| B01 |
Bonsoir, Lisa!
Leonardo da Vinci: "Portrait of Mola Lisa,"
1503, Louvre, Paris
Toulouse Lautrec: "Le Moulin Rouge," 1892, Chicago, Art Institute
"La Dance au Moulin Rouge," 1890, Henry P. McIhenny Coll., PA
Leonardo da Vinci's "La Giaconda", more familiarly known as "The
Mona Lisa", is the most famous painting in Paris' Louvre Museum. Chen
places the enigmatic Renaissance lady in a Belle Epoque (1871 - 1914) cabaret
setting. She is subdued, possibly chaste. The lively crowd is hardly that.
The most obvious contrast is the highly madeup theatrical figure on the
right with the blue face and yellow hair.
Two other interpretations: the crowds gather around the painting, but they
don't really see it; or after being gawked at by the crowds immemorial,
the sullen lady is looking back and judging them.
This is another good example of Chen's using a major icon as a visual representation
but without interest, or need, to imitate the original painter's technique.
(by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B02 |
The Rich and
the Poor
Ingres: "The Turkish Bath," 1863, Louvre,
Paris
Newsphoto: Young victim of the African drought at a refugee camp in Somalia
In this astonishing juxtaposition of two emotionladen icons, Chen drives
home the disparities of the world and calls for active compassion.
Ingres' "Turkish Bath" has been called a savant synthesis of nude
studies, and carried out like an undulating arabesque fabric, a triumph
of supple line and the summit of Ingres' musical design. The women represent
pie in the sky, all the luxury life can buy. They were born on the right
end of the supply line. Pie in the sky? They are on another moon. They are
a world apart from most fellow human beings.
The rich tapestry of colors in this piece simply cannot be caught in reproduction.
The blinding gold and deep blue are obvious. The nuances are not. The head
of the child on the left, for example, is a stunning matrix of underflows,
interweavings, and juxtapositions.
For some viewers, this canvas will always be too strong. Yet it may well
be looked back upon as one of Chen's most momentous achievements. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B03 |
Museum Visitors
Ingres: "Self-Portrait at 24 Years Old",
1804. Chantilly, Musee Conde
Chagall: "Moi et le village", 1911. Museum of Modern Art, NY
van Dongen: "Modjesko, Soprono Singer", 1903. Museum of Modern
Art, NY
This is an ultimate painting about paintings.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) is known for classic set pieces
- mythological and historical scenes - and for portraits that no one has
ever surpassed. Years ago the Director of the Detroit Institute of Arts
said to me that, after Raphael, Ingres painted the most beautiful paintings
ever created.
This is a delicious painting - Ingres going to a museum to see a collection
of twentieth-century paintings, which he would not have understood or tolerated,
and taking with him a companion from one of his won sensuous paintings.
Ingres was the bridge between Classical and Romantic painting. Although
his roots were in the former, his departures in style and subject were for
years anathema to the Academy, to which he was eventually admitted. He was
the first great radical of the nineteenth century. His foundations contributed
to the outbreak of Romanticism; yet he was so unable to swallow what Romanticism
was doing that for years he would not even shake hands with Delacroix, its
leader. So it is safe to say that Chagall, Matisse, and van Dongen, arch-moderns,
would not have made him grin. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B04 |
Guess Who is
Coming to Supper
Matisse: "Odalisque with Tambourine",
1926. Collection William S. Paley
Alexina Matisse: photo of Madame Matisse and her husband at the table, Nice.
c.a. 1929.
Chen created this painting, pure and simple, as a feast-for-the-eye homage
to Henri Matisse. The uncomplicated icons all relate to Matisse. The juxtaposition
of psychological incongruencies of the related symbols, however, also reveals
Chen's sly wit.
Matisse's works of the 1920's are notable for a swift touch of poetic ecstasy.
The nude in the Chen has an easy voluptuousness - full bodied, a complete
and sufficient woman. There is no doubt that brought to supper - as she
has been by Chen - she will dominate the table, not by being churlish or
pushy, but because there is so much to recommend her. The photo of Matisse
and his wife at the supper table would be unbearably somber in such company,
except that Chen has rendered them and the table in a vibrant reddish gold.
Matisse's abstraction expression suggests he is conjuring the painting and
perhaps wishing it would take life and converse. The dour wife seems to
be of a different world, a friend and sober companion perhaps, but no match
for Matisse's art. This must be the domestic situation not only among artists
but also in uncounted millions of households where one partner has exceptional
talent or preoccupation. Matisse may be surprised when Odalisque climbs
off her chair to sup with them; his wife will have apoplexy.
