In Li Mei-shu's (
Even more ironic is Li Shih-chiao's (
All these pieces are good testimony to the hardship laced throughout Taiwan's tumultuous history. They are among the 37 oil paintings featured in the Taiwan section of the exhibition, which also displays oil paintings of the first half of the 20th century from Korea, Japan and China.
"The common characteristic of the pioneering artists is their tenacious vitality and unyielding idealism," said Lin Man-lee (
Indeed, these paintings vividly convey the island's past to contemporary audiences. Taiwan's early immigrants, who came mostly from China's Fukien Province, had to deal with the difficulties of living in an undeveloped, virgin land and of colonization. In the first generation of oil paintings, as well as other art forms like Taiwanese operas, there seems to linger a sad tone as justice is not served, and surrendering to a powerful regime is inevitable.
Since 1895, when Japan took over Taiwan, the art scene has been enriched by Japanese and western disciplines. Until Japan ceded Taiwan to China in 1945, the Japanese were a leading force in the development of fine art on the island.
In the 1920s, several Japanese artists-cum-teachers fostered the first batch of local painters. Ishikawa Kinichiro (
For the next decade, the art circle was full of students returning from schools in Japan. Some featured in the exhibition are Liao Chi-chuen (
Two of the 21 oil painters featured in the exhibition, Liao Chi-cheun and Li Shih-chiao, became mainstays for promoting art. Liao taught at university and Li had a private studio. Both attracted numerous followers who studied painting with them. As can be seen from the pieces Court with Banana Trees, and Scene with Coconut Trees, both on view at the exhibition, Liao Chi-chuen's style is more romantic. He was daring, able to break through and embrace new concepts on modern art. His teaching was based on instinct and imagination, cutting off redundant academic interpretation. On the other hand, Lee has more of an intellectual approach to art. He was theoretical, systematic and his paintings, such as Happy Farmers, convey a concrete sense of reality.
As viewed from the exhibition items in the show, Taiwan's oil painters in the first half of the 20th century drew most of their material from rural society, with colonial culture also acting as a catalyst.
This large-scale exhibition on oil paintings collects 160 items that are representative of the four countries featured in the show. Guides are available at the museum that will give more in-depth background into the development of oil paintings in East Asia, and contrast and compare the contents and forms.
As Taiwan’s second most populous city, Taichung looms large in the electoral map. Taiwanese political commentators describe it — along with neighboring Changhua County — as Taiwan’s “swing states” (搖擺州), which is a curious direct borrowing from American election terminology. In the early post-Martial Law era, Taichung was referred to as a “desert of democracy” because while the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was winning elections in the north and south, Taichung remained staunchly loyal to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). That changed over time, but in both Changhua and Taichung, the DPP still suffers from a “one-term curse,” with the
Jan. 26 to Feb. 1 Nearly 90 years after it was last recorded, the Basay language was taught in a classroom for the first time in September last year. Over the following three months, students learned its sounds along with the customs and folktales of the Ketagalan people, who once spoke it across northern Taiwan. Although each Ketagalan settlement had its own language, Basay functioned as a common trade language. By the late 19th century, it had largely fallen out of daily use as speakers shifted to Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), surviving only in fragments remembered by the elderly. In
William Liu (劉家君) moved to Kaohsiung from Nantou to live with his boyfriend Reg Hong (洪嘉佑). “In Nantou, people do not support gay rights at all and never even talk about it. Living here made me optimistic and made me realize how much I can express myself,” Liu tells the Taipei Times. Hong and his friend Cony Hsieh (謝昀希) are both active in several LGBT groups and organizations in Kaohsiung. They were among the people behind the city’s 16th Pride event in November last year, which gathered over 35,000 people. Along with others, they clearly see Kaohsiung as the nexus of LGBT rights.
In the American west, “it is said, water flows upwards towards money,” wrote Marc Reisner in one of the most compelling books on public policy ever written, Cadillac Desert. As Americans failed to overcome the West’s water scarcity with hard work and private capital, the Federal government came to the rescue. As Reisner describes: “the American West quietly became the first and most durable example of the modern welfare state.” In Taiwan, the money toward which water flows upwards is the high tech industry, particularly the chip powerhouse Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). Typically articles on TSMC’s water demand
RSS