Yen Chuan-ying is a trailblazing researcher specializing in Taiwanese art history and an adjunct research fellow in the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica. She recalls how the exhibition Everlasting Bloom, which opened in October 2020 at the Museum of National Taipei University of Education, was a huge success despite the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yen felt as if she was seeing light at the end of a long tunnel. This was a far cry from 1987. Shortly after she came back from the USA, she had turned her back on the mainstream fields of Chinese and Western art, devoting herself instead to Taiwanese art history, which was woefully neglected at the time. “Are there any Taiwanese artworks worth studying?” This skepticism was prevalent among academics.

Conflicts and reconciliations

Taiwanese art eluded our attention for far too long. While everyone knew Van Gogh and Monet, few could name any native artists. “I often tell people that in a very real sense, we are strangers in our own land,” says art historian and curator Lin Chen-ching, who is an associate researcher at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.

The neglect of Taiwanese art has to do with major politico-­historical transitions in the last century. Modern Taiwanese art has its origins in the Japanese colonial era (1895–1945). Its development, however, was interrupted after World War II by the arrival of the Kuomintang (KMT) government, which brought with it an entirely different cultural regime. The clash of cultures led to an enduring rupture in the Taiwanese people’s collective memory.

While the Japanese colonial government had promoted nihonga (post-Meiji-era Japanese-style painting), after WWII the officially endorsed art form became Chinese ink-wash painting. Different ethnicities had very different languages, cultures, and aesthetic tastes. Pressure from the authoritarian government, coupled with the arrival of historic treasures originally housed in the Forbidden City in Beijing, relegated Taiwanese art to the shadows. Bereft of opportunities to develop their careers, most local artists born in the Japanese era were left artistically voiceless.

To obtain a better understanding of that age, we visit pioneering artist Shaih Lifa (b. 1938), who went to university during the early years of KMT rule in Taiwan. At that time, he recalls, artists born on the Chinese mainland utterly dominated officially sponsored artistic events. “But China had just undergone a revolution, the ravages of regional warlords, and eight years of war with Japan. The people had been busy fleeing war and seeking shelter. How could they have had the leisure to paint? In Western painting, sketching is seen as a basic skill, but sketching takes up a great deal of time. Though the war also affected Taiwan, the Japanese valued art education and employed painters such as Kinichiro Ishikawa [1871–1945] and Tōho Shiotsuki [1886–1954] to teach in high schools. Hence many Taiwanese painters were convinced that mainland Chinese painters were not properly trained.”

“Nevertheless, Sun Duoci [1912–1975], one of my teachers, was an exception. She was a student of Xu Beihong [1895–1953]. Xu had studied in France, and Sun had a solid grounding in sketching. At that time, painters from different cultural backgrounds rarely interacted with each other. Sun often served as an intermediary [between mainland and Taiwanese-born artists]. She never judged anybody by their identity or social status, and would often ask: ‘Why do we have to make these distinctions?’ Once she told us that there were three Taiwanese painters who were very accomplished, although they were not famous. I later found out that she meant Chin Jun-tso [1922–1983], Lee Tze-fan [1907–1989], and Xiao Rusong [1922–1992].”

“When I was in my third year at university [1957], the government held a national art exhibition. This was mainly for mainland-­Chinese-­born entrants, and the convener was Sun Duoci. Wishing to break the deadlock, however, she invited both the Ton Fan Group—which consisted primarily of mainland-born painters—and Taiwanese-born artist Yuyu Yang [Yang Yingfeng, 1926–1997] to select the artworks. She did this in order to make a real change.”

Shaih’s words shed light on the conflicts and reconciliations between different population groups in Taiwan after WWII.

Veteran curator Lin Chen-ching has staged numerous exhibitions on Taiwan’s pioneering artists.

Pioneering artist Lin Hsin-yueh (b. 1939) specializes in painting Taiwanese landscapes and animals. Characterized by their grandeur and gorgeous colors, some of his works are on permanent display in important national venues, including the Presidential Office Building. (photo by Kent Chuang)

Writing a history of Taiwanese art

Shaih is more widely known as the first author to write a history of Taiwanese art. Based in New York at the time, he wrote to painters such as Kuo Hsueh-hu (1908–2012) and Cheng Shih-fan (1915–2006), as well as artists’ relatives, including Liao Han-chen (brother of Huang Tu-shui’s wife, Liao Qiugui), to gather firsthand information, and started to publish his work in Taiwan’s Artist Magazine.

In 1978 a collection of his writings was released in book form. Entitled History of Taiwanese Art Movement During Japanese Occupation, it provides an invaluable record of early Taiwanese art.

It was not until the 1990s, when Taiwanese identity began to rise in importance, that researchers such as Yen Chuan-ying and Hsiao Chong-ray followed in Shaih’s footsteps and devoted themselves to investigating Taiwanese art history academically. Only after that did universities start to offer courses related to Taiwanese art.

