One of the most accomplished of Zeng Fanzhi’s abstract works to come to the market, Untitled 10-3-20 presents an exhilarating, majestic rhapsody – a reverberating exemplar of the artist’s now iconic and hallowed series of abstract paintings. The sheer monumental scale of the painting signifies the artist's confidence and maturity reached by the late 2000s, while creating the Abstract Landscapes as paintings from the series continued to increase in scale. Executed in 2010, the work marks a significant turn in the artist's career. He held his first solo exhibition in Bulgaria at the National Gallery for Foreign Art, Sofia, and received a Gold Age Honorary Medal. The renowned art publisher Hatje Cantz also published the monograph Zeng Fanzhi: Every Mark Its Mask, within which the present work is featured, illustrating over 160 works from Zeng's early years to the Abstract Landscape, which was at the t.mes the largest collects ion of works and information yet published.

Brimming with a charged, balletic vibrancy compounded by a climactic sense of movement, the imposing Untitled 10-3-20 is a true manifestation of the artist’s painterly genius. Under his virtuosic orchestration, a thrilling tension of thin white branches and dark black trunks is set against a faintly glowing background of electric royal blue, while at the centre, a chalk white mass hovers, lingering at the liminal space between the formed and unformed. Entangled in a complex infrastructure and amalgamation of light and dark, the viewer becomes part of a phantasmagorical composition that extends laterally beyond the work’s surface. Deeply embedded in the tumultuous experience of contemporary life, the present work is a firm departure from Zeng Fanzhi’s earlier Meat and Mask series into the realm of landscape painting in which the transition between figuration and abstraction progressively blurs. In these works, Zeng Fanzhi offers a unique blending of his idiosyncratic intuition for colour reminiscent of German Expressionist painting and his astute sense of history, devolving the rich past of landscape painting into a powerful contemporary vision.

Zeng Fanzhi began experimenting with landscapes shortly after the turn of the millennium. Beginning with adding abstract lines to his masks, Zeng adopted the luanbi (loose-brush) technique around 2002. The style evolved from a period during which Zeng injured his right hand; by experimenting with using his left hand to paint, Zeng developed his new method of expression of loose-brush lines or luanbi xiantiao. The present work was created in 2008 when the artist had matured his new modus operandi of creation: to create the enthralling contrast of thick impasto brushstrokes with fine, delicate lines, Zeng adopts a technique of using two brushes simultaneously – a technical choice which reveals a growing confidence in his own intuition and skill. A large brush conceives the background with expressive strokes, while a thinner brush composes the breached tree branches. Zeng’s development of scouring and scraping his works, using a palette knife to drag and extend wet paint, gives the work a frantic, energetic nature, successfully capturing the vivacity of the vines. Evolving from the metaphoric and symbolic qualities of his figurative works, these landscape paintings herald Zeng’s new technical freedom and display a vibrating energy reminiscent of various lineages in global art history. The automatic flow of his brushstrokes unleashes an aesthetic expression akin to the automatic drawings of the Surrealists who engaged with the idea of the subconscious to create new images and forms, while the profusion of paint dispersed across the picture plane recalls the influence of Jackson Pollock, who himself was influenced by the Surrealists’ concept of “psychic automatism”. The landscapes’ ethereal colour composition, meanwhile, evokes the fantastical and dream-like aura in Peter Doig’s works.

Positioned at the very forefront of Chinese contemporary art, Zeng has created one of the most fascinating and compelling bodies of work over the last twenty-five years. Growing up amidst the Cultural Revolution and hyperactive propaganda of the Maoist regime, Zeng rose to fame with the depiction of carnal bodies in hospitals and figures with masked faces. The more fluid and vigorous landscape paintings in the 2000s mark a clear departure from these figurative works. While his early oeuvre reveals the influence of Western art history, such as German Expressionism, the landscape series enters into a fascinating visual and intellectual dialogue with the past that is explored through Zeng’s novel vernacular. By depicting elements that are emblematic of historical Chinese landscape painting, such as the overlap of detailed representation with abstract qualities of materiality, Zeng set aside the Western techniques that so prominently defined his figurative works from the 1990s and started to embrace Eastern influences at the beginning of the millennium. The present work in particular combines many important elements of Chinese landscape painting from the Tang and Song Dynasties. While the Tang Dynasty was dominated by an exploration of monochromism versus polychromism as well as scrutinising the significance of line and texture, the Song Dynasty was best known for its preoccupation with landscape at large and its connection to the human condition. By aptly manipulating the oil paint with fingers and brushstrokes, Zeng not only demonstrates his absolute mastery of technique but also creates undulating lines of immediate expressiveness and lyrical power that echo the historical relevance of landscape painting.

Translating his cultural heritage into the present, Zeng formulated a universal idiom reflective of the increasing speed of modern urban life juxtaposed with a nostalgic longing for pure nature that culminates in a dark and mysterious, almost apocalyptic vision. The natural organic flow of the lines in the present work creates new dichotomies of revealing and concealing, representing and abstracting, displaying more ambiguity than providing definite solutions. As art historian Fabrice Hergott writes: “The power of Zeng Fanzhi’s work stems from this abstraction, from this way of showing an image and, as it evolves, the unreality of its foundations” (Fabrice Hergott cited in: Exh. Cat., Paris, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Zeng Fanzhi, 2013-2014, p. 178).

