Chao Er Tai

1974

泛黃

POST WINGS

This work was completed when Zhao Erdai was fifty-seven years old, belonging to his creative phase before he turned sixty. The ink paintings from this period already exhibit a unique brush style and simple ink wash techniques that distinguish them from academic traditions, forming a distinctive vocabulary of landscapes. However, structurally, it still largely relies on the traditional ink painting's "mental imagery composition" as its primary foundation.

In the painting, the mountain forms, clouds, and spatial layers still reflect an idealized order of landscapes, which is not solely generated by on-site viewing conditions; the appearance of anchored boats and human traces in the foreground maintains a narrative quality and evidence of human activity. This handling shows that the artist has not yet fully detached from the perspective of "humans as the center of narrative."

However, it is noteworthy that the clouds and ink in this work display a high degree of freedom in diffusion and flow, while the structure of the mountains begins to show tendencies of instability and blurriness, suggesting Zhao Erdai's loosening of and questioning traditional spatial orders in landscape painting. The clouds no longer serve merely as decorative elements complementing the mountain forms; they gradually become an important force in governing the rhythm of the painting and the movement of the viewer's gaze.

Therefore, this work can be seen as a significant transitional piece for Zhao Erdai moving from "mental imagery landscapes" towards future "observational ink paintings"—on one hand, retaining the remnants of traditional narrative and structure, while on the other, the brushwork has begun to shift toward a more direct response to the state of nature, laying a crucial foundation for his later comprehensive engagement with natural scenes and constructing compositions through bodily experience after the age of sixty.

None