breakthrough
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 Still life with a rose oil on canvas, 46 x 65 cm, 1955 signed lower left Exhibitions: Monaco 96/97, Taipei97 & reproduced He continues to pursue his training as an artist. First, he adopts the objective proposal of the impressionists to describe an instant in Nature, then, Cézanne's subjective principle to show the instant in the eye of the painter. Cézanne's idea, a foundation for modern art, brings him closer to the Chinese theory that painting is an expression of the thoughts and feelings of its creator. The Still Life With Rose (above) painted around 1955, is characteristic of the evolution of his art. His integration of texture, color, and principles of physical reality, challenges the line, the essential means of description and expression in Chinese painting. Three methods are being used here: The pure color defines the physical reality of the fruits on the table. The line shapes the persimmons and the foliage located in the center. Finally, the rose is constructed in a combination of lines and colors that render reality. An oblique shift occurs between the rose and the center where the persimmons and the foliage compose an ink painting, a picture within the picture that translates the reflection of the painter. In 1964, in his Homage to Cézanne (6), T'ang imitates part of the composition of the Large Bathers from the collections of the Philadelphia Museum. However, the eroticism that transpires from it is closer to the Bacchanale, from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The inspiration found by Cézanne in Rubens or Poussin matches his desire to create a type of art "as solid as the one found in museums" just as Manet before him, found the source of his Olympia in the Venus of Urbino by the Titian. T'ang himself plays the game of interpretation, or rather hijacking. Even though he adopts the pyramidal grouping of the figures, the slant of the trees and the game of transparencies, he parts the composition through its middle, unbalancing it, so setting it in motion.
(continued tomorrow)
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T A O t e C H I N G 
f o r
t y - f o u r
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Fame or self: Which matters more? Self or wealth: Which is more precious? Gain or loss: Which is more painful? He who is attached to things will suffer much. He who saves will suffer heavy loss. A contented man is never disappointed. He who knows when to stop does not find himself in trouble. He will stay forever safe. — translation by GIA-FU
FENG
Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success of failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never truly be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. — translation by STEVEN
MITCHELL
A contented man knows himself to be more precious even than fame, and so, obscure, remains. He who is more attached to wealth than to himself suffers more heavily from loss. He who knows when to stop might lose, but in safety stays. — translation by STAN
ROSENTHAL
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