Huang Ching-cheng explained

Huang Ching-cheng
Native Name:黃清埕
Native Name Lang:zh
Birth Date:1912
Birth Place:Xiyu, Hōko, Taiwan, Empire of Japan
Death Date:1943
Alma Mater:Tokyo Fine Arts School
Occupation:Sculptor
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Huang Ching-cheng (; 1912–1943) was a Taiwanese sculptor.[1] He is counted among the important pioneers of Taiwanese modern art.[2] Lai Hsien-tsung mentions him in one breath with Ju Ming.[3] Huang's sculpture "Study of a Head" (頭像 ‘tóuxiàng’) was the first modern work of art in Taiwan that was declared a part of the island's cultural heritage that is protected by a new law passed in 2009.[4] It is exhibited in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts.[5]

Life and career

Early life

Huang was born in Chidong Village (池東村), Xiyu, Hōko Prefecture.[6] This island group had been ceded to Japan by the Chinese government in 1895, like the rest of Taiwan and the Ryu-Kyo Islands, after the First Sino-Japanese War. Huang's father owned a pharmacy.[7] Huang, who was raised in a fairly wealthy family, showed an interest in creative activity at an early age. As a boy, he already did small figures made of clay, his elder brother later remembered.[8] He also painted, showing considerable talent which prompted a teacher to encourage him.[9] Because the pharmacy was located in Kaohsiung, a major location in South Taiwan which was already a fairly big city, he was sent there in 1925, to attend Kaohsiung Senior High School.[10] He dropped out, however, because he dedicated too much time to painting.[11] Therefore, his father had him educated by a private teacher.[12] Because his father wanted him to become a pharmacist, he was sent to a teacher of pharmacology in 1933. Then, he went on to Tokyo, for advanced studies in pharmacology.[13]

Study of art in Tokyo

Huang's desire was to be an artist, however. In 1936, being just 24, Huang was admitted to a Japanese art academy, the Tōkyō Bijutsu Gakkō (東京美術学校) or Tokyo School of Fine Arts, an art academy that had a good reputation.[14]

When Huang Ching-cheng had departed for Tokyo in 1936, the Second Sino-Japanese war was less than a year away, and the terrible Nanking massacre would happen in November 1937. Chauvinism and militarist sentiments were on the rise.[15] The situation deteriorated with the outbreak of the war against China (1937), and even more so since 1939/40 when the democracy that still had existed up to a point in the late 1930s, was rapidly suspended.

Huang Ching-cheng was violating the dominant ethical code that required filial piety when he was not studying pharmacology. This had consequences. "When his father became aware of this matter, in anger he stopped sending him money for his living expenses and tuition. (…) His brother Huang Qingshun (Ching-Shuan Huang) secretly lent him money, however, and this aid helped him, in part, to complete his studies."[16]

Early work and the influence of Beethoven

The fact that in an expensive city like Tokyo, his brother's financial support proved insufficient had a good side effect. The young man was compelled to work professionally as an artist while still in art school.[17] In these highly productive years, he created a considerable number of art works, among them various busts. He also did “full body sculptures” and “seated sculptures.”[18]

Among the works created by Huang Ching-cheng, there were a number of sculptures of Beethoven.[19] Beethoven was a composer whom the artist greatly admired, as his elder brother confirmed later on.[20]

Huang's interest in music and more specifically, in music from the West, is partly explained by his close relationship with a young pianist, Guixiang Li (李桂香, also: Kwei-Hsiang Lee).[21] There was more to it, however. Generally speaking, Ludwig van Beethoven and Auguste Rodin stood for modernism at the time, as Y.-L. Hsueh points out.[22] More specifically, under the conditions that existed in Tokyo in the 1930s and 40s, Beethoven and his music stood for cosmopolitanism and a thirst for freedom.

David B. Dennis has pointed out that Beethoven's Ode to Joy was always interpreted as an "Ode to Freedom" by progressives around the world.[23] "Beethoven's enthusiasm about the French Revolution" is well known.[24] As a Rhinelander, Beethoven had cherished Napoleonic reforms that increased civil liberties and introduced a progressive legal frame of reference, the Napoleonic Code or Code civil.[25] In Chinese art, literature, and music, criticism of rulers has often been allusive and indirect.[26] Huang's choice of Beethoven turns out to be in line with this tradition, that “certain cultural heroes often find favor with Chinese artists (…)" because it allows them to take a stand.[27]