Chen has transformed the predominantly yellow and green hues of the original
Matisse Odalisque and Tambourine to a much hotter palette of pink, red,
and yellow. The color of the wallpaper on the left has been made more brilliant,
as have the colorblocks added across the top. This revision of colors made
in conjunction with the luminescent gilding of the photoicon bonds Chen's
painting together as a new entity, a painting of considerable warmth, respect,
and beauty. (by Lawrance
Jeppson) |
| B05 |
Alternatives
Toulouse-Lautrec: "The Salon at the Rue des Moulins",
1894, Museum of Modern Art, Albi
"Jane Avril Dancing in the Garden of Paris", poster, 1893
Jose de Ribera: "The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew", 1630 or 1639.
Prado, Madrid
Two worlds, two lifeways. Toulouse-Lautrec painted a large six-figure (originally
eight until the framer chopped it) canvas of the Salon at the Rue des Moulins.
Chen has taken part of that canvas as the totem to represent the demi-monde.
Ribera's monumental square painting shows executioners preparing the martyrdom
and a passel of onlookers. Chen has eliminated a dozen figures and used
only the parched, naked body of the apostle, the vertical mast, and the
crossbar raising the figure. By adding a few buildings of the Utrillo style
he makes the impression that the execution will transpire on a Paris street.
The scene fills the window of the bordello. The two women in the foreground
are oblivious, but the girl on the far right in mockery appears to be offering
herself. In the upper left Chen has inserted a vignette of Jane Avril on
stage behind a drapery from a poster strongly influenced by the work of
the Japanese Hokusai, Utamaro, ans Shundo.
Chen's composition is a strong manifestation of diagonal lines and triangles.
It is sufficient to point out and contrast the arms and legs of Bartholomew,
the woman in the black stockings, and Jane Avril. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B06 |
Three-Master Way
Matisse: "The Hindu Pose" (1932)
Gauguin: "The Moon and the Earth" (1893)
Picasso: "Nude Dressing her Hair" (1940)
Blue, red, yellow; Picasso, Gauguin, Matisse; Cubism, Post-Impressionism,
Fauvism are evidently manifested in this "Three-Master Way"
by T. F. Chen. Dr. Chen's Post-Picasso-Matisse series in 1995-96 is the
outcome of his successive publications of Picasso and Matisse, two art
books in Chinese. Chen's study on van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, Picasso
and Matisse etc. besides enriching his understanding and appreciation
of them, has provided icons and images for his "Neo-Iconography"
paintings. In a way, it seems that Chen has his version of Western Modern
Art.
In this quasi-triptych, we see three masters marching shoulder to shoulder.
Picasso's "Nude Dressing her Hair" is a Cubistic sculptural
painting with heavy and shortcut reliefs, Chen purposely colored the background
in brilliant blue to give a sharp contrast to Gauguin's red and Matisse's
yellow.
Chen reduced the mysterious ambiance in Gauguin's "The Moon and
the Earth" and saturated the dimly red of the woman to a bloody brilliance
in order to contrast the darken Earth-God. Beneath him, the red spring
water reflects the red Goddess who is turning her back to the viewer,
thus give the front-posing figure of this painting a necessary variation.
Quite bright and fleshy is Matisse's Odalisque in an interior of yellow
and vermilion. She sits on a green sofa causing the scene an impression
of Youth and Hope. Chen expressively emphasized the yellow to envigorate
the red and the green in Matisse's inspiration. As for the size, the two
sides of this triptych are equal and larger than the middle part which
is narrower, yet full of energy due to its red and the deepness.
In Chinese classics, Confucius said that among three persons walking
side by side, there must be one I can learn from. As this three-in-one
painting shows, we can learn not only from them all, but each of them
looks more unique, profound and enriching when they are put together.
(by T. F. Chen)
|
| B07 |
Happiness
Matisse: "Odalisque with a Tambourine"
(1925-26), "The Black Fern" (1948), "The Yellow Curtain"
(1915)
Chagall: "The Red Roofs" (1953-54)
Matisse's sojourn in Nice after 1920 released a series of "Odalisque"
in full richness and fragrance. It's modern and exotic at the same time
traditional and classic: easy yet elaborate, simplified yet expressive.
Matisse indeed has pushed his "nude" beyond Western rendering,
bringing sensuality, vivacity and virtuosity.
