“The particular gift of this artist is to untie East and West in his painting, not in a confused sacrilegious hotchpotch, but in a sublime form where one loses usual points of reference”

─French art critic, Pierre Joffroy (1929-2008), quoted “ Sanyu: Inventeur de l'essentialisme: (25th December, 1946)

Sanyu was one of the first generation of outstanding Chinese artists who went to France to study and pursue a career as a painter. His elegant yet unrestrained style made him particularly stand out among his many talented peers. His works were shown in numerous important salon exhibitions in France, and he was counted as one of the Ecole de Paris (School of Paris). In 1932, Sanyu's name even appeared in the third volume of preeminent arts publisher Art et Editions' Dictionnaire biographique des artistes contemporains 1910-1930. In a time and age when racial prejudice was still very widespread, it was no small feat for a Chinese painter to make it into a biographical encyclopedia of internationally acclaimed artists-Sanyu was in fact the first Chinese artist to be thus honored, and this was certainly no accident.

Many other Chinese artists who had studied in France in the early 20th century commented that Sanyu has already had the air and reputation of a great master, even in his early years. How ever, his rather reckless and dissolute character, and his unwillingness to break his back to do something as trivial as earning his daily bread, meant that in the end he died a poor man in a foreign country. Wu Guanzhong, one of the doyens of modern Chinese painting, met Sanyu once in Paris. He has words of high praise for his fellow painter, calling him a true artist, and rated him much higher than, say, Pan Yu-liang or Xu Beihong. Wu on Sanyu, His paintings are quite good, really. They have style, and they have character. I'd say that among all the Chinese oil painters who developed their career in the West, Sanyu deserves the place of honor. In Wu's opinion, Sanyu's brushwork is similar to the traditional Chinese freehand style, but his sense of shape and color, and the general structure of his compositions, are largely rooted in modern Western concepts.

Today, there is no doubt that Sanyu was one of the most distinguished members among the first generation of modern Chinese-origin oil painters. The aesthetic appeal of his works surpass the boundaries of time and space, and to this day his paintings remain among the favorite objects of many collectors' desire. Incidentally, Sanyu's aesthetics are clearly indebted to the Chinese cultural tradition, even though most of his output has been in Western genres and formats, in particular oil painting, watercolor, sketch/ drawings and prints. Born in Nanchong in Sichuan Province, China, he was first instructed in calligraphy and painting by his father, Chang Shu-fang. At about the age of 12, Sanyu began to display his extraordinary talent, much influenced and inspired by his father's work. Chang Shu-fang had quite a reputation for his exquisite animal painting, especially his depictions of lions and horses. Possibly as a result of this, and a subtle form of paying respect to his father, landscape compositions featuring horses as the dominant theme run through Sanyu's entire oeuvre. The seeds of traditional Eastern art would continue to sprout and bear fruit throughout his whole life, even though he spent most of it as a stranger in strange lands. Although he roamed in the Western world, the basics of his art are unmistakably pervaded by a Zen-like rhythm, an almost mystical vibrancy that shows in his lines, brushwork, compositional and spatial arrangements, as well as his use of color. Though he chose to make Europe his permanent abode, the core of his work is yet brimming with the essence of Chinese culture.

When Sanyu arrived from China to the City of Light in 1921, he immediately became embroiled in what has been termed Les Années Folles (The Crazy Years), witnessing one of the most exciting times in European art and literature: after the ravages of WWI, the old continent was still reeling from economic difficulties and the aftermath of disaster, but in the city of Paris, this led to a sort of epicurean libertarianism, an untrammeled pursuit of pleasure and excitement, but also of new forms of expression in literature and fine arts. For a time, Paris again became the most modern city of Europe, a magnet for people with creative talent, be it in the realms of art and fashion, or music and writing. In many ways, Sanyu, born to well-to-do parents and by nature a bit of a playboy, he was fitting quite well in this environment. He played the mandolin, was good at tennis and billiards, smoked a water pipe and loved to spend hours sitting in a café watching people come and go. He also owned an expensive camera, which he used to take pictures during parties or outings with friends and colleagues. With his gregarious character and fondness of good times, Sanyu was pretty much in his element in the roaring twenties of Paris. In his works of that period, shades of white and pink are the dominant colors, deftly employed to depict the elegance and exuberant high life of France's capital. This wave of wild abandon and romantic devotion to the arts and good living lasted until about 1930s.

“He seemed at the time urged to paint, painting flowers in pots. According to him, he was inspired by the flower paintings of WU Changshuo. Through personal arrangements and planar expressions, he sometimes coated flowers and leaves as black shadows, implying a heightened sense of decoration” ─Shiy De- jinn, An Old Chinese Painters Engulfed in Paris

