Sat, Mar 31, 2018 page14

• Bilingual Arts: Chen Chin’s The Women of Sandimen Area 雙語藝術：陳進的《三地門社之女》

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  In 1934, Chen Chin (1907 - 1998), known as one of the three young Taiwanese selected to exhibit at the Taiwan Art Exhibition (Taiten) during the Japanese colonial period, taught at the Takao (Kaohsiung) Prefecture Heito High School for Girls — present day Pingtung Girls’ Senior High School — becoming the first Taiwanese woman to teach at a Japanese colonial era high school.

  Aborigines, quite distinct from people from the local area in their clothing and general appearance, would often come by the school neighborhood, and their clothing and general apparance attracted Chen’s attention. When she was not teaching, she would go into the Paiwan Aboriginal area of Sandimen to paint.

  Chen used this subject matter to paint a draft for a large work entitled The Women of Sandimen Area (photo 1). This was completed at Tokyo’s Kanei-ji Temple in 1936, and was selected for inclusion at the New Ministry of Education Art Exhibition.

  

  Photo 1: Chen Chin. The Women of Sandimen Area. 1936. Color pigment on silk. 147.7×199.9 cm. Collection of Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Japan. 圖一：陳進。《三地門社之女》。一九三六年。絹本膠彩畫。一四七‧七 × 一九九‧九公分。日本福岡亞洲美術館收藏。

  Photo: Liberty Times
  照片：自由時報

  Rendered in Chen’s brushwork style — Chen is known for her Japanese-style Nihonga gouache paintings — the woman cradling a baby, the little girls dressed in red and yellow, and the woman squatting and holding a pipe to the left of the composition, are all natural and elegantly poised. With the various scarves, clothes and jewelry denoting different social status, the meticulous rendering and rich colors of the work have distinctly ethnic features.

  Interestingly, when one compares the earlier drafts with the final exhibited work, the figures in the draft feature beady eyes and rather haughty postures, as well as darker skin color (photos 2 and 3). Of course, the grand scale, attention to detail and high degree of completeness of the exhibited piece make it the more “beautiful” version, but one cannot help feel that something of the edge of the figures as originally captured by the artist has been smoothed away, such that they appear more like the non-Aboriginal inhabitants of Taiwan at the time, albeit in Aboriginal clothes, while the woman smoking holds her pipe in a way one might associate more with a French woman. These changes were perhaps made to more suit the aesthetic preferences of the Japanese exhibition judges, both in terms of the depiction of the female and of other ethnicities, so that they were exotic without appearing threatening.

  The education and exhibition systems of Japanese colonial-period Taiwan were formative influences on modern Taiwanese art. Chen Chin received many awards for her work during her lifetime, and one can imagine that she was fully aware of the rules of that particular game, forging herself a way through the prickly path of gender and ethnic differences.

  

  Photo 2: Chen Chin. Details of draft, The Women of Sandimen Area. 圖二：陳進。《三地門社之女》草圖局部。

  Photo: Liberty Times
  照片：自由時報

  (Translated by Paul Cooper)

  一九三四年，「台展三少年」之一的陳進（一九○七年～一九九八年）應邀至高雄州立屏東高女（今屏東女中）教書，成為日治時期第一位任教於高級中學的台籍女教師。

  學校附近常有原住民來交易，他們的裝束、樣貌與平地人極為不同，深深吸引了陳進的注意，因此在教書之餘，她常去排灣族部落三地門寫生。

  

  Photo 3: Chen Chin. Details of draft, The Women of Sandimen Area. 圖三：陳進。《三地門社之女》草圖局部。

  Photo: Liberty Times
  照片：自由時報

  她根據寫生的材料畫成一幅草圖，一九三六年借用日本東京寬永寺的空間完成大幅的作品，名為《三地門社之女》（圖一），入選了日本文部省美展。

  在膠彩人物畫名家陳進筆下，抱著嬰孩的女子、紅衣和黃衣小女孩、蹲在左方手持煙斗的女人，有著自然優雅的神態；表示不同身份地位的頭巾、衣服、珠鏈，其精緻的圖樣和豐富的色彩極具民族特色。

  耐人尋味的是，比較草圖和參展成圖，草圖中的人物有著更銳利的眼神、更桀驁的神態，以及更深的膚色（圖二、圖三）。當然，參展圖大畫幅的氣勢，及其細緻與完成度讓這幅畫「很美」；但寫生時所捕捉的人物形象那種野性的稜角被磨去了，變得像是平地人，只是穿著原住民裝束，持菸斗的女人則令人聯想起法國仕女的抽煙形象。這樣的變化，或許符合了日本男性評審的期待，無論是對於女性，或是異族，這是不造成威脅的異國情調。

  日治時期的教育及展覽比賽機制，形塑了現代台灣美術的面貌，獲獎無數的陳進，想必深諳遊戲規則，在族群與性別的荊棘中闢出一條路。

  （台北時報林俐凱）
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