In this painting "Happiness" by T. F. Chen, Matisse's Odalisque
still occupies squarely the canvas. Replacing original window panels and
the tambourine, we see Chagall's red roofs with an artist holding his
palette and bowing. The posture echoes the lady's gesture which keeping
balance to the movement of the canvas. On the other side of the wall,
appears Matisse's simplified "Yellow Curtain" in contrast to
the noisy "Black Fern" underneath. This is a new picture of
an assumptive artist studio with modified arrangement to give a different
aspect of Matisse's inspiration.
The actual size of this new painting is 66x48 inches while the original
"Odalisque with a Tambourine" is 28 3/4 x 21 1/4 inches. To
enlarge a canvas not only stimulates a desire to treat the figure and
its surrounding differently but also to integrate another paintings and
modify them in accordance with the inner life of a new painting.
Such a research gives pain and joy in doing a post-modern work out of
the masterpieces we are familiar to and love so much.
Such process of integrating selectively and creatively some masterpieces
into one produces not only a synthetic deja-vu in a fresh light, but also
allow you to mingle with the creative life of earlier masters. It's an
exciting experience. In one aspect, it's an iconoclastic act, sacrifying
the old masters to bring "Neo-Iconography" art into existence.
Such kind of modern to modern-post to post-modern procedure paves the
way to an aspect of computer art where new images are made by combining
and composing already-existed different images and this is why Chen's
Neo-Iconography, initiated in 1969, is regarded as the avant-garde of
Post-Modernism and of computer art. (by T. F.
and Julie Chen)
|
| B08 |
Miro and Matisse Dancing
Miro: "Woman at Mirror" (1957)
Matisse: "The Circus" from "Jazz" (1947)
In 1941, Matisse suffered an intestinal ailment and had serious abdominal
surgery. After a long convalescence, being bedridden, Matisse developed
a new method for his art creation: papies-decoupes, paper cutout "drawing
with scissor" as he said. He covered sheets of paper with a uniform
color in gouache, them, with one or several colors at hand, cut out the
forms and pasted them on the picture's surface. With this method, Matisse
achieved many great monumental works in his late life.
The "Circus" was one of the 20 color plates of Jazz painted
in pochoir after a series of paper-cutouts that date as early as 1943.
Here stylized forms and alphabets play with prime colors enhanced by the
black. As Matisse said: "I have to find signs that are related to
the quality of my own invention", and with this new method Matisse
fused color-from-sign in one simplified-suggestive-expressive cut.
Among masters of the 20th century, Miro was the mostly related to signs,
a language of art of his own, through evolutions in his career. Like ancient
inventors of Chinese characters, he formulated his personal vocabulary,
a kind of pictograms for his art: stars, birds, cats, men and women, insects,
eyes, hands, feet, mouth, nose ..... square, triangle, circle ..... in
vivid colors and blacks, primitive yet delicate, childish yet suave, vivid
and bold, charm and decorative. It's astonishing to see, in someway, Matisse
and Miro arrived at the same conclusion, and produced similar works, as
this new painting "Miro and Matisse Dancing Together" by T.
F. Chen who juxtaposed Matisse's "Circus" on top of Miro's "Women
at Mirror" to reveal the surprising "Convergence" of these
two masters.
As Matisse said: "The importance of an artist is to be measured
by the number of new signs he has introduced into the language of art",
both Matisse and Miro had brought to Modern Art new signs and new methods.
(by T. F. Chen)
|
| B09 |
Good Report
Van Gogh: "Potato Eaters", 1885. lithograph
Paper money, traditional woodblock print of
Taiwan
In a letter to his brother Theo (30 April 1885) Vincent van Gogh explained,
"I have tried to emphasize that those people, eating their potatoes
in the lamplight, have dug the earth with those very hands they put in
the dish, and so [the painting] speaks of manual labor, and how they have
honestly earned their food. I have wanted to give the impression of a
way of life quite different from that of us civilized people. Therefore
I am not all anxious for everyone to like it or to admire is at once".
One supposes that before eating their potatoes the devout Dutch peasants
have offered a blessing on their food.
The paper money employed in this painting is called Tsong-beh. The Taiwanese
burn (sacrifice) it early in the morning, of 24 December of the Chinese
lunar calendar in order to send to heaven their domestic gods who will
report to the Almighty what the family has done during the year. (by
Lawrance Jeppson)
|
| B10 |
Blessing Buffalo
Paper money: traditional woodblock print of Taiwan
If Chen were not into iconography he could make a world-class reputation
by continuing his outpouring of Formosan folklore. From this source, which
ultimately traces back to mainland China, he has created lavish images which
are bold and unique to him.
