Chang moved to Beijing after Huai's death and began building up a reputation as one of the nation's leading artists. It was to be his renderings of the famed Tang dynasty Buddhist cliff and cave-face paintings of Dunhuang (敦煌) in China's northwestern Gansu Province, however, that would prove to be the artist's most monumental series of works.
In 1940, Chang ventured to over 309 of the area's vast network of caves and labyrinths and with the help of Tibetan monks he studied and made copies of the brightly colored ornamental religious murals.
While the current exhibition focuses on many aspects of his early life and is comprised of many differing styles of Chang's works, several of Chang's striking Dunhuang renderings have been included in the exhibition.
"Never before have we had the opportunity to exhibit so many of Chang's Dunhuang renderings in one place," continued the president of the Pacific Cultural Foundation. "And although only one part of the exhibition is dedicated to these works, they do prove some of the displays most exciting pieces."
The cave paintings at Dunhuang aren't the only Buddhist regalia to have come under the scrutiny of Chang's brush, although they are the only ones included in the exhibition.
While focusing predominantly on the artist's pre-1949 works, and including pieces from both his "Dunhuang" and "Five Dynasties" series, the current exhibition also includes a display of the "Da Fong Stamps," or seals used by Chang to sign his artwork.
Chang didn't simply affix a common seal with his name on to his works. Instead the artist relied on his knowledge of classical Chinese poetry to add a unique individuality and poetic-lilt to each of his seals.
Many of them are inscribed with some rather perplexing, but meaningful Buddhist prose such as "a tiny drop of water may contain 3,000 chiliocosms," while others are less penetrating and set out in terms that even a layman could understand.
However Chang signed his work, be it poetically or in run-of-the-mill fashion, the collection of works on display at Taipei's National Museum of History at present endorses Chang's rightful place as one of the most prolific and unique artists to emerge from China in the 20th century.
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