwhelmed by romantic and alluring landscape that surrounds it.