Wu Dayu

executed circa 1950

Artist’s Family

Beijing, Chinese Academy of Oil Painting, Wu Dayu Documenta, 5 - 20 May 2015

Works of Wu Dayu, People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, Beijing, 2015, p. 233

This work is overall in very good condition.
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A Dazzling Dance in Crayon

Wu Dayu’s Untitled 180

Wu Dayu was not only skilled in oil painting; his works in crayon also showed great originality that demonstrated a penetrating understanding of the medium. As Wu saw it, oil and crayon each had their inimitable strengths. His exploration of crayon drawing, which began in the 1950s, encompassed a rich variety of subject matter and permutations. His thorough study of the medium yielded a body of work that stands on its own as a series and attains a degree of importance comparable to that of his oil paintings.

At the apex of his artistic career, the Impressionist master Edgar Degas began using pastels in order to capture the theatrical, dynamic, and ephemeral qualities of ballet. Eventually, the medium became his most iconic creative form. Like Degas, Wu Dayu had a clear direction in mind when he changed mediums. In a letter to his student Jiang Hongkui (Jiang Fengbai) dated July 10, 1979, he stated, "the use of any tool in art, including crayons, has its own specific strengths, and there is a certain facility to the development of its use …… the exceptional qualities of crayons include the capacity to add colour in detail, apply layers, create complex contrasts, and allow the medium to take the lead. Therefore, this tool has the effects of forceful change, powerful assertion, and vigorous speed. This new tool, which allows me to express colours directly from my mind, has unique characteristics that distinguish it from mediums such as pastel, oil paint, gouache, watercolour, or monochrome. Monochrome painting also has its unique characteristics, best exemplified by the art of calligraphy". Wu Dayu emphasised the uniqueness of working in crayon compared to other mediums, and he praised its capacity for "forceful change, powerful assertion, and vigorous speed". In other words, crayon was the most appropriate creative medium when the artist needed to capture fleeting inspiration, expressive force, and subtle transformations in feeling. Untitled 180 (Lot 1007) is a sterling example of Wu Dayu's work in crayon.

Intricately Layering Structure to create Spatial Rhythm

The structure of Untitled 180 is complex and compact. It features the appearance of multiple spatial layers on a single picture plane, forming a rich and intense visual effect highly reminiscent of Cubism. However, Wu Dayu's complex expression of space does not stop at visual layers; rather, it expresses his ideals of oneness of mind and matter, and unity of man and nature. In the highly abstracted composition of this artwork, the figurative elements seem to melt into lines, surfaces, and intense colours. In the upper-middle portion of the canvas, a taichi symbol is hidden among a large swath of purple planes that seem to dance like the flowing sleeves of a sable coat.

Wu Dayu was fond of painting flowers, and he also often drew on Beijing opera for subject material. The world of the stage, with its clear delineations between the loyal and the treacherous and just deserts for the good and the evil, corresponded to the artist's upright personality, and also provided him with a Utopian outlet for his sentiments. In Untitled 180, various elements of Beijing opera have been fused together: the stage space, the magnificent backdrop, the projected rays of light, and the palette of theatrical make-up and wardrobe are combined to create an abstract tone. Ethnic flavour permeates the drawing without ever being concretely portrayed. It is as if the artist captured the dance of light and shadow and the dynamic interplay of characters of a heartily performed opera and distilled all of it into this work of art.

A Chiselled Whirlwind of Colour, Bursting with Speed and Emotion

Wu Dayu's use of colour does more than reproduce the physical world; it reflects individual emotions that touch the beholder from the eye to the soul. On the subject of Wu's crayon works, the art critic Pedro Tseng said, "using a dream-like colour system to reorganise the divided planes of Cubism, he subtly arranges colours such as red, orange, yellow, and green in small segments accompanied by broken lines and planes of black, grey, purple, and blue that increase the psychological layers of mystery. The resulting tableau produces complementary sensations of movement: unification within variance". The angular purple planes create sharp and bold divisions in Untitled 180. The numerous round shapes amid them—some large, some small, some clear, others obstructed—seem like gears in a machine that regulates the rhythm of the drawing and builds its sense of movement. The four corners are relatively sparse in colour, a technique that ensures that the elastic and wilful architecture of the rich tableau retains a sense of space and light. Unlike his oil paintings, Wu Dayu's works in crayon possess a boldly carved primitivism that highlights the speed and force of his hand. These characteristics are reminiscent of the wild, cursive kuangcao and feibai styles of calligraphy, and the aesthetic realm of the wulouhen (water stains on the wall) idiom. This method bestows the artwork with its texture and reveals the joyous and uninhibited creation process behind it. The viewer travels through time and space to personally experience the emotions of the artist in the moment of creativity.

In addition sharing his ideas about the use of crayons with his student Jiang Hongkui, the artist also sent him a poem in 1975. Of the eight lines and forty characters in this traditionally formatted poem, six lines and fourteen characters are related to colour (「碧血」、「赤衷」、「眼紅」、「燼火」、「明霞」、「紫朱」、「丹心」). In both his poetry and his artwork, Wu Dayu was skilled at using colour to evoke a scene and express his emotions and will. More intense colours indicate stronger emotions. The tableau of Untitled 180, dominated by the bold combination of purple and red, perfectly corresponds to the fifth and sixth lines of this poem.

Crimson Red Blood from My Scarlet Chest, 1975

Coughing blood has become regular, for more than one decade, almost two. Frequent and heavy, without disruptions in between.  I am not concerned if other people might know, I myself have forgotten already. The lingering sense of confusion has overwhelmed my heart. Free of worries about taboos, I copied the following, to get them off my chest, for my dear friend Fengbai’s amusement.

Crimson red blood came out of my scarlet chest; fleeting lights entered my red eyes.

In the eternal night, there are ashes in the fire, the bright glow of sunset leaves its mark on the vast, open sky.

The purple and the red (the wrong and the right) brought chaos to the heart, entrapping myself, unable to tell the path between West and East.

My earnest and sincere heart cannot be robbed, thousands of years of history all at the bottom of my heart.