.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The crisscrossing mountain paths wind between layers of continuous peaks; groups of people carrying goods climb step by step along the sloping trails toward the distant mountains veiled in mist. For the residents of Chongqing, this may be nothing more than the rhythm of daily life; for Wu Guanzhong, however, it was a vivid and warm scene etched in his memory.
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the National Art Academy was forced to relocate multiple times. Wu Guanzhong followed the school across the southwest and eventually completed his studies in Kunming, later settling in Chongqing, where he met his lifelong partner.
Looking back on those turbulent yet formative years, he wrote: “During the eight years of the Second Sino-Japanese War, I lived in the outskirts of Chongqing for five years. The landscapes and people of Sichuan remain vivid in my mind, like a second hometown. I returned to Sichuan many times to paint; each visit stirred deep emotions and brought the years rushing back.” (In Commemoration of Birth, People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, December 2008, p.177) This bond forged in wartime and youth made Chongqing an indispensable place in his life. It is for this reason that he returned repeatedly to Sichuan in the 1970s, using his brush to answer the past that continued to draw him back.
Painted in 1979, A Mountain Village of Chongqing, captures the terrain of the mountain city with its soaring peaks, deep valleys, and undulating slopes that set the rhythm of the residents’ everyday lives. The vertical bamboo scaffolds in the foreground establish a clear linear rhythm; the crowds move horizontally through the scene in the middle ground; and the background layers of pale pigments evoke the soft haze of the “fog city.” With the principle “figurative in form, abstract in spirit,” Wu Guanzhong orchestrated the composition with precision, allowing the viewer’s gaze to shift between alternative directions, generating a distinct visual rhythm. The everyday life of the mountain city thus becomes, in his hands, a dual act of representation—one that recalls lived experience while reaching toward deeper layers of his memories.
When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the National Art Academy was forced to relocate multiple times. Wu Guanzhong followed the school across the southwest and eventually completed his studies in Kunming, later settling in Chongqing, where he met his lifelong partner.
Looking back on those turbulent yet formative years, he wrote: “During the eight years of the Second Sino-Japanese War, I lived in the outskirts of Chongqing for five years. The landscapes and people of Sichuan remain vivid in my mind, like a second hometown. I returned to Sichuan many times to paint; each visit stirred deep emotions and brought the years rushing back.” (In Commemoration of Birth, People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, December 2008, p.177) This bond forged in wartime and youth made Chongqing an indispensable place in his life. It is for this reason that he returned repeatedly to Sichuan in the 1970s, using his brush to answer the past that continued to draw him back.
Painted in 1979, A Mountain Village of Chongqing, captures the terrain of the mountain city with its soaring peaks, deep valleys, and undulating slopes that set the rhythm of the residents’ everyday lives. The vertical bamboo scaffolds in the foreground establish a clear linear rhythm; the crowds move horizontally through the scene in the middle ground; and the background layers of pale pigments evoke the soft haze of the “fog city.” With the principle “figurative in form, abstract in spirit,” Wu Guanzhong orchestrated the composition with precision, allowing the viewer’s gaze to shift between alternative directions, generating a distinct visual rhythm. The everyday life of the mountain city thus becomes, in his hands, a dual act of representation—one that recalls lived experience while reaching toward deeper layers of his memories.