By 1965 Chu had committed to abstraction, yet the title Automne keeps the painting attached to seasonal experience. Dense dark passages are crossed by warmer notes and quick linear incidents. Autumn is not represented through trees or leaves; it is reconstructed as a pressure among ember-like color, shadow, and declining light.
Number and title point in different directions. The number belongs to the serial discipline of postwar abstraction, while the word autumn invites memory and sensation. Chu keeps both, refusing the claim that an abstract painting must be sealed off from the world that prompted it.
