Poetic Tenderness: A Study on the Aesthetics of Sanyu's Pink-Period Oil Paintings

Zhang Puti

Color ›› 2026, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (2) : 96-99.

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Color ›› 2026, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (2) : 96-99.

Poetic Tenderness: A Study on the Aesthetics of Sanyu's Pink-Period Oil Paintings

  • Zhang Puti
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Abstract

As a representative figure among 20th-century Chinese artists living in France, Sanyu’s Pink Period( roughly from the 1920s to the 1930s) represents a golden phase in his artistic career, marked by mature style, pure visual language and distinctive artistic conception. This paper takes Sanyu’s oil paintings from his Pink Period as the research subject, and analyzes the thematic features, formal language and aesthetic connotations of this stage by integrating his life experience, artistic context and cultural background.Works from Sanyu’s Pink Period are dominated by low-saturation pink tones, combined with concise, fluent calligraphic lines and compositions featuring ethereal blank space, creating a unique artistic style that embodies both the formal beauty of Western modernism and the freehand spirit of Chinese literati painting. In his works, pink is not merely a visual color, but a multi-layered metaphor reflecting his state of mind, emotions and cultural identity at that time, carrying gentle poetry and reserved loneliness. This paper argues that Sanyu’s natural integration of Eastern and Western artistic characteristics during his Pink Period has provided an important paradigm for cross-cultural artistic creation, possessing irreplaceable value and significance in the history of Sino-Western artistic exchanges in the 20th century.

Key words

Sanyu / Oil Painting / Pink / Pink Period

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Zhang Puti. Poetic Tenderness: A Study on the Aesthetics of Sanyu's Pink-Period Oil Paintings[J]. Color. 2026, 44(2): 96-99

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