Wu Guanzhong (1919 - 2010) Pine forest ink and colour on paper 68 x 68 cm. (26 3/4 x 26 3/4 in.) FURTHER DESCRIPTION Internationally renowned art critic James Cahill once had an insightful analysis on Wu Guanzhong’s works: “His works are full of the features most characteristic of Chinese art of this century, features deriving from the meeting and interaction of Western and Eastern art. As China confronts the rest of the world, her long and rich traditions can sustain her artists, but can also be a heavy burden on their backs. Aware of standing before the whole twentieth-century world, China’s artists must address the problem of how to continue in their own tradition while learning from foreign ones, how to fuse Western and Eastern art into some kind of unity. Among these artists Wu Guanzhong stands out as one of the leaders. He himself exemplifies the unceasing distress and constant searching of recent Chinese painting, and his art is a crystallization of that distress and searching.” Wu Guanzhong’s ideology for his homeland was deeply rooted in the theme of his works. Most of his pieces made use of a mix of compound tones, drawing from the great folk art of the Jiangnan and lower Yangtze River regions, to present a fusion of scholarly delight and folk customs. This was not a simple combination of the elements of folk art, but a complete regeneration of a modern vocabulary that became his unique personal style, an original path that went beyond traditional Chinese aesthetics, to blend Chinese with Western creativity. His works added a new dimension to the spirit and style of Chinese painting and promoted it to the world.