Sculpture

Huang's relationship with Guixiang Li (with whom he shared a passion for Beethoven) is not only revealed indirectly in his Beethoven sculptures. Among the few sculptures of Huang Ching-cheng that are known to have survived World War II and that are exhibited in museums in Taiwan, there is a bust that is titled "My Girlfriend Guei-shiang".[28] It is part of the collection of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung (Guólì Táiwān měishùguǎn/ Táizhōng shì 國立台灣美術館 / 台中市).[29]

MOUVE

In 1937, Huang Ching-cheng teamed up with graduate students at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts to form an artist group that would organize joint exhibitions. According to G. Huang (Huáng Guāngnán 黃光男) and X. Liao (Liào Xīntián 廖新田), these young artists "seceded from the Tai Yang artists’ association" when they formed their own group. Huang and Liao notice the group's "non-mainstream atmosphere."[30]

The anti-mainstream artists soon called their group MOUVE (derived from the French word mouvement).[31] Lai mentions another term by which the artists referred to their group, writing that the name chosen was “Action Art Group (or MOUVE painting group).” “Action Art Group” in Chinese is “xíngdòng měishù jítuán 行動美術集團.”[32] According to Chin-hsien Li, it was “Lán Yùn-dēng who recommended the name MOUVE.” Chin-hsien Li points out that at first, the young artists only wrote MOUVE “in Japanese katakana" which emphasized the term's French origin. No Chinese equivalent of the name existed initially. It was a symbolic choice that indicated a turn to the ‘new,’ away from the traditional art embraced by scholars and artists educated during the Qing dynasty and away from the academic Western-style painting practiced by many artists in Tokyo.[33]

The rules that were drawn up by the group stressed research or studies: “1. Our goal is to study from each other frequently. 2. Each year, exhibitions of our studies shall not be fixed in numbers but shall be held when and where suitable (…)”[34]

Hsien-tsung Lai refers to the group as “anti-establishment.” Jen-yi Lai specifically refers to the “Bohemian spirit” revealed in the works of one painter of this group, Jui-Lin Hung (Hóng Ruìlín 洪瑞麟), whom she singles out. But the Bohemian attitude was symptomatic of all members of this group.[35]

Indeed, “MOUVE, at the time, was free. Works were exhibited every year, no works were excluded. Regardless of how often they would take part, regardless of how many works they wanted to show, every member could participate anytime, anywhere in the joint exhibition. This was the so-called MOUVE spirit.”[36] Clearly, “the name was a symbol of avant-garde and of youth.”[37]

On 19 March 1938, the artists who had formed the new group, Wan-chuan Chang (Zhāng Wànchuán 張萬傳), Jui-Lin Hung (Hóng Ruìlín 洪瑞麟), Dewang Chen (Chén Déwàng 陳德旺), Chi-ch’eng Lu (Lǚ Jīzhèng 呂基正), Chunde Chen (Chén Chūndé 陳春德), Huang Ching-cheng, and Liu-jen Teng (Děng Liùrén 等六人) had their first group exhibition. Except for Huang, who was a sculptor and painter, they were all painters.[38]

Painting

Critics at the time saw Huang Ching-cheng not only as a remarkable sculptor but also as a gifted painter. It has been emphasized that “(d)uring his study in Japan, he (…) specialized in oil painting and held a solo exhibition."[39] Oil on canvas was preferred to ink and to water color techniques by a majority of modernist East Asian artists. In this, Huang was not different from other Taiwan-born painters who studied in the ‘Western painting’ division of a Japanese art academy.[40]

Chun-hsien Li (李俊賢 Li Jùnxián), art historian at the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, has noted the distinctive traits and the novelty of Huang's paintings. He writes, “If we look at Huang Ching-cheng's work – "Black Woman" 黑衣女人 (hēi yī nǚrén), we get what may be described as a very direct sense of his use of color, which is very different from that found in the artistic environment of that era.”[41] Lai also praises Huang when he speaks of “the mysterious painting, ‘Black Woman’ (...).”[42]

Exhibitions

In 1939, sculptures by Huang Ching-cheng and by another Taiwanese artist, Hsia-yu Chen 陳夏雨, were accepted by a jury and “included in the Imperial Exhibition” (Teiten Empire Exhibition or Imperial Exhibition, in Japanese: 帝展.) of that year.

