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| Fu Baoshi (1904 – 1965) Warriors on the Night March 1945Ink and colour on paper, hanging scroll, 106.2 x 60.7 cm |
Masterpieces by Fu Baoshi from a European Collection
Making Sotheby's auction debut this October, Fu Baoshi’s Warriors on the Night March was a work dedicated to the father of French-Vietnamese collector Doan (1914 – 1978), and have been kept in a private European collection ever since. Doan was tracing the path of his ancestry and roots in China, and commissioned Fu to use a piece of history related to his Chinese last name as the key context of this painting.
Deviating away from the artist’s usual subject matter, Fu drew inspiration and reference from Book of the Later Han, one of the official works documenting the history of the Han Dynasty. He vividly portrayed warriors marching in the night, with their heads solemnly bowed in solidarity. In this work, the artist brilliantly addresses the common issues of traditional Chinese paintings – such as the lack of perspective and distance as well as the relationship between light and shadow – by adding lighter shades and tones to depict an empty space and the moonlight. Fu employs a modern approach through traditional ink medium to express both simplified and intense brushstrokes. Finely detailed, deeply evocative, Warriors on the Night March is a masterful depiction of a 20th-century war scene.
Deviating away from the artist’s usual subject matter, Fu drew inspiration and reference from Book of the Later Han, one of the official works documenting the history of the Han Dynasty. He vividly portrayed warriors marching in the night, with their heads solemnly bowed in solidarity. In this work, the artist brilliantly addresses the common issues of traditional Chinese paintings – such as the lack of perspective and distance as well as the relationship between light and shadow – by adding lighter shades and tones to depict an empty space and the moonlight. Fu employs a modern approach through traditional ink medium to express both simplified and intense brushstrokes. Finely detailed, deeply evocative, Warriors on the Night March is a masterful depiction of a 20th-century war scene.
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Photography from Sotheby's Hong Kong.