When Chen was working this folklore from the richly colorful villages of
Taiwan too many other images crowded into his consciousness. He could not
confine his attention to this folklore and its many forms, and he had to
give it up. But he occasionally rewards us by dipping back into that well
with big buckets.
This four-segment painting is a cunning concept.
Reading clockwise from the upper right:
Paper money, legal tender for changing fate.
Paper money with twelve-essence-of-soul for protection.
A water buffalo, which has become the Taiwanese symbol for a people at an
historical crossroads, as the political and economic world changes swiftly.
What will be their fate?
A mirror in a black field. Any viewer who looks in will see himself and
discover the one blessor who can most effectively change his/ her fate.
(by Lawrance Jeppson)
|
| B11 |
Whatching the
Universe Watching Us
Source: Seated Buddha, from the Caves of the Thousand
Buddhas, Tunhuang, China
Fifty years ago, on American radio there was a rustic comedian named Bob
Burns who played a home-made sliding horn which he called a bazooka (during
World War II, GIs attached the name to their shoulder-launched antitank
missile weapon.) Burns and the bazooka both sounded like gravel.
A friend stopped Burns suddenly while they were walking through a swamp.
"Burns!" he yelled. "Do you see that enormous bullfrog sitting
over there?" Burns replied, "I do, indeed. And I think he sees
me!"
The Earth and Buddhas. Burns and the Frog. Simple truths. We look to the
heavens - and the heavens see us. When we fail to believe that truth, our
character deteriorates.
Chen once said to me, "Every moment in your life is unique. If you
have done something good in this moment, that is eternal."
Apart from the theology, the pattern of the thirty-two Buddhas is a marvelous
work of art in itself. Although the lower half of the picture is a look
back at the earth from the moon, it could be a look between any two celestial
bodies - or any two astro/theological concepts. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B12 |
Ascendance
Jose de Ribera: "La Trinite", ca. 1636. Madrid,
Prado
Dove a la G.Braque
The crucified Christ icon by Jose de Ribera (1591-1652) is similar to the
artist's Crucifixion of St. Bartolomew seen through the window of Hangups.
Ribera's compositions achieved an exceptional monumentality. His early works
were like a lighted drama happening in a setting of dark shadows. He rendered
penitent saints and ancient philosophers as beggars. His palette clarified
as he grew older, but his works remained monumental, and by the time he
died he was one of the most important masters of Baroque art. He was of
immense influence in Spain and Italy and much later upon certain painters
of 19th century France.
Georges Braque (1882-1963) was a founder with Picasso of Cubism. Towards
the end of his career after World War II he began painting a bird whose
wings were extended in abstract space. He first used the theme while decorating
the ceiling of the Etruscan room of the Louvre Museum. He took the bird
and its variations into other realms, and the Braque bird became a ubiquitous
icon. The bird became the last symbol of meditation of an artist who seemed
to want to escape to the inanimate world of his own painting.
Braque's bird flies with the doves of Picasso and Magritte as symbols of
peace and human hope. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B13 |
Hangups
Toulouse-Lautrec: "The Salon at the Rue des
Moulins", 1894, Museum of Modern Art, Albi
"Jane Avril Dancing in the Garden of Paris", poster, 1893
Jose de Ribera: "The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew", 1630 or
1639. Prado, Madrid
Two worlds, two lifeways. Toulouse-Lautrec painted a large six-figure
(originally eight until the framer chopped it) canvas of the Salon at
the Rue des Moulins. Chen has taken part of that canvas as the totem to
represent the demi-monde. Ribera's monumental square painting shows executioners
preparing the martyrdom and a passel of onlookers. Chen has eliminated
a dozen figures and used only the parched, naked body of the apostle,
the vertical mast, and the crossbar raising the figure. By adding a few
buildings of the Utrillo style he makes the impression that the execution
will transpire on a Paris street. The scene fills the window of the bordello.
The two women in the foreground are oblivious, but the girl on the far
right in mockery appears to be offering herself. In the upper left Chen
has inserted a vignette of Jane Avril on stage behind a drapery from a
poster strongly influenced by the work of the Japanese Hokusai, Utamaro,
ans Shundo.
Chen's composition is a strong manifestation of diagonal lines and triangles.