A year later, in May 1940, the ‘MOUVE’ group organized “a ‘MOUVE Exhibition’ of three artists” – Wan-chuan Chang (張萬傳), (Yong Xie 謝國庸), and Huang Ching-cheng – in the Tainan Public Hall (Táinán gōnghuì táng 台南公會堂.), Tainan (台南), South Taiwan.[43] In the same year (1940), Huang received an award of the Japanese Sculptors’ Association and it was “recommended” that he should “become a member of the association.”

MOUVE versus Tayang

MOUVE, which Huang Ching-cheng had been founding together with several young Taiwan-born artists in Tokyo, was now, “at first glance, avant-garde, fresh air, so to speak, and the group's members were painting in a new way. But it was a small group after all, no match for the power of the mainstream, especially the ‘Taiyang Art Association.’ Lu Chi-cheng and Chen Chunde soon took refuge to ‘Taiyang,’ and thus in the following year (1941) there was a pause in the group's activities.”[44] Another reason for this ‘pause’ may have been Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and thus, the outbreak of the Pacific War. "At the end of 1940", the group – and that meant: the majority of its members – had already left Japan.[45] “With the advent of the Pacific war” when “MOUVE was taken to be an English name” by the authorities, the artists were forced “to change its name.” The name was now changed to “Sculpture and Painting Association” (zàoxíng měishù xiéhuì 造型美術協會). Because some old members had left, it was a smaller group now.[46] Under the new name Sculpture and Painting Association, the group soon “made a come-back with another exhibition,” however. Those who participated in this group exhibition (in Taiwan rather than Tokyo) were “Yün-teng Lan (Lán Yùndēng藍 運燈), Yen Shui-long (Yán Shuǐlóng顏水龍) and Cho-sao Fan (Fàn Zhuōzào范倬造), in addition to the remaining original members."

A year later, "MOUVE ran (…) out of steam, winding things up in a frenzy like a whirlwind, and it soon disappeared without a trace, after having recorded the flowering and frustration of the opposition faction of Taiwan's art world."

Work in Tainan

Whereas other MOUVE artists like Jui-lin Hung had already returned to Taiwan for good, Huang Ching-cheng remained based in Tokyo. But "every summer, he would return to Taiwan for vacation," as the curator of the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA) notes. "Most of the time, he would live in the Tainan house of Kuo-Jong Hsieh (Xiè Guó-yōng 謝國鏞)." During these stays in Tainan, he "made a lot of sculptures for renowned officials of the Tainan district and had the support of local people in Tainan."[47] In Tokyo, Huang did not only complete his studies at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Soon recognized for his outstanding talent and accomplishment, he was honored by being invited to participate in several important exhibitions, among them the Bunten Art Exhibition of the Japanese Ministry of Education.

Death

In 1943, Huang Ching-cheng was offered a teaching position at the Beiping Art School in Peking which was then a city occupied by the Japanese army.[48] Planning to go to Taiwan first, the artist boarded “the passenger liner Takachiho Maru in Kobe, Japan" together with Guixiang Li. The ship was torpedoed by an American submarine as it approached Kīrun. About 1,000 passengers died. Few survived. Huang Ching-cheng was 31 when he died.[49] Huang's premature death was a considerable loss that was felt in the art world of Taiwan.

Taiwanese art after Huang (1940s–1950s)

The fact that Huang Ching-cheng died prematurely may have saved him from suffering the fate of artists and writers who became victims of political repression. Death at age 31 meant that he could not produce a full-fledged, mature oeuvre. Huang's death was a considerable loss that was felt in the art world of Taiwan. But there were more blows to come that would hurt the development of modern art anchored in the socio-culture of the island.

The rebellious Jui-lin Hung, a leading figure of the MOUVE group, who had returned before 1943, became a miner and for several years could not afford oil colors and canvas. The painter Chen Cheng-po was shot by the KMT army in Chiayi in 1947, becoming one of the many victims of the so-called February 28 Incident.[50] Under these conditions, “(t)he development of new art movement(s) was in fact not a smooth one,” as Chiung-jui Hsiao writes.

