Fountain

As one of the “Three Musketeers” of Chinese Modern Art, Wu Guanzhong returned to the theme of the human figure in his seventies. In doing so, he sought both to make amends for the loss of earlier works of this kind and to revisit the foundations of Western art. Fountain is a representative work from this period, inspired by his encounter with a robust woman on an Indonesian beach, which struck him as “the very model of volumetric beauty sought by Maillol and Picasso”. The ample body fills the canvas like a mountain, its undulating curves full and rhythmic, set in counterpoint with the gentle spring water and dappled blossoms and grasses. The work combines the freedom and tension of Fauvist line with the lyrical expressiveness of ink painting, while the interplay of landscape, flora and the human form creates a network of mutual metaphors. In this way, the painting offers an alternative response to many of art history’s most celebrated motifs.