Ladies in a garden

When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Lin moved to Chongqing to live on his own on the remote south bank, devoting himself heart and soul to painting until the War ended. As early as the 1940s when he was in Chongqing, Lin began painting Chinese opera characters in ink. This was also the time when his innovative “formation in square” took shape. Tranquil and peaceful, his landscapes in ink from this period often have the foreground as focus. This is the phase when Lin developed his style of ink painting. In 1946, Lin returned to Hangzhou to be reunited with his family and reacquainted with city life. In an attempt to infuse ink painting with concepts of modern Western art, Lin drew references from Cezanne’s still life, Matisse’s young women with screens, Modigliani’s ladies, and geometric forms of the Cubists. His still life, landscapes, ladies, and Chinese opera characters were then well on the road to maturity. The late 1940s also saw the birth of a new style in the broad-brushed flowers in vases, modern beauties and garden scenes. This painting is a rare survival work done in the same period when Lin was experimenting to match up the subject of ladies in traditional costume with garden scene.