Zao Wou-Ki’s travels. A Quest beyond Appearances

赵无极的旅程，超越表象的探索

Yann Hendgen

扬·亨德根

Art Director of the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation, Co-Curator of Centennial Retrospective Exhibition of Zao Wou-Ki

赵无极基金会艺术总监、赵无极百年回顾特展策展人

First I would like to thank Mr. Gao Shiming, Mr. Yu Xuhong, and all the people at the China Academy of Art for this very long project of the Zao Wou-Ki exhibition at his alma mater and for organizing this important meeting.

首先，我想感谢高世名院长、余旭鸿馆长，感谢中国美术学院所有同仁为“大道无极——赵无极百年回顾特展”的长期筹备和本次研讨会的举办所做出的努力。

Then, before speaking about the artist himself, I would just like to take some short time to present you the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation and its action. In 2012, before Zao Wou-Ki passed away, the Zao Wou-Ki Foundation has been created in Geneva, Switzerland. Our president, Mrs. Françoise Marquet-Zao, is the widow of the artist, and upon his will, his universal legatee and owner of his rights. I have been the assistant to Zao Wou-Ki since 2002, and I am now the Art Director of Zao Wou-Ki Foundation.

在谈及艺术家本人之前，我想先简短地介绍一下赵无极基金会及我们的工作内容。在赵无极先生去世的前一年，也就是2012年，赵无极基金会在瑞士日内瓦成立。目前，赵无极先生的遗孀弗朗索瓦兹·玛尔凯-赵女士担任基金会的主席。同时根据赵无极先生本人的遗愿，她也是赵无极所有遗产的继承人和权利所有人。我自2002年起担任赵无极先生的助理，目前为赵无极基金会的艺术总监。

The Zao Wou-Ki Foundation does not own any works by the artist. Our main role at the Foundation is to support any cultural and artistic activities, to promote Zao Wou-Ki’s works, and to make it known in the widest possible way through exhibitions and publications. We are in charge of the archives of the artist which are the world’s most complete archives on his artistic and personal life. This allows us, then, to work on the catalogue raisonné of the paintings. We are also called upon to organize exhibitions, to collaborate with museums, like this one at the China Academy of Art. We frequently answer the questions of a lot of people, from museums, from collectors, from auction houses, journalists, etc. We are also here to take care of the works and to make certificates of authenticity to ensure that everything is in order with his works.

赵无极基金会并不拥有任何赵无极的作品。我们的主要工作，是支持相关文化和艺术活动，以此来推广赵无极的作品；通过举办展览、发行出版物等，以尽可能多的渠道在全球范围内宣传赵无极的艺术世界观；我们负责管理全球范围内最齐全的有关赵无极艺术和个人生活的档案，并基于此，对其绘画作品进行分类汇编。我们也会根据需要组织展览，与各个博物馆进行合作，比如这次在中国美术学院的特展。我们也经常解答人们的问题，他们有的来自博物馆、拍卖行，有的则是收藏家、记者等。此外，我们还负责妥善保管赵无极的作品并进行相关鉴定工作，以确保有关他作品的一切都井然有序。

The European art as a model. 1935-1947

以欧洲艺术为范本 / 1935-1947

When Zao Wou-Ki was fifteen, he joined the School of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. He studied here from around 1935 to 1941, before becoming a professor. It was at the time the most modernist school of China, even if the trainings were largely traditional. As the teaching provided by his European professors stopped at the beginning of the 19th century, he looked for everything he could find concerning Western avant-gardes. He wanted to paint “in the Western style”, working on an easel with locally produced oil paintings. This was quite innovative at the time and also an iconoclastic approach, since oil painting was only taught in Hangzhou during the very last years of the students’ training.

