People love to personify the natural world. For instance, in Chinese culture the plum blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum represent four gentlemen of humble and noble character. The mudan (peony), apart from symbolizing affluence and honor, can also be used to describe an beautiful woman. Finally, a blade of grass that shoots from a crack in the asphalt ground is often interpreted as an indicator of dogged perseverance.

The National Museum of History in Taipei has compiled a bountiful and vital collection of approximately 150 pieces of works by the contemporary Chinese painting master Zhang Daqian (1899-1983). The National Digital Archives Program recognizes the value of Zhang’s paintings and has selected them for digital preservation. Two of his ink paintings of lotuses are of particular note and therefore deserve detailed introduction. They are “Lotus on Large Screen” (1945) and the ink scroll painting “Gentle Fragrance at Water Hall” (1962). Completed nearly two decades apart, they are ideal examples to show two styles from two different stages of the master’s artistic career.

Taroko National Park is not only a top tourist attraction in Taiwan, but also a favorite site or an inspiring place for artists, exemplified here by Ma Paishui’s “The Beauty of Taroko National Park,” completed in early 1999. Ma Paishui was ninety years old when “The Beauty of Taroko National Park” was completed in 1999, and he was still at the peak of his creative performance. Ma poured his entire lifetime’s techniques and artistic philosophy into this masterpiece for the “A Thousand Mountains in Colored Ink– Ma Paishui’s Ninetieth Year Retrospective Exhibition,” hosted by the National Museum of History in his honor in September 1999.

Tang tricolor pottery (Tang Sancai) is the type of artistic craft that provides a vivid glimpse of the cultural grandeur of the high Tang period. The brilliance of the colorful Sancai molds, utensils, human figurines, and animal-shaped devices shed light on the extravagance and affluence of Tang society, as well as illuminate the Tang-era attitude of embracing foreign cultures. Aside from the cultural implications, these crafts can also be appreciated simply for their remarkable level of artistry.

In the literary classic Zuozhuan (Zuo’s Commentary): the Eighteenth year of Emperor Wengong’s reign, a story is told like this: “Jinyun had a son who was incompetent and greedy for food, drink, wealth and all manner of luxuries. Amassing his fortune with total abandon, he enjoyed his opulent lifestyle without any thought of sharing his fortune to those in need. The people around him began to say his appetites were like those of the three ferocious beasts of the world, and called him taotie.” Ever since then, later generations have called the gluttonous, greedy or ferocious “taotie .”