Leisurely Morning

作品賞析

Hui Chong, a monk in the Northern Song Dynasty, created distinctive, poetic landscapes featuring islets and waterfowl and level distances; these were also known as “small scene” paintings. Inspired by these, artist Hsieh Fu Yuan created his “Transparent World” series based on the gongbi or meticulous style, with the aim of revealing things in human life that are seemingly ordinary and yet full of contradictions. Based on the aesthetic concept of “less is more” in traditional landscapes, he highlighted the chimpanzees squatting on the red bricks in a large green garden. Even though the chimpanzees are relatively small, they still become the visual focus through the effect of color contrast. The blurry boundaries between objects in the painting symbolize how people’s understanding of things has become more inclusive and diverse, breaking absolute black-and-white distinctions. Hsieh Fu Yuan uses the man-made garden to allude to the capitalism’s “urban jungle,” which contrasts with the image of the chimpanzees, who work only for their own survival. This causes the viewer to reflect on the sense of dissonance in the picture.