The painting "Autumn Haze" originally belongs to the collection of the artist's old Shanghai acquaintance and friend, Madam Yuan Xiangwen, who in 1952 met Pan Qiliu's teacher-Lin Fengmian. The three saw a lot of each other, and Pan would later become Ms Yuan's husband. During the Cultural Revolution, Lin became seriously ill, and Madam Yuan, who served as a physician, took care of him and saved his life. To express his gratitude, Lin, before leaving Shanghai for Hong Kong, left a batch of his paintings in Madam Yuan's care. After Lin had settled down in Hong Kong, he made a permanent gift of them to his old friend. "Autumn Haze"is one of the works in that collection.

"Autumn Haze"was completed in the 1950s after Lin had already given up his teaching posts and was living on Nanchang Road in Shanghai. Before 1956, he had his wife and daughter to keep him company, and although his life was not exactly one of luxury, he received much recognition in artistic circles and didn't exactly have to worry about money, either. In the 1950s it became fashionable among Chinese painters to go into the countryside and make sketches of rural life and scenery. Renowned masters like Pan Tianshou, Li Keran or Shi Lu created landscape paintings of magnificent momentum. Lin Fengmian was one of them. Born in a farming village in Canton Province, he had an inherent affinity for natural scenery, and in those days, free from the shackles of official employment, he spent much of his time in nature, letting the beautiful vistas provide fresh inspiration for his creative efforts.

In 1953, on his way back from a trip to Suzhou's Tiangping Mountain, Lin Fengmian happened to pass by the home of Su Tianci. Still under the impression of the panoramas revealed during his excursion, he excitedly told Su about the inspiration for a new kind of landscape painting he had received in the Tianping Mountain area. There, said Lin, he had discovered new varieties of color, shape, form and space, all imbued with a delicate poetic quality that spoke directly to his susceptible aesthetic senses. Under the gentle rays of the late autumn sun, the secluded Tianping Mountain forests' little paths were leading higher and higher up into woody depths. In the foreground, pines that weren't exceedingly tall but certainly of impressive girth and rugged strength first attracted the eye with their ominous dark hues. The middle ground was dominated by a sea of fiery maples, showing bright red colors in pleasing contrast with the golden yellow of autumn foliage. Still further up, in the far distance, the deeper parts of the forest were lowering with the promise of quiet reclusion. Although the Tianping Mountain area is by no means very extensive or blessed with many dazzling sights, it displays an attractive, harmonious blend of woods, pathways, little dwellings and pools. It boasts a dense intensity and splendid glory of the more quiet kind, and in its marvelous isolation it offers the painter a space in which he may give free rein to his artistic imagination.'(see Wang Di [1937-1977] Lin Fengmian's Road, Hangzhou: China Academy of Art Press, 1999, p. 66)

Prolific art critic Lang Shaojun also mentioned the current lot in his publication 'Form Exploration to Maturity-Lin Fengmian's Painting from the 40s through the 70s: 'Works such as Autumn Splendour represent reminiscences of primeval autumn scenery impressed indelibly on the artist's mind mainly during his 1953 excursion to Tianping Mountain. The maples, pines, ponds and tortuous little pathways into back-lighted mountains, all this became deeply engraved in Lin's imagination. He told Su Tianci that he wanted to paint 'newlandscapes', and this most likely referred to the Tiangpingshan autumn scenery bathed in hazy sunlight-a panorama that gave the artist new ideas for the use of colour as the language to communicate original images and express his emotions. During the 1950s and 60s, Lin Fengmian was better off financially, and twice he was even invited to participate in the national convention of art delegates. He was also made vice chairman of the Shanghai Association of Artists and was able to launch his first solo exhibitions in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. This did much to pull him out of the lethargic and oppressed mood of the early 50s, and turned him into a more cheerful and open-minded person. This is reflected in his work from that period, mostly autumn scenes in brilliantly bright colours. Of course Autumn Splendour is not the only representative work, there are others that show variations in style and palette, such as the delicately sophisticated "Autumn Mountain"and "Autumn Haze" or "Pine Grove" with its heavier and more dignified style.'(see Lang Shaojun, ' Comprehensive Survey of Famous Chinese Artists: Lin Fengmian' , Taipei: Artist Publications, 2004, pp 137-138) Starting in the late 50s, Lin's predilection for autumn scenery became even more pronounced. Be it the reddish leaves of autumn trees, idyllic river banks or rural villages and farmhouses, they all were depicted again and again in an amazing variety of colours, shades and light. Lang Shaojun holds that the works from Lin Fengmian's Autumn Landscape, Autumn Aspirations and West Lake series rank as the most original and artistically appealing landscape paintings from the artist's mature period.

Lin set out as a student of traditional Chinese painting, but later he discovered the Western art and went abroad to study it extensively. His particular strength is the treatment of light and colour, which he intermeshes in ways that are clearly influenced by the impressionists. Yet his adaptation of the liubai technique, in which large areas of the picture may be left blank, betrays his roots in the Chinese tradition. Lin developed his own unique way of employing this particular method. Blending Western influences into his work, he managed to add a new touch of realism to the xieyi (freehand brushwork) style, revolutionizing the Chinese convention of representing water and skies with vacant spaces. Lin rather applies soft colours for these elements in a technique strongly reminiscent of watercolours. During his middle years, the artist explored numerous other ways of merging Eastern and Western techniques and styles, but without doubt it is in his landscape motifs that he displays the highest degree of artistic innovation.

The towering ranges rising in veils of mist make "Autumn Haze" pleasant to look at. The generously applied swabs of colour in the basic hues of red, yellow and blue set the painting's spirited tone as they make the trees come alive, while the buildings interspersed here and there in the fore- and middle ground, with their contrasting whitewashed walls and black roof tiles, contribute a more down-to-earth note-lovable in their disarming simplicity. Lin Fengmian's superior skill and experience are evident in the clever incorporation of folk art elements into his work, such as the lines and forms of Dingyao and Cizhouyao ware that add a fluid, classical quality to his paintings. The slightly curved shapes of the roof tiles and fences are mirrored in the sinuous lines of the pines, and the overall impression is rounded off with semitransparent shades of white that signify the floating clouds typical for this kind of mountain scenery. This is Lin Fengmian at his very best: the thin, almost ephemeral vapours, applied with gentle expertise, almost seem to actually move as they are drifting ever so lightly across the middle and upper regions of this vista, hovering about the treetops as if they were the very soul of the forest, gradually rising towards the light of the sun illuming the topmost clouds. The vertical pine trees and the horizontal shreds of mist create a sense of finely balanced harmony that is extremely pleasant to the eye of the beholder. On the whole, the painting's imagery is highly sophisticated, and in its image of the bounteous and magnificent autumn season captures the full force of the artist's imagination.