Blossoming Fireworks of Life
Throughout his life’s work, Wu Guanzhong strove to regard life with sincerity and authenticity. Kindred spirits, the artist and the eminent physicist Tsung-Dao Lee formed a close friendship on the basis of mutual admiration. Plum Blossoms was painted in 1973. At the t.mes , Wu Guanzhong had just returned from to Beijing from Li Village. The universities were closed, so Wu, unhindered by teaching responsibilities, travelled to the outskirts of Beijing in order to paint from life. In the second half of the year, he received a government assignment to travel south and collects material for Ten Thousand Kilometres of the Yangtze River, limiting his t.mes in Beijing to only a few short months. Nonetheless, propelled by his single-minded work ethic, the artist was able to create a series of outstanding paintings of the city and its surroundings. Plum Blossoms was completed during this period. In an autobiography published in 2006, Wu described his experiences and frame of mind during this period:
“My hungry eyes foraged far and wide: jujube trees, weeping willows, roses of Sharon, sunflowers, lotus flowers in Purple Bamboo Park, lacebark pines in the Forbidden City – they were all captured in painting. I also rode my bicycle into the outer suburbs in my pursuit. Upon finding good scenery, I would stay a few days and set up my easel on an empty hillside. In solitude, my mood grew peaceful, and I could capture heaven and earth within my painting. I forgot the vexations of the human world, and I stood and painted for eight hours at a t.mes . This vigour, this deep happiness, is extremely difficult to achieve.”
Plum Blossoms reflects the artist's state of complete creative absorption at the t.mes of its creation. Its dominant colour is a resplendent, eye-catching pink. The picture plane presents a plum tree in full bloom, its trunk strong and sturdy, its branches proudly stretching toward the sky like golden threads and iron wires. Their delicate fragrance attracts circling butterflies, symbolizing the end of winter and the arrival of spring: the renewal of the myriad things. The effect, in addition to being visually pleasing, delivers a message of inspiration straight into the viewer's heart.
Wu Guanzhong's use of colour is consistently restrained, particularly in his nature paintings from the 1970s. He generally refrained from painting great swaths of red, for example, not only because he was living in the arid north, but also because he wanted to avoid the vulgarity of saturation. The bold hues of Plum Blossoms are no accident. The plum tree is indigenous to the Yangtze River basin and the regions to the south of the river. Like the plum tree, Wu was a transplant from the south. When he returned to the capital from Lee Village in early 1973, the wildly blooming winter plum trees of Beijing welcomed him back from his travails and foretold a flourishing springt.mes . It goes without saying, then, that Plum Blossoms was intended to express the artist’s cheerful feelings.
一九九六年，吳冠中夫婦在京郊百花山上梅樹前。
Wu Guanzhong's artistry originates in painting from life, and painting from life originates in observing reality. But Wu did not stick to one pattern of technique when creating images of objects. The subject of Plum Blossoms is the sort of plum tree that can be found in the Beijing suburbs, but the image presented in the painting also recalls the composition of traditional Chinese paintings. Wu Guanzhong began building his strong foundation in traditional art during his art school days, during which he studied under Pan Tianshou for a year. The fruits of these early-planted seeds are evident in his oil paintings from the 1970s. In addition to the shape of the trunk and the sturdy yet pliable appearance of the branches, he also employed a traditional Chinese painting method known as the iron-wire stroke. The relatively large branches in Plum Blossoms, however, do not resemble the single-stroke brushwork of ink-wash painting that relies on wrist strength. Rather, they are composed of numerous short horizontal strokes that reflect Wu's individual style and also the relative viscosity of oil paints.
Aside from its traditional underpinnings, the key to Plum Blossoms is its abstract beauty. Remove the trunk and the branches, and all that remains of the painting is a patch of light blue at the top, an olive-green texture at the bottom, and a great quantity of vivid red and green dots. In particular, the colourful dots that represent the plum blossoms, viewed in isolation, approach the idiom of Abstract Expressionism, clearly embodied with the strength, speed, and emotion of the artist's creative process. The viewer associates these three elements with sky, hillside, and flower petals only because the picture plane also contains the more figurative trunk and branches, which link the abstract parts back to reality. The painting can be used to verify Wu Guanzhong's mission that his art should be ‘the kite at the end of the string’: if the dots and patches of colour are the kite, then the trunk and branches are the string. The effect of the painting's abstract elements is that the viewer witnesses the artist's joy and satisfaction in direct unification with the scenery.
Wu's understanding of abstract beauty can be traced as far back as his studies under Wu Dayu at National Hangzhou Academy of Art in the 1930s and his first-person exposure to modern art during his t.mes in Paris. Although abstract art was considered taboo for quite some t.mes following Wu's return to China, he never abandoned his interest in and advocacy of abstract beauty. In the 1980s he published On Abstract Beauty, an essay that contained a meticulous analysis of Western Abstractionism and abstract elements in traditional Chinese art. The essay was intended to narrow the gap between the two traditions on a theoretical basis. In terms of Wu's creative work, Plum Blossoms could be called a very early expression of abstract beauty in modern Chinese art.
A review of Wu Guanzhong's landscape paintings reveals certain thematic consistencies: the spirit of towering mountains reaching into the sky, the untarnished audacity of lotus flowers, the integrity and loyalty of a bamboo grove, and so on. Trees, as a central natural motif, play a particularly prevalent role. Wu was skilled at using tree images, and because his landscapes rarely contain people or animals, it is his trees that often provide the dynamism that brings the canvas to life. In addition to using trees as a structural component of the picture plane, Wu was fond of painting close-ups of individual trees. He deeply cherished these images and indulged them much as Sanyu indulged the vase of flowers. Plum Blossoms employs a close-up composition that places the magnified tree at its centre, emphasizing its deep roots, sudden rise from the ground, and flourishing flowers. It is a painting that reflects the artist's positive and dynamic approach to life.
