LIU DAN (b.1953) Old Cypress from the Forbidden City, 2007LIU DAN (b.1953)Old Cypress from the Forbidden City, 2007Ink on xuan paper, signed in lower right corner. 259.1cm high x 137.2cm wide (102in high x 54in wide) 劉丹（1953年生） 紫禁城御花園古柏 水墨紙本 鏡框 2007年作Published, Illustrated and Exhibited: Chinese Ink Painting Now, New York, 2010, p.71.Michael Goedhuis, Ink: The Art of China, Saatchi Gallery, London, 2012, p.75.展覽著錄：《當代中國水墨畫》，紐約，2010年，第71頁。Michael Goedhuis著，《Ink: the Art of China》， 薩奇美術館，倫敦，2012年，第75頁。Liu Dan is one of the most internationally renowned painters of his generation, known for his meticulously detailed ink paintings of rocks, trees and flowers that combine literati traditions with western hyper-realism. Liu Dan's paintings of trees are rare, and most of his work usually depicts rocks or flowers. The present lot depicts a specific cypress tree in the Imperial garden of the Forbidden City. The garden, which is at the rear of the palace, was a private retreat for the Imperial family. Many of the trees planted there date to the Ming dynasty and are living time capsules of history. Indeed, the cypress in Chinese is baishu (柏樹) which is homophonous with bai (百) 'hundred', and so symbolises longevity as well as virtue. The present painting therefore, seems to capture the essence of China's long and textured history. Born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, in 1953, Liu studied the Confucian classics, poetry, painting, and calligraphy with his grandfather at an early age. After the disruption of the Cultural Revolution and joining the Nanjing Red Guards, Liu returned to traditional painting under Ya Ming (1924-2002) at the newly reopened Jiangsu Academy of Chinese Painting, Hangzhou, from 1978 to 1981. He later moved to Hawaii and studied Western art. Liu then moved to New York in 1992, and after fourteen years there, he returned to China in 2006.Despite his highly privileged training with noted ink painter Ya Ming, and years of study at the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Painting in his native town of Nanjing, Liu Dan's work departs from the dramatic expressive qualities of the brush and brushstrokes that were central to his education. Having mastered the art of self-expression via the brushstroke, for centuries regarded as key to the most sophisticated Chinese ink painting revealing the hand and heart of the artist, Liu Dan rejected it in favour of a focus on structure. There are three reasons why Liu's painting moved away from brush-strokes to hyper-realism: Firstly, he found it imperative to reconnect with an original pure creative spirit and for this reason he delighted in the less self-conscious forms of classical and medieval Western art, and Chinese art of the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) and earlier. Secondly, while living in the West - primarily Hawaii and New York, from 1981 until moving to Beijing in 2006 - he concluded that most twentieth-century Chinese art had been produced in response to external pressures. He aspired to be an agent of self-directed creativity rather than reactive production. Thirdly, he developed a personal philosophy of nature's generative force, observing that natural forms evolve and duplicate on a grand scale, such that rocks can be considered the 'stem cells of landscape, see, C.von Spee, Modern Chinese Ink Paintings, London, 2012, p.101. Liu Dan explains his doctrine as an artist: 'Your one responsibility as an artist is changing the visual experience of people, the way they look at things. Your one purpose is to encourage an openness of mind that allows them to look beyond everyday concerns and think freely.' Liu Dan's ink paintings, whether of landscapes, scholar's rocks, or old cypress trees in the Forbidden City, are all fastidiously conceived, complex works which highlight his concern to emphasise underlying compositional structure over virtuoso expressions of brushwork. Liu's paintings are collected globally and can be found in many prestigious museums and collections including the British Museum; the Musée Guimét, Paris; The Shanghai Contemporary Art Museum; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; and the San Diego Museum of Art. See a painting of a poppy by Liu Dan, which was sold at Christie's New York, 16 September 2016, lot 1118.