I am deeply interested in the wonder of the human body and its role in art. Many of the artists I talked about in my last blogs were women. What about seeing the female body through the lens of a male artist?
Sanyu, or Changyu 常玉 is a Chinese modernist artist of the Paris School. He was born in a wealthy family in Sichuan and later lived in Paris. Sanyu is known for his paintings of nude women, flowers, and small animals that synthesizes Impressionism with Chinese calligraphy.
While all of his women have elongated bodies, reminiscent of Romantic or Mannerism, his styles varied. One, he gives his elegant figures a bold black outline, similar to the paintings during Cloisonnism. He would then loosely fill the outlined figure with a mustard yellow. The background is mostly a roughly layered beige white.
The emptiness of a setting gives the audience a space to project their interpretations. Sanyu allows the audience to ask, who is the woman? what is she doing? where is she?
The outline is also seen in his sketches, of which he would fill with a light wash of colours. His lines are relaxed and loose, perhaps related to his practice of calligraphy as a child.
Another style, which is my favourite, is a soft, light pink, dazzling and delicate. The pink intensifies especially at the tips of fingers and toes.
Sometimes, a darker pink is used to depict the bosom and genitalia, but Sanyu’s nudes are not sexual. Rather, they are elegant, pure, and playful.
The same pink is seen in many of his flowers.
Sometimes, he paints the same flower again and again.
Sometimes, he paints others. Nevertheless, his flowers all seem serene, as if Sanyu is alone in his room and is reflecting on his life.
This sense of reflection and loneliness continues especially in his animal paintings. They often depict small animals.
A lone pony graze in an endless field of green.
A rose coloured leopard lying by itself in the field.
And Sanyu’s last painting, Lonely Elephant, where a small baby male elephant runs across an infinite sea of yellow.
In his letter to a friend, Sanyu described himself as that elephant. He did live an early life of wealth, women, and was well-liked by many. His brother, who owned a factory in China, provided for him, but after his brother’s unpredicted death, Sanyu fell into poverty. He could not afford to resume his old life, and was left alone to struggle against fate. Though he lived his later life in adversity, Sanyu still remained playful in his painting. Even at the end of his life, he thought a cute baby elephant would suit to be a symbol for himself and his life, wandering gailey, by itself, through the fields.
Sanyu would often ask women he met to lie on his couch and pose for him, and the same couch is seen in many of his paintings. I think Sanyu saw in his nudes a kind of relaxed and open attitude to the beauty of life, both the state of being alive and the experience that comes with it. Through his female nudes he celebrates the joys and beauty of living. Through his flowers, he indulges in the peacefulness of living, and through his animals, he tells the truth of his life, that with all this funhouse and play, we are alone on our own journeys.
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