It is sufficient to point out and contrast the arms and legs of Bartholomew,
the woman in the black stockings, and Jane Avril. (by
Lawrance Jeppson)
|
| B14 |
Delicious
Secret
Titian: "Venus with a Mirror", 1555. National
Gallery, Washington D.C.
Paris-match: photo of Nixon and Brezhnev
Titian's Venus again is put to service. The arrangement is similar to "Love
above Confrontation", the Picassoesque head is derived from no specific
painting. Reduced and made the least significant of the figures, it still
serves as a foil for Venus as it did in the other picture. But a buddy-buddy
photo of the American president and the Russian premier dominates. Either
one of those female heads is more beautiful than they.
Before the 20th century, Europe (Britain, France, Germany - individually
and collectively) was the superpower that controlled the world. Now European
superpower is broken. The flags of England, strongest nation in Europe are
half-mast. Two new superpowers have entered Europe from outside, an irony
that Chen underscores with the backward reading sign over Nixon-Brezhnev:
Entree Libre. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B15 |
Enigma
Raphael: "School of Athens", 1509-11, Vatican
Goya: "The Young Woman", Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille
Picasso: "La Grande Baigneuse", 1921
Here Chen again combines a male figure, Plato, from Raphael's "School
of Athens", with an inflated neoclassical Picasso woman. In contrast
to Aristotle, whose gesture is towards practical, down-to-earth science,
Plato's gesture is heavenward, not to God but to the ethereal truths of
philosophy.
This was one of the first paintings done in a manner that has become Chen's
Neo-iconography. Here he realized that a combination of figures gathered
from disparate sources becomes a new painting. This combination itself is
the actual subject of the painting. The harlequin floor, Goya's dog, William
Tell's apple, and the menacing glare of Picasso spying through a window
are all compositional elements before being philosophical.
In "Lamentation" and "Enigma" Chen largely had only
one black and white illustration of his original sources. So he was not
coerced by anyone else's ideas of color but was free to work out his own
color dynamics, which have much to do with the beauty, cohesiveness, and
power of all his paintings. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B16 |
Target
Cezanne: "Still Life with Peppermint Bottle",
1890-94. National Gallery, Washington D.C.
Da Vinci: "Skull", study of anatomy
Shooting may be sport or disease. What is the intent? What are the targets?
The bulls eye and the apple: legitimate targets, one for formal sport, the
other for outdoor plinking. Unless, of course, the apple is William Tell's
and sitting on someone's head or on someone's sill. The human skull - nor
any part of the body - is not an acceptable target. Nor are birds usually,
unless your life is threatened by hordes of them with inhuman designs, as
in Alfred Hitchcock's "Birds", which was Chen's actual inspiration
for this composition, even though the bird motif is rather insignificant.
(You can find another pair of wings disguised as apple leaves).
All of this brings us to the central image, one of Cezanne's most original
still lifes. For backcountry plinking, nothing is more satisfying than the
sudden smacking of glistening glass.
The composition is a fascinating duel between round forms, which are Eastern
and feminine, and the tough squares and triangles, which are more Western
and masculine. The latter intrude everywhere, even cutting the circular
targets into wedges. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B17 |
Lamentation
Raphael: "School of Athens", 1509-11, Vatican
Rene Magritte: "La Grande Famille", 1963
Picasso: "La Grande Baigneuse", 1921
Newspaper photo from war in Vietnam
When commissioned by Pope Julius II, Raphael's frescoes for the Pope's library
(later converted to the seat of the papal tribunal) were intended to glorify
Truth, Goodness and Beauty. "School of Athens", the second fresco,
symbolized a rational search for truth through philosophy and science. Nearly
fifty figures from arts and sciences are held together in Raphael's rather
dry triumph of composition. For "Lamentation", Dr. Chen has lifted
one of the two dominant images, Aristotle. (The other major figure, Plato,
is used in the pendant Enigma). Aristotle stretches his hand before him,
palm downward to the earth, in an emphasis of science, an earth-bound discipline
governed by testing, data collection, and proven results.
Chen has combined the solemn Aristotle with an equally imposing counterpart
from the twentieth century, a voluminous, quasi-sculptured Picasso woman.
They represent a couple who have lost a son in the war.
Because the parents come form widely separated eras they can represent parents
of any time. Here the Aristotelian hand becomes a gesture repulsing war,
represented by the helmet with its streak of blood, the skull, and the coffin
hung with medals of combat valor.
Magritte's bird hovers in the background, a symbol of hope for the future.