By the mid-1950, martial law came into effect. Now, Huang Jung-ts’an (Huang Rong-tsan / Huáng Róngcàn 黃榮燦), an artist who did realist woodcuts and who was a friend of the painter Chun-chen Li (Li Zhòngshēng 李仲生), was arrested. He was accused of “espionage in 1951 and (…) executed the next year.” According to Hsiao, this

“event influenced avant-garde artists who were promoting modern art at that time. (…) In 1955, Chao Chung-Hsiang left for Spain because he got the scholarship to study, while Chu Teh-Chun went to France. (…) The school supporting Ho Tieh-hua was on the downside on account of political tensions. His art fairs started to be oppressed. Chuang Shih-ho was admonished and forced to move back to Ping-Tung (i.e., Pingtung City or Píng dōng 屏東) (…) Ho Tieh-hua, on the other hand, (…) left for America in 1959 for good. In the same year, Lin Shen-yang attended the Sao Paulo Exhibition in Brazil as a judge and never returned."[51]

On the other hand, there were those who tried to work. Thus, several of Huang Ching-cheng's colleagues who had participated in the MOUVE artists’ group founded a new group, the Era Art Association, in 1954.[52]

Legacy

Today, many art historians and artists in Taiwan agree on Huang's pioneering role, as a modernist Taiwan-born sculptor. Together with two other sculptors, Tien-shen Pu (Pú Tiānshēng蒲添生) who was born in 1912 like Huang, and Hsia-yu Chen (Chen Xiayu 陳夏雨) who was five years younger, Huang Ching-cheng belongs to the young generation of early Taiwan modernists who followed in the footsteps of Tu-shui Huang and who surpassed him in a way.[53] Insofar, few would disagree with Ya-li Chen that “Huang Tu-shui(黃土水), Huang Ching-cheng, Chen Hsia-yu(陳夏雨) and Pu Tien-sheng(蒲添生) were the most important sculptors in Taiwan” during the Colonial era that came to an end in 1945. Huang's creative role as one of the few Taiwan-born pioneers of early modern sculpture assures him a permanent place in the history of modern art in Taiwan.

Huang in film

In 2005, Huang Ching-cheng's life and work became the theme of a feature film by the Taiwanese film director Huang Yu-shan. The film, released in 2005 and titled The Strait Story, was discussed in two academic publications.[54]

Huang Ching-cheng's life and work is also at the center of a documentary, “The Forgotten: Reflections on Eastern Pond” (2008) by Yu-Shan Huang.