赵无极15岁时便考入了国立杭州艺术专科学校。1935年至1941年期间，赵无极一直在该校就读，毕业后留校任教。这所学校是当时中国较具现代主义色彩的学校，尽管其教学在很大程度上仍是传统的。当时，赵无极所接受到的来自欧洲教授的艺术教育和绘画技巧仅仅只能涵盖到十九世纪初期，因此他努力寻求一切有关西方先锋派的相关知识。他想画“西洋画”，想在画架上用地道的油画作画。这在当时是非常具有创新性和颠覆性的，因为杭州艺专只在学生就读的最后几年才教授油画。

赵无极，《无题（有苹果的静物）》

1935-1936年，布面油画，46 × 61 cm

摄影：Antoine Mercier

Zao Wou-Ki, Untitled (Still Life with Apples)

1935-1936, oil on canvas, 46 × 61 cm.

Photo: Antoine Mercier

Here you can see one of the very first paintings he did, which is presented in the exhibition, theStill Life with Apples, dated from 1935-1936. And you can find the comparison on the opposite, with the Still Life by Paul Cézanne. For Zao Wou-Ki, Cézanne was one of the most important European masters and a very important inspiration. You can imagine how difficult it could be for a Chinese artist just to find images of that kind of work, and to try to make something upon it, to try to copy it, to be inspired by it, and to train like Cézanne did.

现在你看到的是赵无极早期画作中的其中一幅。这幅画名为《无题（有苹果的静物）》，是赵无极在1935年至1936年期间创作，在这次展览中也有展示。保罗·塞尚有一幅同名画作，两相对比可以发现，塞尚对赵无极而言是一位极为重要的欧洲绘画大师，给予了他极大的灵感。不难想象，在当时，一位中国艺术家要接触到这类西方绘画大师的作品，去感悟，去模仿，去获得启迪，乃至用同样的方法进行绘画练习，是多么困难的一件事。

His first trip results of a historical imperative: the advance of the Japanese troops forced the Hangzhou’s teachers and students to leave Hangzhou, and to flee the fighting in a long roaming of thousands of kilometers that lasted from November 1937 until the settlement in Chongqing in 1942, in southwest China. During that time, classes continued. You can see the very small painting dated 1941, which is an oil on wood. It has been created on wood because at that time Zao Wou-Ki could not find any canvas. But that also shows you that he kept on painting, even if he was not in Hangzhou but traveling to Chongqing. He once said about this painting that there is some influence by the Russian painter Marc Chagall, in the naive way of composition, the joy of the colors and freshness he wanted to put into that painting.

他的第一次游历是被历史的车轮推动的：日军侵华，杭州艺专全体师生被迫离开杭州，为逃避战火千里流徙。从1937年11月开始，赵无极过着一段颠沛流离的日子，直至1942年才在中国西南的重庆落脚。但即使在这样颠沛的时日，教学仍在继续。创作于1941年的小幅作品，是一幅绘制在木板上的油画。当时赵无极找不到任何画布，便只能在木板上作画。这说明，即使在离开杭州奔赴重庆的路上，赵无极仍在坚持创作。关于这幅画，赵无极曾说他是受到了俄罗斯画家马克·夏加尔的影响，将一种稚嫩的构图方式、明快的色彩以及清新感带入了画中。

The oil painting Paysage Hangzhou that Zao Wou-Ki did in 1946 is a landscape of Hangzhou. You can also see in this painting the deep influence of Paul Cézanne, as Zao Wou-Ki tried to imitate somehow the touch of the impressionist painters.

这幅《杭州乡村风光》是赵无极于1946年在杭州创作的油画。从中可以看出赵无极受到保罗·塞尚的影响颇深，他曾试图模仿印象派画家的风格笔触。

Zao Wou-Ki was a very impatient student and desired to break up with Chinese art of his time that he judged in a way both decadent and sterile. That is why he wanted to complete his training with European and Western art.

当时的赵无极渴求获取新知识，他认为当时的中国艺术颓废又了无生趣，他希望接受欧洲和西方的艺术教育。

On this family photograph you can see the whole Zao family. And hanging on the wall behind them, you can find the copy that Zao Wou-Ki made upon Cowper Madona by Raphael, a painting from the Italian Renaissance now in Washington. You can see that he did not only look at impressionist or modern works but also at very old masters from the Italian Renaissance. This is also certainly a deep influence of Lin Fengmian, his mentor and his teacher, who had himself a special interest for the Italian Renaissance and for the impressionists.

