Hsiao Chong-Ray

After China’s defeat by the Japanese in the First Sino-Japanese War, it was forced to cede Taiwan to Japan in 1895. This began the period of Japanese rule in Taiwanese history.

The Japanese colonial government that ruled Taiwan carried on the momentum from the Meiji Restoration. Learning from the West was the all-encompassing principle of governance. In the world of art, traditional painting, which focused on learning from and imitating other artworks, began to be replaced by sketch painting. This new focus not only became the teaching standard for painting classes in the new educational system, but also the standard for selection in the state-run Taiwanese Art Exhibition that began in 1927. In each of the exhibition speeches made by senior officials, encouragement of the Taiwanese to work hard and display their “local characteristics” were repeatedly emphasized. These characteristics referred to “Tropical Southern Colors,” that is, the relatively heavier colors of the tropical regions, which became important elements of the Taiwanese New Art Movement during Japanese rule.

According to postcolonial theory after WWII, however, this new focus in art inevitably succumbed to the prejudice of Western colonialism, which equated white colors with advancement and colorfulness with backwardness.