#ChineseAvant-Garde
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Back of Mona Lisa A (Post-Classical Series) / 蒙娜麗莎之後 A (後古典) by Wang Guangyi (王廣義) (Chinese) – Oil on canvas / 1986–1987 – M+ Museum (Hong Kong) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #MonaLisa #WangGuangyi #王廣義 #M+Museum #SiggCollection #ChineseArtist #BlueskyArt #ConceptualRealism #ChineseAvant-Garde
This vertical canvas re-imagines Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” by showing her facing away from us as if we are behind her. We see a seated figure with straight dark hair falling against her back and shoulders softened beneath a heavy brown-black garment. Instead of the famous face, only the neck’s curve and upper back are visible, lit by diffused, pearly tones that recall Renaissance chiaroscuro. A horizontal ledge near the lower edge anchors the form, while beyond it a misted landscape unfolds of pale blues and ochres fading into distance, echoing Leonardo’s sfumato style of seamless transitions and diffused light yet simplified. The brushwork is measured with calm edges and subdued palette to focus on concept rather than illusion. The familiar structure is inverted as the world’s most recognized sitter in a painting becomes anonymous with her mystery now located in withdrawal rather than gaze. Painted in 1986–1987, this work belongs to Wang Guangyi’s (王廣義) Post-Classical (後古典) series, created as China’s 1980s avant-garde engaged Western art from a new vantage. A graduate of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts and co-founder of the Northern Art Group, Wang used this series to question how classical images persist within modern ideological and global systems. “我只是想问：如果我们把它转过来会怎样” (I simply wondered: what would it look like if we turned it around?), he said of the idea. By presenting the Mona Lisa from behind, he transforms homage into critique: what happens when this iconic emblem of Western genius is viewed from its reverse? The familiar landscape affirms tradition even as the absent face dismantles it, proposing a distinctly Chinese postmodern inquiry into visibility, ownership, and cultural translation. Within the shifting climate of the ’85 New Wave, Wang’s cool, deliberate inversion captures a generation’s resolve to face global art history by quite literally turning it around.
October 15, 2025 at 7:25 AM