Collector Frederick L. Gordon's Talk/Essay:
The
contemporary Chinese oil painting wave is based on a rather short historical tradition starting from the late 19th to early 20th
century when Chinese artists were exposed to western art and painting
traditions by Western Imperialism. Karolyn Zeng is a contemporary Chinese oil
painter. However, her painting is deeply rooted in two traditions that have
much longer historical and cultural roots. Historically speaking, Chinese
artists were not trained as artists but as Literati. The Literati tradition
dates all the way back to the Tang Dynasty. As I understand, literate Chinese
were trained to be government officials at all levels of government from the
Imperial household to the regional and local districts. They were educated as
scholars. These scholars were highly trained in writing which required mastery
of the brush in writing the characters. This is quite different from what a
western or contemporary oil painter needs to do in oil painting. Karolyn
follows in this long line of Literati artists as she is trained as a scholar in
China and the US, and
educated in the art of the brush for ink writing but transformed that into
skill with the brush in oil painting. Although, compared to most college-trained artists,
she is totally self-taught in oil on canvas. It is unique that she reached this
level in such a short time. She finished her “Self Portrait” the second year
(2004) after she started her journey on canvas with oil in 2003. In the same
year, she completed the 24x96 inches long piece “Grand Unified Field” which
entails many dimensions and many levels of brush work. There are some examples
of excellent Chinese ink painters who were not even formally trained as
Literati but whose brush training was sufficient to give them the foundation to
become great painters. The artist Qi Baishi is one example of this tradition as
Qi was trained to be a carpenter but became one of the finest ink painters of
his generation.
About
Frederick L. Gordon: Mr. Gordon started collecting Chinese fine art in 1982. His
collection has been shown in museums and featured in magazines and videos, including works from artists Zheng Chongbin, Zhang Yu, Yang Yanping, Xu Bing, Wang Fangyu, Wang Chuan, Mu Xin, Lui Shou Kwan, Li Huayi, Li Huasheng, Gu Wenda, Grace Tong, Fung Mingchip and others.
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