(by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B18 |
Eternal
Staring
Petrus Christus: "Portrait of a Young Girl",
Berlin, Staatliche Museum
Miro: "The Harlequin's Carnival", 1924-25
Picasso: "Recumbent Nude", 1942
Riddles, riddles, riddles.
The young girl derived from the shadowy Flemish artist Petrus Christus (d.1473)
seems as enigmatic as da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
Chen puts her inside an austere black box, as if she were an object trapped
in a wall composed of miscellaneous contrivances by the late American sculptor
Louise Nevelson (1900-1989).
He surrounds this head coffin with a storm of clowns and taunts her with
a Cubist rendering of a nude woman, as if to suggest two sides of morality,
the prim and the carnal.
The top of the girl's hat is outside the box. Does that mean she can escape
to the clowns? To temptations?
Play with this piece. You can conjure more questions than you can answers.
The philosophical Chen makes us think. The wry Chen lets us play. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B19 |
Degraded
Modern Man
Michelangelo: "God, Creation of Adam". Sistine
Chapel
If you believe that Man was created in the image of God, this Manichaean
debauchery is a repulsive image. Man - so brilliantly depicted taking the
flash of life from God in the Michelangelo masterpiece - has fallen, a slave
to drugs, a wasted and useless flesh.
This Adam later was called Everyman. This Adam has become minion to Lucifer.
There is no icon to redemption in this painting. Even though it is disguised
as a lamp, there is an all-seeing eye icon. Every debauch, every stupidity,
every ingestion of drug will be meticulously recorded. Eventually every
Adam/Eve will have comeuppance and be judged. That may not be a happy day
for everyone. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B20 |
Renaissance
Woman
Pisanello: "Ginevra d'Este", ca. 1437. Louvre,
Paris
After that Adamnable piece it is a relief to find an artwork which simply
gives us the icon of a Renaissance beauty, without making us work too hard.
Antonio Pisano, called Pisanello, (ca 1395-ca 1450), was an exceptional
draftsman, as lodes of drawings in Paris, Milan, Vienna, and London attest.
Portraits, nudes, animals, costumes. Everything interested him. Five and
a half centuries ago he worked in Mantua for the court of Ganzaga. Spectacular
frescoes on the wall of the ducal palace have been discovered which, though
incomplete, bear capital testament to the brilliance of the painter: an
immense melee of horsemen, wandering soldiers, beautiful women watching
battle, legends, including King Arthur, Gothic chivalry. Ginevra d'Este
was one of the Gonzagas.
Although the Renaissance was a period of many excesses, it was also a period
of humanistic enlightenment, piety, and loveliness, as this elegant icon
reminds us. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B21 |
Smiling
over the Pyramid
Da Vinci: "La Joconde". Louvre, Paris
Michelangelo: "God, Creation of Adam". Sistine Chapel
Chen gives the puzzling Mona Lisa a sideways pyramidal composition and emphasizes
this by including a desert landscape of pyramids.
Chen's eye and mind discovered four visual symbols in Western culture. The
first was the pyramid, which he used to represent the essential of Egyptian
civilization. Its spirit was geometric, firm, collective, immobile, hierarchic,
stubborn, sealed off. It had a penchant for abstraction, stylization, and
eternity.
Egyptian civilization was the cradle of Western culture, and the Renaissance,
represented by this woman, was one of its distant flowerings. The hand of
God, which reaches out to touch the portrait, suggests that deity had a
direct role in that development.
This is the better pole of the Manichaean dualism suggested by Degraded
Modern Man. Perhaps all is not lost, after all. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B22 |
Pyramide
Vivante
Boticelli: "Spring", ca. 1477-78. Uffizi,
Florence
Picasso: "Head of a Young Girl", 1948-50. Private collection,
Turin, Italy
Without presuming to characterize ancient Egyptian religion, Chen stages
a nighttime festival of death inside the Pyramid of Khufu, while the nearby
Sphynx stands guard. The columnar stripes within the pyramid suggest ancient
Rome and Roman law, and the rhythmical figures are from Renaissance, when
Egyptian and Roman civilizations were part of a cultural fusion. For all
their Botticellian origin, however, the dancing girls are appropriately
grim. It is as if a wrong accent on the rhythm of a chant or a misdirected
body movement would bring down Osiris's wrath and throw them to a second
death of extinction.
