著者

顔 娟英 塚本 麿充

雑誌

美術研究 = The bijutsu kenkiu : the journal of art studies

巻号頁・発行日

no.398, pp.31-51, 2009-08-31

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During the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan (1895-1945), the Japanese transplanted modern art as well, mainly in the areas of Western-style painting and Japanesestyle painting (Nihonga). Of these, Western painting received more emphasis. Art education in the primary and secondary schools of the time put greater emphasis on basic training in Western art, and there were comparatively fewer channels for learning Japanese painting. Meanwhile, the officially sponsored annual Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition (Taiten), from its inception in 1927, set up two painting categories – the Oriental painting (tôyôga) division and Western painting division - with the intent of promoting the development of Japanese painting in Taiwan under the name of "Oriental painting," a catch-all term. However, the development of Japanese painting in Taiwan encountered great difficulties, to the point that painters and critics were speaking of the decline or demise of Japanese painting. In the autumn of 1942, a round table talk on Taiwanese art was organized by the magazine Taiwan Kôron (Taiwan Public Opinion). One of the topics under hot debate was that Nihonga was apparently in decline, and would be replaced eventually by Western-style painting. The purpose of this essay is not to deny completely the influence that Japanese painting had in Taiwan but to focus on the contradictions, even the ironies, of the attempts to foster the development of Japanese painting in Taiwan. This paper seeks to elucidate certain aspects of Japanese painting in colonial Taiwan by discussing the promotion of "local color," the performance of artists and judges in the Japanese painting division of the Taiten, the attempts by Taiwanese artists to study Japanese painting, and the difficulties these artists encountered. The limited foundation for Nihonga is evident from the first Taiten. For the Taiwanese youth, their formal art education was mostly limited to the primary school level, and ink painting was completely neglected in their painting classes. Furthermore, quite a few of the artists accepted into the tôyôga division were Japanese officials and businessmen resident in Taiwan who had artistic interests and were members of amateur Japanese painting groups. Therefore, from the catalog one can find styled paintings of historical figures, genre paintings, and portraits of warlords, but the traditional Taiwanese style was strictly excluded. In short, within the short period that the officially sponsored exhibitions were held (1927-1943), it was naturally impossible for Taiwan, as a Japanese colony lacking art schools as well as local history and culture classes, to absorb Nihonga and convert it into a painting style capable of modernity and a profound expression of Taiwan's natural and social environment. Certainly, Nihonga, which was restricted to a limited view of local color, would die out in Taiwan before too long.