T'ang Haywen (Chinese, 1927-1991), 曾海文Untitled
circa 1965-1970

signed
oil on canvas

75.8 x 61 cm (29 13/16 x 24 in)

This work was executed circa 1965-1970.注脚This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of T'ang Haywen now in preparation by T'ang Haywen Archives and Mr. Philippe Koutouzis under the number OOC64/70-3.

We are grateful to the T'ang Haywen Archives for contributing to the lot essay.

Provenance
Private Collection, France
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

曾海文
無題
油彩畫布
約1965-1970年作

簽名: Tang 海文

此作品將收錄於由曾海文檔案庫及古獨奇先生正在編輯的《曾海文作品全集》當中，編號為OOC64/70-3

我們由衷感謝曾海文檔案庫為此作品撰寫文章

來源
法國私人收藏
現藏家直接購自上述收藏

This Untitled painting of hills and mountains, a landscape at the crossroad of the Eastern and Western traditions, offers us an insight into T'ang Haywen's creative process during the second half of the 1960s.

At that time and through the play of ink, T'ang had already moved from the pure representation of objects or landscapes to compositions where formal appearance became less and less important. However, he had not yet transformed the space of his painting from the single format to the diptych format which would characterize his work.

In a vertical space, reminiscent of classical Chinese painting, T'ang uses the atmospheric perspective to describe a succession of blue and green hills crossed by white valleys rising towards the crest of two dark blue mountains. The image, idea and feeling of a landscape is shaped by the flow of volumes, fulls and voids, from bottom to top and diagonally to the vanishing point of the veiled sun appearing in the distance between the two mountains.

The pictorial artifice of a blood-red frame - a flaming sky or even a stage curtain - adds to the depth of the composition and acts as a window overlooking the landscape. A watercolour from the same period uses this theatrical mean, which perhaps prefigures the space of the diptych, the largest window that T'ang will soon open on the landscape.

This bird eye view of hills and mountains does not obey Western principles of perspective. It can be read from bottom to top and suggests the distance and relief of the landscape, but the spots, thick lines, sweepings and splashes in oil and colour seem more in line with Western abstraction, even though T'ang would probably have denied it. Indeed, in 1972 he wrote: "I think that total abstraction is a dead end justified only by theory, expressed only by the disembodied verb... it is from a certain material figuration that painting can develop, renew itself without being lost and be deployed in the fields of affectivity and spirituality".

The message is clear and ambitious: reality will always be present as an absolute referent of painting and it is the painter's feelings and spirituality that will make, irrigate and characterize his painting. It will therefore be up to us, the spectators, to join him in his jubilations.

《無題》一作所繪的丘陵與山巒，呈現出東西方藝術的交融與薈萃，讓我們得以窺見曾海文在一九六〇年代後半期的創作歷程。此時的曾海文已展開水墨的實驗，其繪畫從單純再現物件或風景而趨向抽象構圖，然而尚未脫離單幅作品的表現格式，開發出後來知名的雙聯式繪畫。

此作品直式的畫面讓人聯想到傳統中國水墨畫。曾海文以雲霧繚繞的透視描繪藍綠色的綿延山丘，白色的山谷橫跨其間，朝往兩座深藍色山峰延伸而去。或虛或實的流暢造型建構出風景的意象和氛圍，同時將觀者的視覺由下至上，並沿著斜線引導至遠處兩座山脈之間，最終目光落在朦朧的太陽。

作品中有一血紅色的邊框，像是燃燒的天空甚至舞台簾幕一樣，為畫面的構圖增添了深度，又像是窗戶望向外面的景緻。曾海文在同一時期曾有一件水彩畫也採用這樣戲劇化的手法，或許這預示了他即將以雙聯作的格局，為觀眾打開更大的一扇窗，看到獨樹一格的風景雙聯作。

丘陵與山脈的鳥瞰視角並未遵循西方透視原則。這件作品可從下至上觀看，並提示遠方浮現的風景，不過儘管曾海文大概會否認這樣的看法，其中的點、厚重的線條、流暢的油彩與顏色似乎更符合西方抽象繪畫。確實，在一九七二年他寫道：「我認為純粹的抽象主義是死路一條，只能以理論來合理化，以及用無實質意義的動詞來表述⋯⋯唯有透過某種物質的形象化，繪畫才能持續發展和更新而不至於消失，也才能有效傳達藝術家的感受和精神。」

這番話清楚表達出曾海文對藝術的看法和企圖心：現實永遠是繪畫的絕對參考點，藝術必須具有創作者的感受和精神才能豐富其內涵。觀者是否願意和他一起踏上這趟藝術之旅，則交由我們自行決定。