Molding the Spirit of His Times

Pu Tian-sheng’s family ran a picture framing shop. As a child, Pu taught himself art by imitating famous paintings, and he later befriended the painter Lin Yu-shan. Eager to develop his skills, he traveled to Japan to study art, without his parents’ permission. There, after a year’s preparation, he passed the entrance exam to study Japanese painting at Teikoku Art School (now Musashino Art University). One day, however, in the school’s department of sculpture, he came across a statue of a nude female illuminated by a beam of sunlight, and was utterly bewitched by her beautiful contours. That encounter led Pu to change his course. Eventually he was taken under the wing of the Japanese sculptor Fumio Asakura.

Asakura’s disciple

Pu was unwavering in his new pursuit. During his first three years at Asakura’s studio, he took on all sorts of chores, from sweeping the floor to chopping firewood. Physical exertion served to strengthen Pu’s mind. Asa­kura thus described him: “This Taiwanese is more like a samu­rai than we Japanese are.” Pu’s personal integrity was reflected in his uncompromising attitude towards art. Pu returned to Taiwan in 1941. In 1946 he was commissioned to make a bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek. Although he was specifically instructed to include a peaked cap, Pu felt that this would obscure his subject’s character. In that authoritarian era, rejecting official requirements like this could mean death. Fortunately the two sides reached a consensus, and Pu was allowed to have his way.

Asakura is known for his soft and graceful sculptural style. His attention to balance and harmony reveals the influence of Western classicism. Pu inherited this style. In 1957 Asakura sent a letter to Taiwan, explaining that his health was failing, and he wanted to pass on all of his skills to Pu. Subsequently, Pu created Light of Spring, a female nude whose torso is subtly twisted, with one hand touching the head. Celebrating the beauty of the human body, this sculpture was selected for the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition and became one of Pu’s representative works.

Pu’s Reminiscence shows the undulating contours of a delicately poised human body which is ready to move at any moment. (courtesy of the P.T.S. Sculpture Memorial Museum)

Statues of public figures

At the recommendation of his father-in-law, the renowned painter Chen Cheng-po, Pu was commissioned to make Taiwan’s first bronze statue of Sun Yat-sen, which is now on the plaza outside Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall.

Pu and his wife, Chen Tzu-wei, had five children. In order to feed his family, Pu made busts and statues of many famous people, such as Lin Huanbang (founder of Lin Shang Hao Plywood, reputedly the wealthiest person in Taiwan at one time), Yu Youren (president of the Control Yuan), Sun Ke (president of the Executive Yuan), and Yang Zhaojia (a pioneer of Taiwanese nationalism).

Art historian Hsiao Chong-ray says that these statues of Taiwan’s public figures not only serve to document the island’s modern history but also reflect Auguste Rodin’s approach, as they embody anthropological insights. Some of Rodin’s statues are also named after their subjects, but while portraying the particularities of the human figures, they yield access to larger ethnic and cultural contexts. Pu’s busts perform the same functions: their particular sartorial styles and accessories tell us about the social classes to which the subjects belong.

Some may think that the main purpose of Pu’s statues was to flatter the rich and powerful. In Pu’s eyes, however, these were all artworks. Pu’s son Hao-chih recalls his words: “In a hundred years’ time, the political world will be different, but art will remain.”

Pu’s son Hao-ming (left) is also a sculptor. Another son, Hao-chih (right), directs the P.T.S. Sculpture Memorial Museum, collecting stories and historical records related to every stage of his father’s life, especially from his time in Japan and his subsequent career in Taiwan.

Increasing vibrancy

Pu’s style underwent significant changes when he was in his 70s: the Oriental restraint and softness that had characterized his earlier works gave way to Western vibrancy and forthrightness. Comparing Pu’s 1958 sculpture Light of Spring with later works such as Slim and Graceful (1981), Sunshine (1981), and the Sports ­series (1988–1991), Hsiao observes that Light of Spring shows the proportions of an East Asian female body, while the later sculptures are modeled on Western women. Students from Western countries began to come to Taiwan in the 1980s, and Pu invited some of them to pose for him.

Pu was inspired to create his Sports series when watching the gymnastics competitions of the 1988 Seoul Olympics on TV. His mind captured memorable moments from the gymnasts’ performances, enabling him to delineate the contours of human bodies stretched to the limit.

Hsiao thinks that Pu found his own path late in life, gradually distancing himself from Asakura’s gentle and intro­spective style. Pu’s Reminiscence depicts a woman sitting on the ground, having just taken a bath. Even though the sculpture is static, it seems as if the figure’s delicately poised hands and legs—which hold the body in graceful balance—are about to move at any moment. The hair is worth noticing, too: apparently still wet, it hangs down over her right shoulder, covering part of her chest. The individual strands of hair demonstrate Pu’s subtle attention to detail.

The Sports series records the muscular beauty of performing gymnasts, capturing memorable moments for eternity.

Pu’s contributions

Pu was among the first sculptors to devote themselves to educating future artists, even before sculpture departments were established at universities across Taiwan.

Pu’s eldest son, Hao-ming, says that at an abstract level, his father’s teaching philosophy is akin to the ideas of the German art critic Johann Winckelmann: Pu thought that Greek and Roman sculpture essentially came down to noble simplicity and solemn grandeur, and that an artist’s personal character could be discerned in his work. Cultivating acute observational skills was the most fundamental task for every sculptor: “One must be able to observe how one part of the human body differs from another in its texture, and how the lips differ in their softness from the corners of the mouth and the cheeks; our physical con­dition also shows seasonal differences,” Pu Hao-ming says.

Whereas a painter usually faces his model and his canvas at the same time, Pu would first observe his model and then swivel around 180 degrees to shape his clay. “While he was turning around, the image of the model would instantly flash upon his mind, allowing the most striking parts to come into focus.”

Pu was also the first Taiwanese artist to set up a bronze foundry. While bronze casting had been confined to mechanical engineering, Pu introduced the techniques for casting statuary and was able to retain a group of Japanese bronzeworkers after the Republic of China took over Taiwan from Japan in 1945. Pu thus helped establish the skills of turning clay sculptures into bronze in Taiwan.

From sculptures made for his family to those influenced by Fumio Asakura, such as Light of Spring and The Three Graces, and from statues of influential public figures, which bear witness to their historical contexts, to the new stylistic departures of his later works such as the Sports series, Pu’s sculptural projects testify to his unswerving dedication to art. They have also contributed to the continuation and transformation of Western classical art in Taiwan.

For more than ten years Pu gave sculpture workshops, teaching his students how to capture three-dimensional form. (courtesy of the P.T.S. Sculpture Memorial Museum)

Reminiscent of the soft contours of classical Greek sculpture, Light of Spring was selected for the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition.