Delicate Fragrance

Wang Jiyuan was a founding member of China’s first modern art group, the “Jue Lan Society” and he is skilled in oil painting, watercolor, and ink wash painting. He dedicates himself to cross-cultural and cross-media artistic exploration. Delicate Fragrance was created in the year that the artist first arrived in the United States. The composition continues the Post-Impressionist approach of subjective treatment of form and color. The petals are outlined simply, with layers of orange-yellow and pink-white creating a three-dimensional effect; the stems and leaves are depicted with ink lines rich in calligraphic rhythm and colors of varying depth, forming a unique cadence where “colors are shaped by lines, and the lines adhere to colors.” The background, divided into misty blue and deep purple, cleverly merges the elegance of traditional Chinese literati painting with the profundity of Western oil painting, reflecting his cultural circumstances and sense of alienation while living abroad.