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. PhD . Lai . J.Y. . University of Michigan . Cultural Identity and the Making of Modern Taiwanese Painting During the Japanese Colonial Period (1895–1945) . 2008 . 240 . 2027.42/61650 . He is not to be confused with another Huang Ching-cheng (Huang Qingcheng), a scholar living on the Chinese mainland who published a work titled Zhong-Xi putong shumu biao (=General Chinese and Western Bibliography) in 1898..
  2. Hsien-tsung Lai (= pinyin: Shen-chon Lai) calls the artists Huang Ching-cheng, De-wang Chen (陳德旺), Rui-lin Hong (洪瑞麟), Wan-chuan Zhang (張萬傳) etc., who had formed an artists’ group consisting of painters and sculptors, “clear,” “innovative,” and “anti-establishment”. See: Hsien-tsung Lai, “Chaoyue fushi de yishu guanghua” (The Glory of Transcendent Art 超越浮世的藝術光華), in The Liberty Times (Taipei), 3 November 2005 [print edition]. – According to Ya-li Chen, Huang Ching-cheng must be acknowledged as a pioneer of modern sculpture in Taiwan and as one of the four "most important sculptors" of the Colonial period that ended in 1945. The others named by Ya-li Chen were: Tu-shui Huang(黃土水), Hsia-yu Chen(陳夏雨) and Tien-sheng Pu(蒲添生) See: Ya-li. Chen, “Taiwanese sculptors during the Japanese Occupation period,” in: Taiwan Culture (A publication edited and published by the Ministry of Culture, No.30-1, Beiping E. Rd., Zhongzheng Dist., Taipei City 10049, Taiwan (ROC)), 20 October 2009
  3. See Hsien-tsung Lai, ibidem. – Ju Ming (b. 1938) is of course a much younger and different artist but it gives us an idea of the importance attributed to Huang by a professor (and head of department at National Taipei University) who specializes in the philosophy of art.
  4. See: Mei-xue Ling (staff reporter), “Xiàndài yìshù zuòpǐn shǒu lì huángqīngchéng diāosù zhǐdìng wéi zhòngyào gǔwù 現代藝術作品首例 黃清埕雕塑指定為重要古物 (Huang Ching-cheng's Sculpture is the first modern art work designated as an important national heritage)”, in: The Liberty Times, 25 March 2009. See also website of the Ministry of Culture, Bureau of the Cultural Heritage which gives the following explanation for the designation of ‘Touxiang’ by Huang Ching-cheng as an important, specially protected cultural heritage: “Specific reasons” for designation: 1. The art work shows “important features of the times, with respect to technique and genre”, 2. it reveals “important artistic skills”, 3.it is of “excellent quality and scarce”, 4. it has “important historical, cultural and artistic value.” The decision to protect the work was taken on the basis of Cultural Heritage Preservation Law, Article 66. Section Two.
  5. See: Mei-xue Ling, ibidem. See also: Kaohsiung Museum of Modern Art; website.
  6. The Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts gives the following information: "Pool East (or E. Pond) Village, Siyu Township, Penghu 澎湖西嶼鄉池東村 ". See "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕 頭像.", Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (高雄市立美術館館長) website.- See also: Xiāo Cǎihuá 蕭彩華 (author), "黃清呈 Ching Cheng Huang" (article), in: Encyclopedia of Taiwan http://taiwanpedia.culture.tw/web/fprint?ID=9728.
  7. See: "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕 頭像.", Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts website.
  8. He "liked to pinch clay" in order to do so. See: Cǎihuá Xiāo (蕭彩華)(author), "黃清呈 Ching Cheng Huang" (article), in: Encyclopedia of Taiwan, ibidem.
  9. "During his childhood, he revealed a talent for painting. After elementary school, he encountered the teacher Liu Qingrong who appreciated his artistic talent very much and who encouraged him, often giving him guidance." "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕 頭像.", Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts website.
  10. In the 1920s, Kaohsiung, then known as Takao, had become "the second largest city in Taiwan, ahead of Tainan and Keelung." Since 1931, the Japanese "intensified their investments on Taiwanese industries and transformed Takao (Kaohsiung)" into "the major industrial city in southern Taiwan." (An Overview of the Administration of Kaohsiung City Government (2010), book publication. Partly republished in: Kaohsiung City Government website: http://rdec.kcg.gov.tw/newspics/4ee0b5044e08b/99_en.pdf).
  11. "In 1925, Huang was admitted to Kaohsiung Senior High School, but was submerged in painting and abandoned his studies." See:"Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕 頭像.", ibidem.
  12. Huang "withdrew to a private school of Ching dynasty scholar Liu after having returned home (to Penghu)." See: "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕 頭像.", ibidem.
  13. "He was supposed to study pharmacology due to its father's decision, in order to inherit his father's pharmacy later on. Thus his father sent him in 1933 to study with Liu Qingrong as appropriate teacher and then also to Tokyo for advanced studies." See: "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: "Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕, 頭像.", ibidem.
