Landscape of Liuzhou

‘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