SANYU | Pot de fleurs rouges

executed in 1930-40s

Acquired directly from the artist by the former owner 
Private Swiss Collection
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 1 May 2005, Lot 26
Acquired directly from the above by the former private Asian collector 
Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 4 April 2011, Lot 658
Acquired directly from the above by the present important private Asian collector 

Rita Wong, ed., Sanyu Catalogue Raisonné: Oil Paintings Volume II, The Li Ching Cultural and Educational Foundation, Taipei, 2011, plate 281, p. 89, 134

The painting surface has recently been cleaned, and the work is overall in good condition. Conservation report is available upon request.
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‘If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then it stays with you wherever you go for the rest of your life, for Paris is a moveable feast.’
excerpted from A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway Under the neon lights on the banks of the River Seine, a bizarre and beautiful banquet unfolded. This was Paris in the 1920s when the brutality of World War I had ended and young artists from all over the world gathered in Montparnasse as part of the avant-garde École de Paris. Sanyu was among these foreign artists who had grand ambitions and Eastern techniques, and together they lifted Paris to an unprecedented cultural height. This era was chaotic yet exquisite, exactly as Ernest Hemingway described life in Paris in the 1920s in A Moveable Feast. In his first 10 years of living in Paris, Sanyu encountered a dazzling array of Western aesthetic influences, and he focused on qualities specific to the Western tradition. Pot de fleurs rouges (Lot 1034), appearing in this Evening Sale, represents Sanyu’s unique aesthetic vocabulary and his early amalgamation of Eastern and Western cultures.

‘I think that Sanyu was himself a bonsai, an Eastern bonsai in the Parisian garden.’
Excerpted from Speaking on Sanyu, Wu Guanzhong

In his essay ‘Speaking on Sanyu’, Wu Guanzhong recollected old times in Paris. Viewers can look at this painting together with Wu’s Lotus Pond (Lot 1033), also offered in this Evening Sale. The lotuses are rooted in their natural habitat, while Sanyu’s flowers live in a pot, both reflecting the spiritual power of Eastern and Western art. Chinese classical literati art was his creative support, as he tested his footing in modernism. Sanyu’s earliest surviving work is Peonies, a painting in ink and wash on paper from 1921. Both the lines and brushwork retain the traditional style of literati paintings, demonstrating Sanyu’s insouciance with Western. He saw the flexibility and diversity of his larger environment as encouragement for his own culture.

Pot de fleurs rouges was painted in the 1930s or 1940s. The painting comprises of three classic colours from the 1930s, the cream in the flat background, the pale grey in the stems, leaves, and flowerpot, and the pink of the flowers. The treatment of the leaves, stems, and petals are akin to the brushstrokes of the ‘flying white’ (feibai) style in calligraphy, which highlights the object’s spirit through modulations in tone. An intensely contrasting maroon is applied to the lower part of the painting, dividing the background. The carefree lines are arranged to create a texture reminiscent of traditional Chinese wooden furnishings. Compared to the deeply colourful floral paintings towards the end of Sanyu’s career, this work achieves the same effect differently, reflecting his 1930s style, while foreshadowing his transformation in the 1950s. The lyrical charm of this painting could not be achieved in Western still-life painting alone. This work is very similar to the other roses in Sanyu’s oeuvre. He only made seven paintings of roses in the 1930s and 1940s, including this work.

‘Dandyism is the last flicker of heroism in decadent ages.’
Charles Pierre Baudelaire

Sanyu was born to a wealthy family and had an uninhibited nature. Affluence allowed him to develop refined tastes and maintain tenacity unique to the literati, especially when he created art. He played with social values in a manner reminiscent of the Four Princes of the Republic: Yuan Kewen, Pu Dong, Zhang Boju, and Zhang Xueliang. They all had similarly wealthy backgrounds and shared traits: brilliant yet modest and courteous, intrepid and uninhibited, refined and original, bold and decisive while also shouldering great responsibility. They were full of passion for art and life. As Sima Qian wrote in Records of the Grand Historian: The Grand Historian’s Self-Narration, ‘The humble he makes eminent and the poor he enriches.’ Floral still-lifes were one of his three major creative subjects, representing an inextinguishable spiritual force that helped him adhere to his artistic ideals. This aristocratic tenacity is akin to the dandyism described by modern French poet and writer Baudelaire, who lived half a century before Sanyu. Dandyism hovers above the material world, and as he says, it is ‘the last flicker of heroism.’ Such a kindred spirit allowed Sanyu to maintain his privileged position, transcending the worldly and thoroughly enjoying himself as an artist. This unconventional attitude in his work quickly attracted the attention and recognition of Henri-Pierre Roche, Robert Frank, and a group of dealers and collectors. He later experienced periods of poverty, and regardless of the state of his finances and material life, Sanyu managed to remain spiritually rich and happy, which can be seen in his still life works from this period. Pot de fleurs rouges presents his romantic, innocent spiritual reflections and his classic portrayal of an ordinary aesthetic.

Aesthetics scholar Jiang Xun noted that Sanyu’s still-life paintings of flowers and fruit were the embodiment of the artist’s nostalgia. It reflects Sanyu’s boundless feeling for his culture and spiritually representing the intensification of Sanyu’s self-awareness. This work doesn’t have any melancholic fatigue or cautious anxiety. This romantic poet wandered the world guided by a noble sentiment, cultural confidence, and boundless nostalgia. He committed his poetry to paper and composed an elegy for a bygone era, showcasing the heroic spirit of modern travellers who pursue their artistic dream.