在这张全家福中我们可以看到赵无极的家庭状况。而在全家福上方的墙上，挂着的是赵无极的绘画临摹作品。这幅作品模仿的是意大利文艺复兴时期的画作——拉斐尔的《圣母子》，现藏于美国华盛顿。可以看出赵无极不仅借鉴了印象派和现代主义的画作，还学习了意大利文艺复兴时期的宗师之作。赵无极对文艺复兴和印象派的这种浓厚兴趣，与其师林风眠的影响密不可分。

赵无极，《无题》, 1945年,

纸本水彩, 37 × 28.5 cm

摄影：Manuel Alves

Zao Wou-Ki,Untitled, 1945, watercolor on paper,

37 × 28.5 cm. Photo: Manuel Alves

With this watercolor dated 1945, which is exhibited in the show, and with this ink dated 1948, you can see some other western influences: on the first he tried to imagine something about the Fauves period, and on the second, you can see a deep influence of portraits of women by Matisse.

这幅创作于1945年的水彩作品，在此次展览中也有展出。而从另外一幅创作于1948年的水墨画作品中可以看出一些其他西方艺术风格给赵无极带来的影响：第一张画中，他试图想象野兽派时期的一些东西；第二张画中，你可以看到马蒂斯的女性肖像对他的深刻影响。

Back in Shanghai in 1946, Zao Wou-Ki followed Lin Fengmian’s advice and announced to his father that he wanted to go to Paris for two years to keep on training. He received his father’s agreement, but had to wait one more year to have the French visa and the Chinese authorization to go to France.

1946年，赵无极回到上海。他听从了林风眠的建议，向父亲提出请求，要赴法国巴黎进行为期两年的求学深造。他征得了父亲的允准，但同时还需再等待一年才能拿到法国签证和中国当局关于赴法留学的批准。

赵无极，《无题（风景或高脚屋）》

1948年，布面油画，81.2 × 65.2 cm

图片版权保留

Zao Wou-Ki,Untitled (Landscape or House on Stilts)

1948, oil on canvas, 81.2 × 65.2 cm

Reserved rights

But even if he wanted to go to France to make something about European art, you can see that China was rooted very deeply inside his creation, even if he rejected the Chinese tradition. In these two 1948 paintings, you can see a very strong influence of Chinese landscapes, but also of Chinese rubbings and print bricks of the Han period. He even tried to put some black patterns all around the painting just to imitate the Han rubbings. And you can find the same kind of pagodas, houses, and trees. For him it was a way to try to modernize what he found was the best part of China.

虽然他一心向往法国和欧洲艺术，但在其作品中我们仍可窥探到中国传统艺术给他带来的深远影响。从他创作于1948年的作品中，我们不仅可以看到中国山水画的风姿，还可以看到中国拓片和汉代画像砖的影子。赵无极甚至尝试运用黑色图案作为边框来呈现一种类似于拓片的效果，这种效果同样也在佛塔、屋宇以及树中体现。这种中国传统艺术对赵无极的影响深刻而隐秘。对赵无极而言，他将自己理解的中国艺术之精华以一种现代的方式呈现了出来。

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This is the first part of the speech Yann Hendgen delivered at the forum, "The Way Is Infinite: Zao Wou-Ki's World of Art", on September 20, 2023. This article is based on the audio record and approved by himself.

本文为2023年9月20日，扬·亨德根在“大道无极——赵无极的艺术世界论坛”上主旨演讲的第一部分。本文根据现场录音整理并经本人审定。

Some illustrations of Zao Wou-Ki's works in this article are slightly different with those in the speaking script due to copyrights.

由于作品图版权限制，文中部分配图与讲稿提到的相应作品图略有出入。