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拍品专文
I settled at Cold Mountain long ago
Already it seems like ages
Wandering free I roam the woods and streams
Lingering to watch things be themselves
Men don’t come this far into the mountains
Where white clouds gather and billow
Dry grass makes a comfortable mattress
The blue sky is a fine quilt
Happy to pillow my head on the rock
I leave heaven and earth to endless change
-Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry by the t'ang zen poet han-shan (2005, 2011), tr. Wandering Poet
Characterized by an unusual marriage of modernist formalism and nineteenth century Romanticism, Brice Marden's art is one of fusion. At a time when the ultimate goal of many artists was to remove from their work any trace of the artist's hand or process, Marden emphasized the specificity of touch, a focus that lends his art a moving immediacy and resonance.
In the late 1980's Marden began a new body of work in an effort to evade his own self-stylization. His earlier subtle monochrome panels matured into skeins of lyrical marks and looping gestures. This means of mark-making has come to be recognized as Marden's signature style, one which at once continues and modifies his early inquiries into formalism, flatness, and materiality.
Inspired by his frequent travels, Marden's paintings began to bear the influence of Eastern aesthetics in the 1980s. Traveling first to Thailand in 1984, and later to Suzhou, China, he became interested in calligraphy, particularly in the verses of eighth century poet Han Shan (or Cold Mountain)--for whom the present drawing is named. This work is a beautiful and lyrical example of the Cold Mountain series, for which Marden would often use the structures of Han Shan's poems as starting points for organizing his graphic marks. Unable to read the Chinese characters, he absorbed the poems on a formal level; as lines, unfolding to reveal form, then dissolving back into line.
In conversation with Marden, friend and American poet John Yau addresses the significance of this decision while discussing the tendencies of Romanticism, defining it as "that period in literature and art when intellect [was subordinated] to emotion, the critical to the creative, cleverness and wit to tenderness and pathos." While setting his work apart from the bare objectivity of his contemporaries, this romantic proclivity does connect him with ideals of the Abstract Expressionists, especially Jackson Pollock.
Already it seems like ages
Wandering free I roam the woods and streams
Lingering to watch things be themselves
Men don’t come this far into the mountains
Where white clouds gather and billow
Dry grass makes a comfortable mattress
The blue sky is a fine quilt
Happy to pillow my head on the rock
I leave heaven and earth to endless change
-Cold Mountain Transcendental Poetry by the t'ang zen poet han-shan (2005, 2011), tr. Wandering Poet
Characterized by an unusual marriage of modernist formalism and nineteenth century Romanticism, Brice Marden's art is one of fusion. At a time when the ultimate goal of many artists was to remove from their work any trace of the artist's hand or process, Marden emphasized the specificity of touch, a focus that lends his art a moving immediacy and resonance.
In the late 1980's Marden began a new body of work in an effort to evade his own self-stylization. His earlier subtle monochrome panels matured into skeins of lyrical marks and looping gestures. This means of mark-making has come to be recognized as Marden's signature style, one which at once continues and modifies his early inquiries into formalism, flatness, and materiality.
Inspired by his frequent travels, Marden's paintings began to bear the influence of Eastern aesthetics in the 1980s. Traveling first to Thailand in 1984, and later to Suzhou, China, he became interested in calligraphy, particularly in the verses of eighth century poet Han Shan (or Cold Mountain)--for whom the present drawing is named. This work is a beautiful and lyrical example of the Cold Mountain series, for which Marden would often use the structures of Han Shan's poems as starting points for organizing his graphic marks. Unable to read the Chinese characters, he absorbed the poems on a formal level; as lines, unfolding to reveal form, then dissolving back into line.
In conversation with Marden, friend and American poet John Yau addresses the significance of this decision while discussing the tendencies of Romanticism, defining it as "that period in literature and art when intellect [was subordinated] to emotion, the critical to the creative, cleverness and wit to tenderness and pathos." While setting his work apart from the bare objectivity of his contemporaries, this romantic proclivity does connect him with ideals of the Abstract Expressionists, especially Jackson Pollock.