Description/
Summer Morning was selected for the 3rd Taiwan Viceroy Art Exhibition in 1940 during the Japanese colonial period. In this eye-level view, rows of houses and trees in the middle ground form an enclosed space, providing a setting for the storyline to unfold along the shore of the pond. To the right in the foreground, a father and son wearing bamboo hats gaze toward the other side of the water. Similar to the common use of staffage in Chinese landscape paintings, the viewer is led to follow the sightlines of the figures to appreciate the meaning of the painting. "It is as if Chen Cheng-po has returned to his childhood," exclaimed art critic Wu Tian-shang when he saw this image at the Taiwan Viceroy Art Exhibition.
A closely matching quick sketch dated Aug. 9, 1940 has almost the identical view angle and arrangement of pond and houses as this finished oil work. One exception is a human figure by the pond was deleted. In the sketch, there is also little interaction between the son and the father, who is standing on the left and holding a farm tool. In the finished oil painting, the pair switches position and appears much more intimate, with the father cupping his hand in gaze and the son clinging to his arm. Although there are no legible sights identifying the locality, the artist evokes the warmth of family love with this modest and candid depiction of a familiar country scene.
Bibliography/
- Chuanying Yen, The Complete Collection of Taiwanese Art 1: Chen Cheng-Po (Taipei City: Artist Publishing, 1992), 240.
- Sanlang Yang and Tianshang Wu, "Critique on Western Paintings at the 3rd Taiwan Viceroy Art Exhibition—A Dialogue between Yang Sanlang and Wu Tianshang," Taiwanese Art (1940.12).
Now in: Chuanying Yen ed., Landscape and the Mind—A Guided Reading on Contemporary Taiwanese Art Literature Vol. 1 (Taipei: Lion Art Publishing, 2001), 276-279.
- Chongray Hsiao, "A Survey of Extant Works from the Taiwan Viceroy Art Exhibition," The Official Fine Arts Exhibition in Taiwan (1927-1943) during the Japanese Occupation (Taipei: Chin-Shuan Cultural & Educational Foundation, 2010), 178.
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