If Picasso is sometimes difficult to decipher, a Picasso Sphynx is doubly
enigmatic. We are accustomed to being stumped by that massive ancient figure,
whether garbed a la Picasso or not. It no longer frightens us. In the lower
right, the two small figures of camels turned into operating gallows are
infinitely more disturbing. A penalty for those graces who fail the dance
of death? Or Middle Eastern apocalyptic talismen? (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B23 |
Dream,
Music, Space
Giorgione: "Sleeping Venus", 1508. Dresden
Museum
Paul Klee: "La Grande Coupole", 1927. Kunstmuseum, Berne
This painting is so overtly yin-yang that Chen has placed its Chinese symbol
glaring from the sky, as another moon, a sun, or an eye. The male yang component
is red and is an emblem of life, heat, light. Yang is active, positive,
dynamic, spiritual. The female yin component is an emblem of death, darkness,
and cold. Psychologically, culturally, esthetically, yin is passive, receptive,
terrestrial, material, and negative. The combined symbol is t'ai-chi, the
Great Absolute.
For Western eyes a more accessible evocation of man/woman lies in the Klee's
"Great Dome", which Edmund Burke Feldman calls, "a striking
illustration of two major types of shape - the biomorphic and the geometric.
In addition to its visual interest, The Great Dome constitutes philosophic
statement expressed through modest, unassuming lines and symbolic shapes
in the guise of architectural description ..... the dome is the architectural
expression of the female breast, the symbol of maternal nurture. In the
right half of the picture Klee portrays a tower, symbol of the male principal...."
(Varities of Visual Expression).
The t'ai-chi, the dome, and the tower overlook the figure of Venus asleep,
which, says Lionello Venturi, Giorgione painted simply for the pretext of
painting a nude figure. Giorgione reveled with three Venetian noble companions
(one of whom owned this picture) in musical and social pleasures. Chen appropriately
has Venus dreaming of Mozart.
A Henry Moore-like figure suggesting maternity - resting on an inverted
Egyptian pyramid with roman column stripes - a polyhedron, and flying buttresses
complete the composition. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B24 |
Our
World
Picasso: "Horse's Head", 1937
Miro: Personnage devant la Nature", 1973. Philadelphia Museum of Art
Bartolomeo Vivarini: "Virgin and Child", ca. 1470. National Gallery
of Art, Washington, D.C.
Clashing symbols of our time, left to right - politics: a silhouette of
Giscard d'Estaing. The underworld: a mafia godfather. War strife, famine,
lawlessness: Picasso's shrieking Guernica horse. Maturity, family life,
constancy, piety, devotion: a Renaissance Madonna. The Miro dragon in the
red sky is another evil omen. On balance, the Madonna values are overpowered,
chewed up - but somehow still surviving. (by
Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B25 |
Martyr et Esperance
Rene Magritte: "La Grande Famille", 1963
Leonardo da Vinci: "Madonna a l'oillet", Munich, Alle Pinakothek
"La Vierge aux Rochers", Louvre, Paris
Marc Chagall: "La Martyr", 1940
This piece is similar to "Hope for Peace" (c.f. D04). Magritte's
transparent dove of peace is back, as are the Da Vinci figures. Chagall's
martyr figure, used twice, and Picasso's Cubist head make first appearances.
(by Lawrance Jeppson) |
| B26 |
Fighting and Watching
This picture is a political allegory, mixing mythological folk figures
with real persons (treated in Pointillism), taking from a news-photo of
a physical quarrel in the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan, July 15, 1995 on
the issue of Presidential Election.
Released from a 38-year long martial law, Taiwan marched toward democracy
and free election since 1987. Yet the struggle for democratization is
a long way with high price. Here we see Legislators from different parties,
chiefly from DPP (Democratic Progressive Party), KMT (Koumingtang) and
New Party were fighting on the floor out of different opinions and policies.
On the top of them appears images of popular deities from Chinese folk
art suggesting politicians and people on the Mainland China are watching.
The issue of Taiwan has become a current issue of complicacy and uncertainty.
It becomes more and more an international concern, regarding not only
the confrontation around the Taiwan Strait, the democratization of the
area, but also the stability and peace in Asia and the relationship among
China, Taiwan and the United States.
This painting bears a Chinese meaning: "Three Parties won't be enough
to satisfy". In fact, any domestic issue can become a global concern
in our age of interdependence and globalization. (
T. F. Chen )
|
| B27 |
Time and Space
Dali: "Christ of St. John of the Cross"
(1951)
Photo of an American astronaut
The fantasy of Marc Chagall was described on the canvas revealing an
imagination out of time and space. Chagall preferred to regard his fanciful
image as "reality" of an inner world. Physical time and space
are measurable while our inner time and space are mingled in categories
and rich in layers, if we believe in the reincarnation of Buddhism.
