Tags: art | Lin Yu-Shan | painting

Lin Yu-Shan (1907–2004), 1929

Ink and color painting, 35.5 x 61 cm

Originally named Ying-gui, Lin Yu-Shan was born in Chiayi to a family that runs a picture framing business. As a child, he was exposed to calligraphy and folk painting, which inspired him to see painter as a career option. Lin subsequently went to study in Kawabata Painting School in Tokyo. Since 1928, Lin was active in Taiwan's painting circle and Chiayi's poets society, forming Spring Sprout Painting Association and Dan Tan Society with his fellow painters. Lin moved to Taipei in 1950 and became a professor in the Fine Arts Department of National Taiwan Normal University. He was a frequent participant in major exhibitions at home and abroad, dedicating his life to fine art education and artistic creation. Completed in 1929, Love Birds-Mandarin Duck may be a warm-up for his Lotus Pond in 1930. Rising fresh and clean from the mud, elegant lotus flowers dot the calm surface of the pond; under the shades of lotuses, two inseparable mandarin ducks swim side by side. Lin realistically represented the vivid expressions of the mandarin ducks, drawing contours with fine brushwork of Chinese painting and applying bright colors on the bodies. Lin's work not only is a loyal depiction of Taiwanese local scenes, but is a mixture of the traditional Chinese painting technique and Western style's usage of heavy colors. Be it a work of freehand landscape or fine flowers and birds, or a colloid painting, Lin showcases his mature skills and expresses profound messages that are unique of his own.

Department of Graphic Communications and Digital Publishing, Shih Hsin University Digital archiving project of the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines

Original Chinese text is composed by Professor Cheng-Ming Su, Department of Visual Arts, Taipei Municipal University of Education