Refracted Modernity

Introduction

yuko kikuchi Introduction Taiwan is certainly regarded as an economic tiger in Asia, but it has not, until recently, been regarded as a cultural producer. Taiwanese art was studied, if at all, as a subset of Chinese art. While the Palace Museum in Taipei has long been regarded as the premier repository of Chinese art, the concept of Taiwanese art as an independent entity gained international currency only in the 1990s, when a number of important international exhibitions took place—the Taipei Biennial since 1992, the Venice Biennale since 1995, “Art Taiwan: The Contemporary Art of Taiwan” in Sydney in 1995, “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” in New York and elsewhere in 1999,“FacetoFace:ContemporaryArtfromTaiwan”inQueensland,Australia , in 1999, and “Visions of Pluralism: Contemporary Art in Taiwan, 1988–1999” in Beijing and other places in 1999. And at the same time that the international art world was awakening to Taiwanese contemporary art, the art world in Taiwan itself was rediscovering the art produced in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period and subsequently under the Chinese nationalist party, the Kuomintang [Guomingdang, KMT]. Notable exhibitions have included “Taiwan Art 1945–1993” (Taiwan Meishu Xin Fengmao 1945–1993) in 1993, “The OriginsofOriental -style PaintinginTaiwan” (TaiwanDonyanghua Tanyuan) in 2000, “Wave Striking: One Hundred Years of Taiwanese Arts” (Qiantao Paian: Taiwan Meishu Yibainian) in 2001, and “The Experimental Sixties: Avant-Garde Art in Taiwan” (Qianwei: Liushi Niandai Taiwan Meishu Fazhan) in 2003. Since the publication in 1976 of the first history of modern Taiwanese art, The History of Taiwanese Art during the Japanese Period (Riju shidai Taiwan meishu yundong shi) by Shaih Lifa [Xie Lifa], the number of academic studies on the subject has been growing. In 1998 Chuan-ying Yen [Juanying Yan] published The Chronology of Taiwanese FineArtsEvents(Taiwanjindaimeishudashinianbiao),andin2001,Landscape Moods: Selected Readings in Modern Taiwanese Art (Fengjing xinjing: 2 | yuko kikuchi Taiwan jindai meishu wenxian daodu). In these works she compiled substantial primary data and resources from the colonial period and translated them into Chinese, making them accessible to Taiwanese scholars who had been deterred by the language barrier. Yet publications in English remain scarce. Apart from the catalogs for the international exhibitions, the only significant works in English have been those by Yen, Wang Hsuihsiung [Wang Xiuxiong], and John Clark,1 as well as Jason C. Kuo’s Art and Cultural Politics in Postwar Taiwan (2000). This volume is, therefore, intended to offer additional critical studies of modern Taiwanese art to the English-speaking world. Its nine essays provide multiple perspectives on the visual culture of Taiwan during the colonial period (1895–1945) and focus on Taiwan’s dynamic yet intricate relations with modernities and colonialisms in Japan and Euroamerica. Part 1 presents several typical encounters of the Japanese with the alien Taiwanese culture, which effectively form a prelude to the formation of modernity.HistorianNaokoShimazudiscussesan“imaginedTaiwan”asa literary landscape depicted in travel writings by the Japanese cultural elite, who described Taiwan and its inhabitants in terms related to the colonizers ’ own identity. Three art historians—Hsin-tien [Xintian] Liao, Toshio Watanabe, and Chuan-ying Yen [Juanying Yan]—follow. They focus on the Western and Oriental/Japanese-style paintings that became the two major genres of modern painting, both of which were invented and institutionalized during the late nineteenth century in Japan. Liao explores the work of Western-style painters “discovering Taiwanese landscape” in relation to colonial power and modern travels of exploration. Watanabe discusses how two Japanese Western-style painters depicted Taiwan in the context of the “modern” concept of Japanese landscape and the imperial ideology of the “South.” Yen documents the short life of Oriental/ Japanese-style paintings in Taiwan, employing the problematic idea of “local color,” a concept imposed in the 1920s by an important governmentsponsored exhibition, Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition (Taiten). Part 2 considers gender and images of “Chinese women.” Art historian Kaoru Kojima examines, in the context of modernity, the representation of women in “beauty paintings” (bijinga) by Western-trained Japanese male painters and their Taiwanese disciples. Kojima’s fellow art historian Ming-chu [Mingzhu] Lai discusses the paternalized colonial modernity expressed in the images of women created by Taiwanese women painters, both amateur and professional. Finally, Part 3 foregrounds vernacularism in architecture, aboriginal artifacts, and Taiwanese folkcrafts. Architectural historian Chao-ching [Chaoqing] Fu proposes that a new hybrid Taiwanese identity developed Introduction | 3 in the styles of residential houses and churches in relation to...