Learning the Chinese calligraphy in his childhood and later the Chinese painting from his father, Sanyu had accumulated a depth in Chinese artistic tradition. Although not many of Sanyu's calligraphic works are extant today, one can catch more than a glimpse of his fluid brushwork and assured elegance in his early Paris nude female sketches: his technique is impeccable, his compositions all of a piece, done in one go without later corrections or changes. This near perfection, praised and envied by many of his contemporaries, also became a hallmark of his oil paintings, where he employed the lively yet abstract lines of calligraphy to draw the contours of human bodies, animal shapes, still lifes, and flowers. Among these paintings topics, flowers make up a large portion of his oeuvres. His favorites were the classical subjects of Chinese painting, plum blossoms, bamboo, lotus, and chrysanthemums. Among these, he particularly loved chrysanthemums, and consequently they frequently appear in his flower painting, messengers of a deeply felt nostalgia that is yet never more than hinted with subtle restraint. In the Chinese tradition, chrysanthemums are symbols of a reclusive life, signifying a hermit or a poet. They stand for a spontaneous, independent spirit that has probably been best captured in Tao Yuanming's famous lines from one of his Wine Poems, Chrysanthemums I was picking under the east hedge / When the South Range met my tranquil eyes ... The soul of nature was here revealed / Too subtle it was for words. We can be sure that Sanyu shared these sentiments on a very profound level, because he revealed his views on life and genuine beauty through his depictions of flowers, using them as an outlet for metaphorically expressing the sadness and forlornness lurking immediately under the surface of his merry Paris life.

As Wu Guanzhong writes, Sanyu was a great painter of flower stills and potted plants, and they are always blossoming in the most exquisite shapes and colors, brimming with life. Yet in truth, flowers in a vase are beautiful blooms on stalks or branches already severed from the true sap of life - lingering on for a short while, but doomed to fade and wither quickly. It is a mournful sight, really, the sadness only enhanced by the sheer splendour of the subject. The overwhelming visual density is the result of cutting and arrangement, an effect produced by squeezing thick clusters of lowers into too small a vase or pot, thus losing all sense of natural proportions. When this happens, some have plaintively observed, one forces these delicate plants to subsist on a little water or a few crumbs of soil, cutting them off from the generous nourishment of Mother Earth. Why would Sanyu be so sensitive to these truths? Why, his compassion and sympathy clearly derive from the fact that he was in a similar situation himself! I think he was a 'potted plant,' a 'flower in a vase,' too, a bonsai from the East transplanted to the huge garden that is Paris. (From Wu Guanzhong, 'About Sanyu'.) Scholar-painter and writer Chiang Hsun expressed a similar impression when he said that Sanyu's life was like the flowers he painted. Looking at the lowers and their graceful yet lonely poise, we can get some idea of what the artist's inner life must have been like.

Generally, Sanyu's oeuvre shows a marked tendency towards simplicity and conciseness. He usually limits his palette to relatively few colors. Around 1930, his oil paintings exhibit an affinity for shades of white and pink, with the occasional dash of black, a combination often regarded as a typically Parisian romantic style. For all the much-praised terseness of his approach, Sanyu's paintings are not devoid of grandeur and elegance. Quite the contrary! Flippancy is not Sanyu's style, and his flamboyance is never carried to gaudy extremes. Coming from a distinguished and wealthy family, he had something of a playboy about him, and he certainly knew how to have a good time. But there was another side to this bon vivant: deep down inside, Sanyu was a devoted artist, and in the final consequence, he was not overly concerned with fame and riches. The work “Vase of Chrysanthemums with Red Ground”, the red background always imply the happiness in Chinese culture. Sanyu simply outlined the elegance and quietness of Chrysanthemums with dry, white brushes and interspersed with leaves which reveals the air of delight. The usage of brushes are like the traditional Chinese floral ink and color paintings which tells the depth of Chinese culture and aesthetic that Sanyu once had cultivated. The flowers stands still and quietly which symbolizes the immense vitality of the flowers as well as the creativity of art that Sanyu wanted to express along his contemporary artists’ art in that time in Paris. The topic of the work is also associated to the “chrysanthemum” which symbols the Chinese culture that Sanyu held for his lifetime. And this topic as well as points out the homesickness to an “étranger” like Sanyu once had, and also this has been an important emblem throughout his works. By the time Sanyu was painting this extraordinary work, he kept the lines and the philosophic brushes often seen in the Chinese calligraphy or ink and color paintings. However, the usage of abstractionism-like form and composition are clearly seen in the work. Thus, this can be considered that Sanyu had a better knowledge of Modern Art, moreover, he could said that he had established his Modern art ever since, an artist of Chinese Modern Art, as well as a pioneer of Chinese Modern Art.

Sanyu applies dry monochromatic layers but infuses them with the substance and significance of modern painting. Sanyu spent almost his entire life in Paris in pursuit of the more liberal and uninhibited ways of Western art, yet it was still the blood of a Chinese scholar-painter that was pumping through his veins. It is this proud spirit of the Eastern literati that is fully displayed in his later flower stills, works in which Sanyu finds his definitive and unique style that remains inimitable to this day. Sanyu's character is clearly mirrored in his flower stills, a unique mixture of aloofness and indulgence, of dynamic individualism and a touch of intellectual pride - all in all, a miniature reflection of his experiences in Paris, a city steeped in artistic and cultural traditions. We should not forget that for a Chinese painter in the early 20th century, it was by no means a small feat to not only survive, but also succeed and prosper in a strange land far away from home. However, Sanyu certainly rose to the challenge, and the splendor of his creative genius was a picture sparkling with joie de vivre and brilliant poise.