Sanyu, a famous French-Chinese painter, was a native of Shunqing (now Nanchong) in Sichuan Province. His painting style was a fusion of Chinese and Western styles, and he was often called "Matisse of the East" and "Modigliani of Free China".
Sanyu was born in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province in China in 1900. As one of the first generation of Chinese artists studying in France, his artistic concepts differe from those of Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian, and others who aimed to reform Chinese art with realism and the fusion of East and West. Instead, Sanyu immersed himself in the urban culture of Paris, reinterpreting traditional Chinese art with the adventurous spirit inherent in Western modern art, forming a unique cross-cultural aesthetic.
In contrast to obtaining meticulous academic education, the rebellious Sanyu preferred to exercise his observational skills in cafés, bars, and artists’ studios, while his extensive social networking brought him fresh artistic inspiration. Although his artistic schemas are inspired by artists as Henri Matisse and Amedeo Modigliani, the lines he draw were not as rationally cold as those of Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, but more imbued with the sense of "Dionysian spirit", his colours are not as wild as those of Matisse, rather, they exude an oriental sense of calmness and modesty.
The artistic atmosphere of Paris nourished Sanyu. In return, he introduced an overwhelming "oriental style" to Paris. Sanyu began to create oil paintings around 1930, entering his "Pink Period", in which the intuitive sensibility of Chinese painting, combined with the fashionable Parisian lifestyle, gave birth to his unique artistic language. His works can be roughly classified into four categories: nude women and figures, flowers, animals, and landscapes. Sanyu regards the main objects he paints as a whole and pays attention to the shape of each block, especially the thighs in the figure paintings are exaggerated and plump, which were jokingly called ‘cosmic thighs’ by Xu Zhimo. The flower works on the pink background are reminiscent of the portrait bricks of Chinese Han Dynasty, implying both "poetic sentiment" and "modernity."
Nevertheless, After the end of World War II, Sanyu plummeted from a romantic and talented figure surrounded by luxury, fine wine, and charming women to a state of abject poverty due to his inexperience of managing his own affairs. His art works also shifted from the dreamy pastel colours to a desolate dark tone, thus, the works he created after 1942 are referred to as his “Black Period”.
Distinctive from the previous style of richness and roundness, the strokes in "Black Period" become more rugged and thicker, which is closely related to his experience of painting lacquerware in a Chinese replica furniture factory to make a living. Whether nude paintings expressing eroticism, animal paintings expressing solitude, or flower paintings showing serenity, the images usually grow on flat blocks of colours, with large areas of blank space creating a profound meaning that is characteristic of traditional Chinese aesthetics.