When the Taiwan Cultural Association was founded, Chiang Wei-shui advocated utilizingcultural speeches, newspaper reading societies, cultural plays, katsudo shashin [motion pictures] to enlighten the public and foster their understanding of arts. Lin Hsien-tang, Tsai Pei-huo, Huang Cheng-chong, Lai Ho, Hsieh Chun-mu, Lian Wenqing and others unveiled the New Cultural Movement. At the same time, sculptor Huang Tu-shui’s Water of Immortality was selected into the Teiten. This work expressed the longing for the advent of the era of an artistic Formosa. In “Born in Taiwan,” Huang also stated his wish to create unique Taiwanese culture, demonstrating the spiritual aspect of the inner life of the entire generation of youths.
Concurrently, students at the Taipei Normal School and the Medical School were already circulating the magazines, the Tai Oan Chheng Lian [Taiwan Youth] and The Formosa [Taiwan], edited by Taiwanese overseas students in Tokyo. Upon the founding of the Taiwan Cultural Association, students of the two schools therefore constituted a main part of its members. After the student protests at the Taipei Normal School, Chen Chih-chi and others were keenly aware of the changing time after WWI and began pursuing individualistic and subjective expression and liberation with idealistic vitalism. From the self-portraits and early works by Liu Chin-tang, Chen Cheng-po, Liao Chi-chun and Li Mei-shu, one can detect the self-gaze and self-exploration of hot-blooded youths. Chen Chih-chi’s Portrait of Wife, with intense brushstrokes, momentum and colors, expresses a burst of power that seems to squeeze things unto the canvas and critiques the corrupt customs of the feudal system with the distorted body, demonstrating the awakening of and reflection on Taiwanese subjectivity. Antique, on the other hand, delineates materiality and conveys a unique sense of life that surpasses realism and naturalism, showing the artist’s zealous exploration of a mystically religious feeling and spirituality. The experiments of modernity in various cultural and arts fields launched by the youths of the Taiwan Cultural Association demonstrated the impulse of life in a new era as well as a momentary burst of progressive temporality. (Chiang Po-shin)
