untitled musing

“Des Esseintes also derived a specious pleasure from handling this minuscule booklet, with its covers of Japanese felt as white as milk curds, fastened by two silk cords, one Chinese pink, the other black. Concealed behind the binding, the black braid met the pink braid which, like some licentious handmaid, added a whisper of powder, a suggestion of modern Japanese rouge, to the antique whiteness, the artless flesh-tints of the book; it would itself round the pink, intertwining its sombre colour with the light one in a dainty bow, and introducing a discreet hint of that regret, a vague threat of that sadness which follow in the wake of burnt-out passion and satiated sensual frenzy.” 

(Joris-Karl Huysmans, À rebours, trans. by Margaret Mauldon)

常玉畫作：雙裸女，1929年。
Sanyu, Two Pink Nudes, oil on canvas, 1929 (via Ravenel Art)

“However, by delving into his own mind, he first of all grasped that, to appeal to him, a work must possess that aura of strangeness which Edgar Allan Poe required; but he readily ventured further along that path, demanding over-subtle creations of the intellect and complex deliquescences of language; what he wanted was a disturbing ambivalence he could muse about, until he chose to make it either vaguer or more precise, according to his state of mind at that particular moment. In a word, he wanted a work of art both for what it intrinsically was and for what it potentially allowed him to impart to it; he wanted to go forward with it and because of it, as if aided by an acolyte, as if transported in a vehicle, into a sphere where sublimated feelings would induce in him a state of turmoil which was unexpected, and the causes of which he would, over a long period, try—though quite in vain—to analyse.” (ibid)

常玉畫作：鏡前母與子，1930年代。
Sanyu, Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, oil on canvas, 1930s (via Sotheby's HK)

我的生命中一無所有，我只是一個畫家。對於我的作品，我認為毋須賦予任何解釋，當觀賞我的作品時，應該清楚瞭解我所要表達的... 只是一個簡單的概念。～常玉
“I have nothing in my life, I am merely a painter. Regarding my works, I do not think explanations are necessary. When looking at my paintings, one should understand with clarity, what I am trying to express... is but a simple concept.” —Sanyu






Death and ecstasy... “[Art] is about connecting with human beings emotionally, not intellectually.” (Tamara Rojo)