Liu Kuo-sung is considered a pioneer of internationally oriented modernist ink painting. As one of only two artists still living in this exhibition, he is now considered one of China's great contemporary artists. He was born in Bengbu in Anhui Province and came to Taiwan as a young man in 1949, where he studied traditional Chinese and contemporary Western painting. He was particularly fascinated by Abstract Expressionism, recognizing in it parallels to Chinese literati painting.
This painting was created in the course of a joint exhibition of the two artists Liu Kuo-sung and Au Ho-nien at the Museum für Kunsthandwerk (today’s Museum Angewandte Kunst) in 1979. It probably served to demonstrate his special painting technique. The central, deep black ink strokes are executed with a broad brush on the back of the coarse-fibred paper produced according to Liu's own ideas. The artist then completed the composition with a few strokes washed in lighter ink on the upper right. His signature at the bottom, exactly in the middle of the picture, is also unusual. It seems as if he wanted to emphasize the peculiar shape above it. It is a composition quickly thrown down with a few broad brushstrokes, more reminiscent of calligraphy than a landscape painting A composition that is more reminiscent of calligraphy than a landscape painting and thusfree for all kinds of associations.