  14. ”The Tokyo School of Fine Arts was one of Japan's most prestigious art institutions”, according to Xiao Caihua. See: Xiāo Cǎihuá 蕭彩華 (author), “黃清呈 Ching Cheng Huang”(article), ibidem. The Japanese sculptor Kōtarō Takamura (b. 1883) had studied modern, Western-influenced art at this academy. And so had the sculptor Ryumon Yasuda (b. 1891) as well as the painters Kawai Gyokudō (b. 1873), Kanzan Shimomura (b. 1873), Hishida Shunsō (b. 1874) and Ryōhei Koiso (b. 1903) – to name but a few well-known artists. Tu-shui Huang(黃土水), a sculptor born in 1895 when China was forced to cede Taiwan to the Japanese empire, had been the first student from the new colony to be admitted to this academy. Tu-shui Huang died young, at age 36. But he was acknowledge by that time (1930) as a fine artist, largely because of the recognition he had received in Japan. His example may have influenced Huang Ching-cheng who was only 18 when Tu-shui died. Another artists from Taiwan, the painter Shih-chiao Lee (李石樵), also had studied there, though more recently. Shih-chiao Lee who hailed from the Taipei district, was admitted by the academy in 1931 and graduated in 1935, a year before Huang began his academic studies, enrolling in the sculpture department.
  15. Regarding the increasingly repressive, militarist and chauvinist atmosphere that grew in importance and effect in the years leading up to the war against China (1937) and even more in the war years (1937–45), see: Saburo Ienaga, Taiheyo Senso (=The Pacific War). Tokyo (Iwanami Shoten) 1968. There also exists an English version. As this author notes with regard to the Thirties, “(t)he prewar state kept the populace in a powerful vise: on one side were the internal security laws with their restriction on freedom of speech and thought; on the other side was the conformist education that blocked the growth of free consciousness and purposive activity for political ends.” And when the country was at war, the repression got worse: “legal resistance could accomplish very little, and illegal antiwar activity was limited to sporadic and ineffective protests(…).”
  16. "Artist's biography 藝 術 家 小 傳", in: “Huang Ching-cheng: Study of A Head 黃清埕, 頭像.”, ibidem.
  17. “The fact that money mattered is elucidated by Chuan-ying Yen. Comparing the situation of two other Taiwanese art students in Tokyo, Chen Jin 陳進 (1907–98), and Li Shiqiao 李石樵 (1908–95), Chuan-ying Yen writes, “Li suffered especially straitened circumstances following his admission to the art academy in Tokyo. On the other hand, Chen Jin had ample resources and never had to worry about living expenses, enabling her to concentrate on mastering the Japanese style (…).” See: Chuan-ying Yen,“Self-Portraits, Family Portraits, and the Issue of Identity: An Analysis of Three Taiwanese Painters of the Japanese Colonial Period”, in: Southeast Review of Asian Studies, Vol.33 (2011), p.36. – With respect to Huang Ching-cheng, Ya-li Chen flatly states: When his father “refused to provide him with any financial support”, the “result” was that “the young artist made his living as a part-time sculptor, accepting commissions to produce a wide variety of statues (…)” See: Ya-li Chen, “Huang Qingcheng” (paragraph of: “Taiwanese sculptors during the Japanese Occupation period”), in: Taiwan Culture, (ed. and published by the Ministry of Culture, Taipei), 20 Oct,. 2009.
  18. “ See: Ya-li Chen, “Huang Qingcheng”, ibidem.
  19. Y.-L.Hsueh, an art historian working at the National Museum of Fine Arts, confirms that "Huang Ching-Cheng made quite a few copper statues of Beethoven as a token of homage to the great composer." See: Yen-ling Hsueh, “A Portrait of Ludwig v. Beethoven (Huang Ching-cheng. Sculpture. 1940)”, in: National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Collections, Digital Archives. http://collectionweb.ntmofa.gov.tw/eng98/02_fineworks_detail.aspx?RNO=09600165 .
  20. Y.-L. Hsueh writes that the sculpture “Beethoven” that is now in the National Museum of Fine Arts “was one of Huang Chin-Cheng's representative pieces during the course of his studies in Japan. According to the artist's eldest brother, Huang Ching-Shuan, Huang Ching-Cheng had a great passion for music aside from painting and sculpture.” See: Yen-ling Hsueh, ibidem.
  21. Y.-L. Hsueh notes that “his fiancée, Miss Lee Kwei-Hsiang, was a Japan-based musician who gave several public concerts. The music she most often played was the work of Beethoven.” See: Yen-ling Hsueh, ibidem. According to L. Pisano, Guixiang Li was completing her professional education at one of the important music academies that existed in the Japanese capital, the Tōyō Ongaku Gakkō (東洋音楽学校) or Orient Music School. See: L. Pisano, “Taiwanese Composers and Piano Works in the XXth Century: Traditional Chinese Culture and the Taiwan Xin Yinyue”, in: Kervan, Rivista internazionale di studii afroasiatici, a cura dei docenti di lingue afroasiatiche della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere dell’ Università di Torino, no. 1, Jan. 2005. Pisano also mentions the other important music academies in pre-World War II Tokyo and the names of alumni from Taiwan who became noteworthy composers or musicians. He writes that “all the Taiwanese musicians of the first generation went to Japan” for the purpose of “attending advanced music courses.”
