Huangshan 黄山 (Les Montagnes jaunes)

Lin, Fengmian 林風眠, né en 1900 à Guangdong (province), décédé en 1991 à Hong Kong

Lin Fengmian wrote down his memories of his first visit to the Huangshan in 1959. He made numerous sketches of them at the time. It was only from 1977, however, when he moved to Hong Kong, that the Yellow Mountains would become one of his favourite subjects. His series of paintings of Huangshan in the 1980s marked a change from the landscapes of the 1950s and 60s. The landscape’s simplified, geometrical forms are repeated from one painting to another, in a free play of sharply contrasting colours.
The Cernuschi Museum painting dates from the genesis of this new style. The jagged mountain peaks encircle a plateau with houses perched on the top, surrounded by trees, a formal motif that the artist retained for the rest of his career. The composition is structured by contrasts of blue and green, modulated by a nuanced palette of yellow and ochre, heralding the chromatic developments of the 1980s. This painting therefore illustrates a period of transition, the prelude to the innovations operated by the painter in his last years of production.