In this painting by T. F. Chen, our outer space is shared by astronauts,
historical figures and imaginative creatures. Space is visible here while
time is felt through (the suggestion of) movements. When Chen was in Paris,
he established his 5-dimensional cultural view out of the revelation of
astronauts landing on the Moon. Scientists applied Einstein's E=MC2 (square)
and "Relativity" theory of the fourth-dimension (of time) to
reach the Moon. "Is there a fifth-dimensional exist?" Chen asked
then. Chen thought the fifth-dimension could not be but God, the unifying
of time and space, the origin of creation and the ultimate "Omega
Point" of evolution, with "Love" as its essence, as indicated
by Teilhard de Chardin.
"Time and space are the foundation of the Universe and the manifestation
of creation, therefore life is the gift of God whose existence ought to
be beyond time and space". Thought Chen when he was producing this
artwork.
In this painting "Time" is suggested by Chagall's clock floating
on the space filled with human activities. Where are the angles? (by
T. F. Chen)
|
| B29 |
Nightmare
Chagall: "The Fall of the Angel" (1923-1933-1947)
Gauguin: "Manao Tupapau (Spirit of the Dead Watching)" (1892)
This painting by T. F. Chen depicts a naked girl on the bed frightened
by a falling angel in flamme while a leopard is just going to jump on
her. Fortunately it is supposed to be her dream. The contrast between
the dreamer on the bed and the figures in the dream is sharp as the menacing
nightmare, occupying 2/3 of the canvas, seems to swallow the girl.
In fact, the nude is Gauguin's "vahine", his adolescent Tahitian
wife. In "Noa Noa" Gauguin wrote:
"One day I had to go to Papetee and I promised to come back that
night. A carriage that was returning that evening took me half way and
the rest I had to do on foot. It was one o'clock in the morning when I
got back ...... The lamp had gone out and I entered the room was in darkness
..... I lit some matches and on the bed I saw Manao Tupapau (Spirit of
the Dead Watching). The poor child recovered consciousness and I did everything
I could to reassure her, "Never leave me again without any light!"
The painting Gauguin did was "a young native girl lies in her belly,
showing a portion of her lightened face. She lies on a bed covered with
a blue pareo and a light chrome-yellow sheet ..... I," Gauguin continued
to say "wish to make a chaste picture of it, and imbue it with the
native feeling, character, and tradition." So Gauguin used purple
to paint "a background of terror" with an old woman representing
the Spirit of the dead watching over the soul of the scared young girl.
Chen replaced Gauguin's background with Chagall's falling angel and a
leopard jumping out of the grass beneath them, a rabbi slipping backward,
a candle, several old houses in Chagall's Vitebsk, a scene of Jesus Christ
on the Cross and some planets and a space shuttle. The Bible scene and
cosmic night may equally frighten the girl. Such shifting from Tahitian
nightmare to Western mythology and high-tech may indicate the inevitable
panic brought from the quick-changing outside world to this peaceful paradise
of purity and simplicity. (by T. F. Chen)
|
| B30 |
On the Beach
Gauguin: "Riders on the Beach" (1902)
Renoir: "Girl with a Hoop" (1885)
On the rosy beach of French-colonized Tahiti, a young girl posed with
her hoop while strolling around her several horse-riders of the native
tribes-a happy sight of the belle-epoque when Renoir and Gauguin were
matured in their artistic adventures.
Renoir is surely a "bourgeois" painter of his age as the middle-class
prospered in French society and he witnessed it with his soft brush-strokes
and delicate coloring. Gauguin, on the contrary, cursing the rotting Western
civilization, preferred to live and paint beyond the confine of Europe
and in the wild purity of nature and man. Under his synthetic and harmonious
coloring, Tahiti becomes an evocative paradise with fragrant orchards,
evergreen forest, peaceful peacocks and men and women in their simple
dignity and beauty.
In this painting by Chen, Renoir's Western young girl appeared quite
naturally amid the Tahitian riders, both are well painted according to
their social and cultural traditions. She could be a daughter of a French
colonial officer there escorted by a group of indigenous guard, or, as
you like, she was playing on the beach freely while some Tahitians were
equally riding their horses as a morning exercise in a free society in
the post-colonial era. (by T. F. Chen)
|