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Lot Essay
"What is most exciting about Liao Chi-Chun’s painting is how he preserves subtle elements of representationalism despite the changes and reinventions from the process of abstraction…it elevates the autonomic functions of painting without departing from nature to become a purely abstract expression."
- Hsin-Yueh Lin
Since the 1930s, Liao Chi-Chun strived to break out of the orthodox style of academic painting to develop his own artistic language and expression; he began a transition from the representational to the abstract, placing him in the vanguard among Taiwanese modernist artists. Tainan Park , created during this period, marks this pivotal change for Liao’s creative career as well as the modernisation of visual art in Taiwan.
At the time, Liao proclaimed that, “from now on my creations should focus on how I can morph and exaggerate my subjects within the boundaries of aesthetics, and in doing so enrich the painting as a whole.” As he turned that vision into reality in Tainan Park , Liao filled the canvas with exaggerated and contrasting shades of green, and he even deconstructed the perspective, presenting the pond from the bird’s eye view, blurring the wood’s sense of depth and distance with a relatively two-dimensional composition. This monochromatic and flattened arrangement is meant to evoke greater interest in the viewers by supercharging their instinctual desire to pick out the terrain’s silhouettes and forcing the eye to focus between the brushstrokes and colour blocks, which almost makes one feel enveloped by the greenery. In other words, Liao discovered and developed a new way of expression – experiencing space by “creating spirit from scenery”, inspired by the artist’s deconstruction and reconstruction of a landscape, distilled by his experience of nature and the relationship between colour and form, and rebuilding all that with representational brushstrokes. This formed the fundaments for Liao’s subsequent, even more abstract pieces. Similar techniques such as Wu Guanzhong’s “beauty in form” also makes use of warping and exaggeration to enhance aesthetics; among Western painters, the early works of Jackson Pollock also featured deliberate distortions. Where Liao stands apart from Wu is his tendency to use a more representational style, and his later works have even completely rejected the limitations of representationalism; and unlike Pollock, Liao never gave up on characterising the formal beauty of natural scenery.
In 1927, when Liao graduated with distinction from Tokyo University of the Arts, the Japanese academic school still favoured the plein air style popularised since the late 19th century, which was based on the naturalistic representational techniques of the academic art movement but adds a limited twist from the Impressionist style. Liao took that creative language and found its intersection with the natural humanities of sub-tropical Taiwan, and created this work imbued with the local spirit. Even after repeated recognition at the prestigious Japanese Fine Arts Exhibition, Liao did not stop reflecting on his art. Between 1933-36, Liao accompanied Ryuzaburo Umehara on multiple sketching trips across Taiwan, when the Japanese artist visited to act as a judge for exhibitions. Umehara was focused on combining the West’s Expressionism, Fauvism, and Japan’s traditional Rinpa style (known for its two-dimensional decorative elements), and he was known for his rough round strokes, flat composition, and vibrant works. Through Umehara’s paintings, Liao reflected upon his creative process and injected more Expressionistic elements, the top-down view of the water, rough but considered brushstrokes, flat but exaggerated composition and colours to present Taiwan’s lively nature when he created Tainan Park.
After that, Umehara’s paintings did not shake freefrom Fauvism, but Liao had already chosen to boldly advance with the times, as he once told his students, “what we need are genuinely good paintings, not paintings following fixed styles or forms.” Liao learned from Western schools of painting through his intuition, and took it upon himself to realise and surpass them, which was as Hsin-Yueh Lin said, “a bright rainbow has transcended and moved beyond the gap between the old and the new, and boldly stepped from the pre-war past to the post-war modernity.” In his old age, Liao used abstraction to take his artistic career to its zenith, and Tainan Park marked the starting point of his groundbreaking path towards “modernising art”.
- Hsin-Yueh Lin
Since the 1930s, Liao Chi-Chun strived to break out of the orthodox style of academic painting to develop his own artistic language and expression; he began a transition from the representational to the abstract, placing him in the vanguard among Taiwanese modernist artists. Tainan Park , created during this period, marks this pivotal change for Liao’s creative career as well as the modernisation of visual art in Taiwan.
At the time, Liao proclaimed that, “from now on my creations should focus on how I can morph and exaggerate my subjects within the boundaries of aesthetics, and in doing so enrich the painting as a whole.” As he turned that vision into reality in Tainan Park , Liao filled the canvas with exaggerated and contrasting shades of green, and he even deconstructed the perspective, presenting the pond from the bird’s eye view, blurring the wood’s sense of depth and distance with a relatively two-dimensional composition. This monochromatic and flattened arrangement is meant to evoke greater interest in the viewers by supercharging their instinctual desire to pick out the terrain’s silhouettes and forcing the eye to focus between the brushstrokes and colour blocks, which almost makes one feel enveloped by the greenery. In other words, Liao discovered and developed a new way of expression – experiencing space by “creating spirit from scenery”, inspired by the artist’s deconstruction and reconstruction of a landscape, distilled by his experience of nature and the relationship between colour and form, and rebuilding all that with representational brushstrokes. This formed the fundaments for Liao’s subsequent, even more abstract pieces. Similar techniques such as Wu Guanzhong’s “beauty in form” also makes use of warping and exaggeration to enhance aesthetics; among Western painters, the early works of Jackson Pollock also featured deliberate distortions. Where Liao stands apart from Wu is his tendency to use a more representational style, and his later works have even completely rejected the limitations of representationalism; and unlike Pollock, Liao never gave up on characterising the formal beauty of natural scenery.
In 1927, when Liao graduated with distinction from Tokyo University of the Arts, the Japanese academic school still favoured the plein air style popularised since the late 19th century, which was based on the naturalistic representational techniques of the academic art movement but adds a limited twist from the Impressionist style. Liao took that creative language and found its intersection with the natural humanities of sub-tropical Taiwan, and created this work imbued with the local spirit. Even after repeated recognition at the prestigious Japanese Fine Arts Exhibition, Liao did not stop reflecting on his art. Between 1933-36, Liao accompanied Ryuzaburo Umehara on multiple sketching trips across Taiwan, when the Japanese artist visited to act as a judge for exhibitions. Umehara was focused on combining the West’s Expressionism, Fauvism, and Japan’s traditional Rinpa style (known for its two-dimensional decorative elements), and he was known for his rough round strokes, flat composition, and vibrant works. Through Umehara’s paintings, Liao reflected upon his creative process and injected more Expressionistic elements, the top-down view of the water, rough but considered brushstrokes, flat but exaggerated composition and colours to present Taiwan’s lively nature when he created Tainan Park.
After that, Umehara’s paintings did not shake freefrom Fauvism, but Liao had already chosen to boldly advance with the times, as he once told his students, “what we need are genuinely good paintings, not paintings following fixed styles or forms.” Liao learned from Western schools of painting through his intuition, and took it upon himself to realise and surpass them, which was as Hsin-Yueh Lin said, “a bright rainbow has transcended and moved beyond the gap between the old and the new, and boldly stepped from the pre-war past to the post-war modernity.” In his old age, Liao used abstraction to take his artistic career to its zenith, and Tainan Park marked the starting point of his groundbreaking path towards “modernising art”.