  22. Both Beethoven and Rodin were the greatest masters which Japanese musicians and artists introduced back to their country from Europe. Their artistic thoughts and styles were significantly influential to Taiwanese art students who were learning their craft in Japan. (…)" See: Yen-ling Hsueh, ibidem. Studying music at this academy and turning at the same time to this Western instrument, the piano, was tantamount to embracing Xin Yinyue which was the Chinese term for New Music. New Music, to the Chinese of this period was everything that had been composed by Europe's serious composers. And above and beyond this, the term referred to music by East Asian composers that was strongly influenced by Classical and modern Western composers and their composition techniques. Such a departure from classical Chinese music tradition had already been prepared by the establishment of Japanese Western-influenced music education back home in Taiwan. Barbara Mittler notes that schools dedicated to music education had been established in Taiwan under the colonial regime. They catered to students from those parts of the wealthy stratum in Taiwan that embraced modernization and ‘Western knowledge.’ Cf. Barbara Mittler, Dangerous Tunes: The Politics of Chinese Music in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China. Wiesbaden: 1997, p.78. See also: Mei-Ling Lai Kou, "Development of Music Education in Taiwan (1895–1995)," Journal of Historical Research in Music Education (Arizona State University), Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 2001), pp. 177ff.
  23. David B. Dennis, Beethoven in German Politics, 1870–1989. New Haven (Yale University Press) 1996, p. 2 .
  24. David B. Dennis, ibidem. –According to Dennis, Beethoven even intended to dedicate his Eroica to Napoleon. With regard to the latter, the composer oscillated between a very positive attitude and harsh condemnation. Beethoven admired the Republican general and the consul who had safeguarded the survival of revolutionary France when this country was attacked by a coalition of ancien regime governments.
  25. But Beethoven had also disapproved of the emperor who set out to subject Europe while engaging in bloody wars. Quoting Lockwood, Plantinga confirms that "Beethoven's lifelong attitude toward Napoleon oscillated between admiration and dislike, between approval and revulsion." See: Leon Plantinga, “Beethoven, Napoleon, and Political Romanticism,” in: Jane F. Fulcher (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the New Cultural History of Music, New York (Oxford University Press) 2011, p. 491.
  26. The “Chinese tradition of protest” has always implied that the intellectual is a person who “never tire(s) of getting involved in politics” for the purpose of “bettering society”, as Mittler noted. (See: Barbara Mittler, ibidem, p.42). Mittler points out that it was the repression exerted by authoritarian regimes that lead again and again to oblique, allusive forms of criticism.
  27. Cf. B. Mittler, ibidem, p. 361.
  28. "Most of the artist's works disappeared due to wars (i.e. World War II and civil war)", as Y.-L.Chen notes. See: Ya-li Chen, ibidem.
  29. It is not clear whether the title of the work that originated in 1940 was chosen by the artist or posthumously. Another source seems to refer to the same work as the "Head of An Unnamed Woman," adding that it probably is his fiancée Guixiang Li.
  30. G. Huang (Huáng Guāngnán黃光男) and X. Liao (Liào Xīntián廖新田), "Táiwān měishù zǒng lùn臺灣美術總論 / General Taiwan art theory", in Encyclopedia of Taiwan (published by the Ministry of Culture). Also online: Check the “See also” section.
  31. Most scholars in Taiwan give 1938 as the year when MOUVE was founded, but some insist on 1937. G. Huang and X. Liao give the year 1937 (Guangnan Huang/Xintian Liao, ibidem), probably referring to the initial group formation that preceded the adoption of the name ‘MOUVE.’ Others give the year 1938, probably referring to the date of the first group exhibition of the MOUVE artists. Lai Hsien-tsung, for instance, writes that Huang and the other Taiwan artists “founded the Action Art Group (or MOUVE painting group) in 1938” (Hsien-tsung Lai ibidem.)
  32. Hsien-tsung Lai, ibidem.
  33. See: Chin-hsien Li, “MOUVE”, ibidem.
  34. It is mentioned that “(t)he young artists had the greatest respect for Hung Jui-lin [Jui-Lin Hung = Hóng Ruìlín 洪瑞麟] whose works had been selected three times for the Sunyokai (exhibition)." See: Zhōnghuá mínguó bǐhuì 中華民國筆會 The Chinese PEN; publ. by Taipei Chinese Center, International P.E.N.; Vol. 1, 1972, p.59
  35. See: Jen-yi Lai, ibidem, p.124. – Chun-hsien Li confirms this, saying it was Hong Ruilin, who came up with a “declaration” which “strongly criticized the existing arts environment” (Chun-hsien Li, ibidem).
  36. N. N. «MOUVE tuántǐ (MOUVE 團體 = MOUVE group)», in: Chun-hsien Li (Lijùnxián 李俊賢) et al., ibidem.