《無題10-3-20》一作譜寫出一闕震顫心弦的巍峨狂想曲，曲中迴盪的音符代表了曾梵志已然登上神壇的抽象繪畫系列巔峰。這幅恢宏深邃的畫作充滿狂亂勃發的生機和激昂高漲的動感，在至今亮相拍場的曾氏抽象作品之中出類拔萃，是其繪畫才華的明證。時至2000年末，曾梵志在亂筆山水的發揮可謂爐火純青，製作越加宏偉的尺幅同時反映了系列的作品的成熟至臻，本作則為一例。繪於2010年，本作見證了曾梵志職業生涯的一個重要里程碑。他在保加利亞索菲亞國家外國藝術館舉辦了首次個展，並榮獲金齡榮譽獎章。同年，著名藝術出版社Hatje Cantz也出版了專著《Zeng Fanzhi: Every Mark Its Mask》，載錄了曾梵志從早期作品到抽象山水時期的逾160件作品，是當時關於曾梵志作品及相關資訊最全面的出版物，本作亦被收錄其中。

《無題10-3-20》在畫家精湛的指揮之下，瑩白的纖細樹枝和黑蜮蜮的樹幹煥發出令人顫慄的張力，後面是一片盈亮的藍，泛著幽幽冷光，一團白堊色在中央縈繞不散，徘徊在有形與無形之間。觀者彷彿身陷由光影織成的迷宮，詭譎無常的枝幹蔓延出畫框之外，將觀者包圍吞噬。本作的靈感來自當今繁囂紛亂的生活，它在曾梵志較早期的「肉聯」系列和「面具」系列以外再闢蹊徑，進入寫景領域，導致具象與抽象之間的界線逐漸模糊不清。在這些風景畫裡，曾梵志糅合德國表現主義式的馭色直覺和自己敏銳的歷史觸覺，將中國山水畫的博大精深，融入富含感染力的當代風格中。

曾梵志在千禧年來臨後不久開始創作風景畫。早在2002年左右，他便將「亂筆」引入作品，首先在面具上加入抽象線條。這種風格的出現可謂機緣巧合，那時曾梵志不小心弄傷了右手，於是試著用左手畫畫，順理成章地練就「亂筆線條」這一嶄新技法。本作作於2008年，其時他的「亂筆」已臻成熟──為了突顯厚塗筆觸和幼細線條之間的有趣對比，曾梵志會同時使用兩支畫筆，如此技法，足以證明他對自己的藝術直覺和技巧感到日益自信。粗大的畫筆以豪爽的筆觸刷出背景，幼細的畫筆則用於勾勒樹枝。他還繼續完善刮擦技巧，使用調色刀拖拽和延展濕顏料，為作品增添一陣躁動不安，捕捉枝蔓本身遏止不住的蓬勃生機。曾梵志的風景畫從具象系列的譬喻和象徵意義中蛻變而出，來自他不受拘束實驗全新技巧的階段，當中蘊含的力量同樣見諸各地的藝術派系。例如不假思索的筆觸與超現實主義藝術家推崇的「自發性繪畫」（automatic drawings）有異曲同工之妙，後者主張透過潛意識創造新意象和新形態；在畫面使用大量顏料的手法令人不期然想起傑克森・波拉克，而波拉克的靈感正好來自超現實主義的「心靈之無意識行為」（psychic automatism）。另外，天馬行空的用色也使其風景畫瀰漫一股彼得・多伊格筆下的夢幻氛圍。

身為中國當代藝術的領軍人物，曾梵志在過去二十五年累積創作了大量引人入勝的作品。他成長的年代正值文化大革命，對毛澤東政權的政治宣傳進行得如火如荼；其成名作描繪的是醫院裡的血肉之軀和戴面具的人。千禧年代的風景畫則更加流暢優美，生意盎然，標誌著藝術家在前期具象作品以外的嶄新嘗試。他的早期作品深受德國表現主義等西方流派影響，風景系列則運用創新技法，觸發一場視覺饗宴，與歷史展開深度對話。曾梵志聚焦傳統的中國山水元素，例如層疊的細節，再透過物質性（materiality）的抽象本質將這些元素表現出來，他將主宰其九〇年代具象作品的西方技法暫時擱置一旁，在千禧年來臨之際轉而擁抱東方魅力。本作包含大量重要的唐宋山水元素。唐代主黑白墨色與隨類賦彩之探討，著重線條運用和質感表現；宋代推崇蒼茫遼闊的全景山水，蘊藏濃厚的人文精神。曾梵志用手指和畫筆巧妙地鋪陳顏料，不但體現其精湛技法，並藉此創造出即興隨心的曲線和韻律，與歷代山水遙相和應。

曾梵志將前人文化一路傳承至今，在畫布上凝煉出舉世共鳴的獨特風格，現代都市的生活步伐日漸急速，然而世人依然緬懷和追求大自然的純粹，這種矛盾最終在曾梵志筆下，以末世般的黑暗和未知降臨人間。本作以自然隨性的線條走向構築出顯露與掩藏、具象與抽象之間的二元對立，在獻上絕對答案之前，反而糾纏出更多的曖昧不清。誠如藝術史學家法比斯・艾高特（Fabrice Hergott）寫道：「曾梵志作品的力量來自這種抽象，亦來自這種展示圖像的方式，並隨著變化而來自作品根源的非真實感」（法比斯・艾高特，引述自巴黎市現代藝術博物館之展覽圖錄《曾梵志》，2013-2014年，頁178）。