Provenance：
Illustrated：ILLUSTRATED:
\\\'\\\'Surging Waves─Chen Cheng-Po\\\'s 120th Birthday Anniversary Touring Exhibition, Tainan,\\\'\\\' Tainan City Government, Tainan Taiwan, 2014, Page 241
"Taiwan Fine Arts Series No.1 - CHEN CHENG PO," Artist Publishing Co., Taipei Taiwan, 1992, Page 93
Exhibition：EXHIBITION:
\\\'\\\'Surging Waves─Chen Cheng-Po\\\'s 120th Birthday Anniversary Touring Exhibition, Tainan,\\\'\\\' Xinying Culture Center, Koxinga Museum, Tainan Municipal Cultural Center, National Museum of Taiwan Literature, Tainan Taiwan, January 18th - March 30th, 2014
Exposition：
Hsinglou is a building located in Tainan City’s Chang Jung Girls’ High School, a girls-only school founded by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan in the late 1800s. The building boasts impressive aesthetic beauty while being surrounded by an area recognized as Chen Cheng-Po’s third most painted Taiwanese scenic spot, trailing only Chiayi Park and Tamsui. The story behind this location is Chen’s good friend Liao Chi-chun taught at the school, and Chen painted this art piece when he sought refuge here in order to escape the bombs raining down on Taiwan during World War II. When viewing “Hsinglou, Tainan” one can take in how Chen Cheng-Po used a street level view to portray the building and its surrounding sights. The painting’s colors are bright and bold whereas the uniquely-shaped scenery is rather unadorned. Simply put, this painting’s effects make viewers feel as if they have been transported to Tainan on a gorgeous summer day.
The sequence of objects in the front and back is clear, making it easy to understand the painting. The spiraling nature of Chen’s brushstrokes portray the lush green grass and bushes, creating a brilliant combination of exquisite aesthetic details. Chen transforms Bada Shanren’s sharp brushstrokes and van Gogh’s broad brushstrokes, as Chen’s brushwork displays continuous curves while also leaving traces of his brushstrokes, which can be seen due to the thick amount of paint he left on the canvas. The effect of his brushwork is that it displays the faint existence of lines. Chen once said, “Stroke after stroke I make lines that gradually vanish among the brushstrokes, creating a mode of expression where lines and brushstrokes complement one another.” His preference for showcasing curved brushstrokes was partly inspired by the linear-style of Renoir’s art, as Chen frequently used these subtle and smoothly flowing brushstrokes when portraying trees.
In his book The Story of Art, E.H. Gombrich described van Gogh, writing that the Dutch painter seeks to use his paintings as a way of expressing his feelings, and distorting shapes helped accomplish his objectives, for he was able to apply these transformations to his work. This distortion of shapes that appears in the artwork of van Gogh is also present in the techniques Chen used in his paintings. In short, this painting style relies exclusively on the painter’s subjective feelings and what he wants to see in the canvas’s scene. Therefore, the reason Chen Cheng-Po’s painting appears to not seek to present a lifelike scene originates from him utilizing his feelings to express a transformation of everyday objects.
In Chen’s “Hsinglou, Tainan”, the twists and turns of the vegetation below is contrasted by the blue sky above that was painted on with sharp brushstrokes. The plants are lush and replete with nutrients, the ambience is carefree and unrestrained, and the plants appear to be growing while the traces of a breeze blowing through can be seen. This all gives the scene a solid structure without sacrificing the feeling of fluidity, as the rhythm of nature and its unfailing vitality are vividly present on this canvas.
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