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盛放，生命的火樹銀花
吳冠中的畢生創作，貫徹了他對生命的熱情，通過描繪自然而燃亮自我、鼓舞人心。《紅梅》（拍品編號1038）誕生於1973年，此時，吳冠中剛剛經歷河北省李村的下放重返北京，大學均未開課，使他不受教務羈絆，出行至京郊寫生；由於藝術家在下半年受到國家委託，南下為《長江萬里圖》採風，故此他的留京時間，實際上只有短短數月，卻因為心無旁騖，創作出一系列京城、京郊傑作。2006年河北教育出版社出版的《吳冠中》曾經詳細記錄他此時的經歷與心情：
「飢餓的眼，覓食於院內院外，棗樹，垂柳，木槿，向日葵，紫竹院的荷花，故宮的白皮松……均被捕捉入畫。又騎車去遠郊尋尋覓覓，有好景色就住幾天，畫架支在荒坡上，空山無人，心境寧靜，畫裡乾坤，忘卻人間煩惱，站定一畫八小時，不吃不喝，這旺盛的精力，這沉迷的幸福，太難得。」
《紅梅》反映了藝術家此時全然陶醉於創作之心境，其主色調是艷麗照人的滿目桃紅，畫面呈現一株盛開臘梅，星星點點的梅英漫佈其間，遠觀有若燃燒正旺的一枚火炬，陣陣清香更引得蝴蝶迴旋飛舞，象徵冬去春來、萬象更新，不僅在視覺上賞心悅目，亦給予觀者內心莫大之鼓舞。
吳冠中用色一向謹慎克制，特別是七○年代的寫生作品，絕少使用大片紅色；因此，《紅梅》運用大膽色調絕非偶然：梅花開放於冬去春來之際，其花季在嶺南一般是在北京三至四月。梅花是南枝北植，吳冠中亦是南人北居，其於1973年初從李村返京，正值際遇上之否極泰來，適逢北京城裡寒梅怒放，預示著百花春曉，其欲透過《紅梅》傳遞愉悅情感的用意，亦不言而喻。
吳冠中的繪畫源自寫生，寫生源自觀察現實，但在創作和表現物象的方法上，藝術家卻不拘一格，無論是具象、抽象抑或變形，唯能表現心中之美是尚。若比較《紅梅》與明代王謙《卓冠群芳圖》，可見本作構圖實以國畫典範為基礎，塑造野生梅樹之獷悍壯健，反映其出自天然，未經人工刪斫之本質。
吳冠中的國畫基礎，得益自杭州國立藝專從師潘天壽時期，大量臨摹國畫及研習國畫理論，此一早植之種子，在其七○年代之油畫仍然有所反映。除了梅樹的主幹造形，其枝椏纖韌遒勁的效果，亦參考了國畫的鐵線描；然而《紅梅》較大的枝椏，並不像水墨畫般憑腕力一揮而就，而是以細緻、短促的橫塗連接成枝，這除了是其個人風格使然，亦因為油彩粘性較強，需要調整畫法以達到最理想之效果。
除了國畫根基，《紅梅》的重點更在其抽象之美。若將樹枝樹幹去除，本作所剩下的將是大片鮮艷的紅綠彩點、最上方的淺藍色塊，以及下方的橄欖綠色肌理。這些大片的彩點、色塊和肌理，保留著藝術家在創作過程中的力量、速度和情感，已經接近抽象表現主義。其之所以能讓觀眾聯想到天空、山坡和花葉，全因為畫面以樹枝樹幹作為具象元素，將抽象部份引回現實。若以本作印證吳冠中的「風箏不斷線」理論，則本作之彩點、色塊是風箏，而樹枝、樹幹是線，讓觀眾能夠將藝術家滿溢心中的喜悅和滿足，直觀地與風景結合，從而理解畫面的抽象元素。
吳冠中對於抽象美的認識，最早可追溯至三○年代於杭州藝專吳大羽門下，以及留學巴黎時期親炙現代藝術。儘管回歸中國以後，抽象藝術在頗長時間之內成為禁區，吳冠中對於抽象美之思考與推廣卻不遺餘力，其於1980年曾經發表文章《關於抽象美》，進一步將現代西方抽象主義與中國藝術傳統之抽象元素條分縷析，旨在從理論基礎上溝通兩者、收窄鴻溝；至於創作方面，《紅梅》則可謂更早以作品示範如何中國現代藝術表現抽象之美。
縱觀吳冠中的風景作品，其主題往往意有所指，如山嶽寄託頂天立地之氣概、荷花自況潔淨狂狷之風骨、竹林感懷師恩節操等；而作為大自然不可或缺之部份，「樹」更具有廣泛的應用性。吳冠中善於運用樹的形象，其風景作品由於罕有動物或人物，因此樹的造型往往成為動感之來源，讓畫面顯得生機勃勃；除了作為畫面結構之部份，藝術家更喜愛創作單棵大樹之特寫，寄寓自身懷抱，有類於常玉透過瓶花所傾注的孤芳自賞之情;《紅梅》採用特寫式構圖，將樹木置中並加以放大，強調其紮根沉厚、拔地而起、欣欣向榮之特質，反映著藝術家積極向上的人生態度。