LU Yanshao
(China 1909–1993)
- Title
- Landscape of Liuzhou
- Place of origin
-
China
- Year
- 1985
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- handscroll; ink and colour on paper
- Dimensions
-
209.6 x 45.7cm image; 210.0 x 46.0cm sheet
- Signature & date
- Signed c.l., in Chinese, inscribed in black ink, "The sixth month of the year of Yichou (1985), Lu Yanshao... " Signed u.r., in Chinese, stamped in red ink "Lu Yanshao [artist's seal]". Signed u.r., in Chinese, stamped in red ink "Yanshao [artist's seal]". Signed c.l., in Chinese, stamped in red ink "Yanshao [artist's seal]" Signed c.l., in Chinese, stamped in red ink "Wanruo [artist's seal]".
- Credit
- Gift of Mr Lee Teck-Chiow 2000
- Accession number
- 125.2000
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
‘Born in Shanghai, Lu Yanshao is acknowledged as one of the major and most innovative landscape painters of 20th-century China. Before joining the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1962 he was widely recognised as a distinguished artist and seal carver. His style is characterised by the tremulous energy in his landscapes as though the air, water, rocks and mountains are in constant and often uncertain motion. They convey the contradictory effects of stability, in the representation of nature and the landscape, and uncertainty, in the deliberately nervous brushwork. The long inscription at the end of the scroll states that the painting was inspired by the writings of the Tang dynasty official Liu Zizhou (Liu Zongyuan) who, in the reign of the Emperor Xianzong (806-20), had been banished to Liu county following his involvement in a failed political reform movement. The inscription reads: ‘Liu Zizhou (also name Zongyuan) had been banished to Liu County by the Tang Court. Amid the mountains and streams Liu wrote his famous prose, now considered to be the highest among all. Han Changli [768-824: Tang dynasty scholar] made a critique which highly praised Liu’s prose. Now I, Lu Yanshao, visited Liu County and my painting is inspired by the scenery and the historical accounts made by Han Changli. The sixth month of the ‘Yichou’ year [1985], Lu Yanshao at Xizi Lake.’
‘The Asian Collections: Art Gallery of New South Wales’. pg.173.
© 2003 Trustees, Art Gallery of New South Wales- Bibliography (1)
-
'The Shanghai School and Modern Painting', The Asian Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales 2003, 2003, 173 (colour illus.). The colour illus. below on page 173 is a detail of this work.