  37. Chin-hsien Li, ibidem. Chin-hsien Li adds, “Studying in Japan in the 1930s, they saw that the opposition forces in Japan were vigorously on the rise (…) they also got an insight into the Tokyo art world, and as painters they were not adhering to the authorities (in the art world) but chose the rebellious side.”
  38. The year and the names of Huang Ching-cheng as well as De-Wang Chen (陳德旺), Ruilin Hong (洪瑞麟) and Wan-Chuan Zhang (張萬傳) are given by H.Lai. See: Hsien-tsung Lai, ibidem. – The year and the names of all participating artists are mentioned by Chin-hsien Li. See: Chin-hsien Li (Li Qīnxián 李欽賢), “MOUVE”, in: Encyclopedia of Taiwan (published by the Ministry of Culture). Also online; check: “See also” section.
  39. Ya-li Chen, ibidem.
  40. Jen-Yi Lai writes that "(u)nlike (a painter like) Lan Yinding, who focused on watercolor painting throughout his career and faded from the stage of colonial art salons after his mentor Ishikawa left Taiwan, those who went to Japan for systematic training in the techniques of Western art worked primarily in the medium of oil pigments, which they mastered in Japan. Under the influence of the Taiwanese and expatriate Japanese artists who acquired academic training in Japan, oil painting became the dominant medium for pictorial representation in the Western Painting Division of the colonial art salons." See: J.-Y.Lai, ibidem, p.90.
  41. Chun-hsien Li, in: Various authors, “Guānyú táiwān qiánbèi yìshùjiā—huángqīngchéng (On the elder (or senior) Taiwan artist Huang Ching-cheng).” Also online. (Check: “See also” section.)
  42. See Hsien-tsung Lai, ibidem.
  43. Li Chin-hsien, ibidem. – Instead of the term ‘group exhibition, the expression MOUVE sān rén zhǎn – MOUVE三人展 – “MOUVE Exhibition of the three artists” is used. Tainan, just like Kaohsiung, was a fairly important city in South Taiwan.
  44. Chin-hsien Li, ibidem.
  45. See: G. Huang (Huáng Guāngnán 黃光男) and X. Liao (Liào Xīntián 廖新田), ibidem. .
  46. See: G. Huang (Huáng Guāngnán 黃光男) and X. Liao (Liào Xīntián 廖新田), ibidem.
  47. See: “Yìshùjiā xiǎozhuàn (Artist Biography / 藝 術 家 小 傳)”, in: Huáng Qīngchéng; Study of A Head (黃清埕, 頭像), KMFA website (Check the “See also” section).
  48. Yu-shan Huang, "Nánfāng jìshì zhī fúshì guāngyǐng南方紀事之浮世光影 The Strait Story", 2 June 2008. Information supplied by Huang Ching-cheng's relative, the film director Huang Yu-shan, on her website http://yushan133.pixnet.net/blog/category/1555781.
  49. Yu-shan Huang, ibidem.
  50. The 1947 massacres in Taipei, Chiayi, Kaohsiung, Tainan and many other places cost up to 30,000 lives including the artist Chen Cheng-po. They are known as the "2/28 (two-two-eight) Incident" because the slaughter started on 28 February. President Ma (KMT) apologized in 2010 in Chiayi for the murder of Chiayi citizens, in the context of a Chen Cheng-po retrospective. See: “President Ma apologizes for 228 Incident”, in the daily China Times, republished in the printed magazine Taiwan Today, 1 March 2010. Online at http://www.taiwantoday.tw/fp.asp?xItem=95132&CtNode=413.
  51. Chiung-jui Hsiao, "From Innovation to Avant-Garde ─ 1950–1970 Taiwanese Art Development", paper published by the National Taiwan Museum of FineArts. Taichung TW. It is available on the museum website: Web site: Download Resources . 2012-08-12 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140413135832/http://taiwaneseart.ntmofa.gov.tw/english/download_en.aspx . 2014-04-13 . The papers published there by professors from various universities elucidate modern Taiwan art history. The website states: “The Development of Taiwanese Arts is a theme of a series of exhibitions held from 2004 to 2006 by the integration of National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.”
  52. Hsiao says that “members in the Mouve extended its spirit and founded [the] Era Art Association in 1954. It played an important and local role in the course of Taiwanese modern art." (Chiung-jui Hsiao (National Cheng Kung University), "From Innovation to Avant-Garde ── 1950–1970 Taiwanese Art Development", n.p., n.d.). The text was made available by the National Taiwan Museum of FineArts. Taichung, TW. It is published on the museum website: Web site: Download Resources . 12 August 2012 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20140413135832/http://taiwaneseart.ntmofa.gov.tw/english/download_en.aspx . 13 April 2014 . .
  53. With regard to Tu-shui Huang, Chuan-ying Yen notes that in 1920, he "became the first Taiwanese artist to participate in the Imperial Exhibition, entering a cast plaster sculpture titled Wild Boy (Fangong 蕃童). He participated in the Imperial Exhibition four times through 1924, and was the most revered figure in the cultural establishment of Taiwan." See: Chuan-ying Yen, ibidem.
  54. See: Lingzhen Wang, Chinese Women's Cinema: Transnational Contexts. New York (Columbia University Press) 2011, and: Yingjin Zhang (ed.), A Companion to Chinese Cinema, Chichester UK (Blackwell) 2012.

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