In recent years, with the reinforcement of Taiwanese subjectivity, and with anti-Covid restrictions sparking a new interest in domestic culture, local art has finally made it to the forefront of public attention..

Made for Taipei’s Lungshan Temple, Huang Tu-shui’s Sakya is strikingly different from conventional Buddhist sculptures. The figure’s face shows both compassion and fortitude. It is listed as a significant antiquity.

Shaih Lifa is the first author to write a history of Taiwanese art. He gathered firsthand material by corresponding with artists such as Kuo Hsueh-hu and Cheng Shih-fan.

Local cosmopolitanism

“How do we appreciate these modern-style artworks from the Japanese colonial era?” While everyone can conjure up images of internationally famous works of art, how do we construe those relatively neglected works nourished by our own cultural soil—works which are at once unfamiliar and close to us?

Tsai Chia-chiu, associate professor in the Graduate Institute of Art History at National Taiwan Normal University, reminds us that the slow development of certain techniques and art forms is a source of anxiety across many Asian countries in an age when Western art remains dominant. When we look at the works of pioneering artists, we should try to forego our own preconceptions about what classic art entails. Beyond scrutinizing forms and techniques, we need to pay attention to the ideas that artists seek to express in their works, as well as the interactions between land and culture. In doing so, we gain deeper insights into art.

Artworks of a high caliber reflect local culture and awaken collective memories. “This is what people mean when they say ‘the more local, the more cosmopolitan,’” says Lin Chen-ching.

From this viewpoint, Taiwanese art history is not without its sorrows. Artists who specialized in nihonga, such as Lin Yushan (1907–2004) and Chen Chin (1907–1998), all turned to Chinese ink-wash painting after WWII. This drastic shift reflects the cataclysmic changes in Taiwan’s history and politics.

Furthermore, steering between the dominating influences of Japanese, Western, and Chinese art, Taiwanese artists have had to draw on their own creativity and cultural thinking to adapt materials, techniques, and aesthetic styles that come from different traditions. They have had to internalize outside influences and give them a local habitation to create works that are recognizably their own. How to make scrupulous choices among a diversity of resources has always posed a challenge to Taiwanese artists.

The Taichi series by sculptor Ju Ming (1938–2023) is inspired by Eastern culture, but the pieces comprise bold, blocky forms reminiscent of Western styles, as well as inheriting the Eastern emphasis on flowing lines.

Chen Cheng-po’s Lucid Water is listed as a significant antiquity. The painter himself made it known that this was to be a family heirloom. The work combines Western oil painting with the shifting perspective common in Eastern paintings. (courtesy of Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation)

Another significant antiquity, Yuuenchi (Chiayi Park) by Chen Cheng-po (1895–1947), portrays a lush flame tree with water birds beneath it. (courtesy of Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation)

Cultural awakening

Our hearts go out to those who persevere in the pursuit of art despite a lack of applause and public attention. This is an experience shared by the vast majority of Taiwanese artists throughout history.

Artist Lin Hsin-yueh, who is now in his 80s, declares, “Painters continue to work until they reach the end of their lives, when their brushes drop from their hands.” When we ask Shaih Lifa why he and other artists of the older generations carried on creating art even in poverty, he says with a soft smile: “No particular reason—it was just our destiny.”

This perseverance against the odds is something Taiwanese artists have taken for granted. Written more than a century ago, the article “Born in Taiwan” by Huang Tu-shui (1895–1930) goes some way to explaining it: “Art is borderless; you can create art wherever you are. Even so, artists have a soft spot for their native lands…. Taiwan is an earthly paradise blessed with heavenly beauty. When our fellow countrymen open their eyes and give free rein to their youthful ambitions, we will certainly see great artists born of this island!”

Artists’ passion for art, their quest for a civilized modernity, and their fervent expectations and love for their nations, have motivated them to devote themselves to their calling even though they are not understood by the masses. Their hope is none other than that their work will be passed down to posterity and serve as a guiding light in the future.

Huang Tu-shui’s sculptures of indigenous people, sambar deer, banana plants, and buffaloes, Kuo Hsueh-hu’s vision of the street architecture and Xiahai City God Temple of Taipei’s Dadaocheng, Lin Yushan’s lotus flowers, Chen Cheng-po’s flame tree and water birds—from our perspective today, all of these images constitute a gorgeous, bountiful view of our island.

It matters little whether these works received prestigious awards. They are representative of Taiwan because the local motifs they portray faithfully capture the depth and breadth of our culture. Especially in the Japanese period, “expressing the richness of Taiwanese subjectivity suggested resistance to the colonial government,” Tsai Chia-chiu tells us.

These pioneering artists were harbingers of Taiwan’s cultural awakening and confidence.

Fu Juanfu (1910–2007), an ink-wash painter who moved to Taiwan after WWII, developed new techniques to portray Taiwanese landscapes. This painting—Running Waves—makes abundant use of a texturing technique to imitate fractured landforms. (courtesy of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)

The works of our pioneering artists are beginning to receive the attention they deserve.