2003 Volume 54 Issue 1 Pages 27-41
Chin To-ha, landscape painter and known as the first Taiwanese painter selected for the Teiten (Japanese Imperial Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition) was shot dead during the "2.28 Incident" in 1947. In his work My Family, the only portrait he made of his family, a volume titled On Proletarian Painting was portrayed. This title was later erased from the catalog Exhibition of Chin To-Ha's Posthumous works under the Kuomintang's "Reign of Terror"(1949-87). One present-day introduction of Chin mentions that "the painter who adored his motherland was mercilessly betrayed." This could be read as that Chin was anti-Japanese. If so, what explanation would there be for his work Japanese Double-Bridge, which depicts the Japanese Imperial Palace? The "patriotism" of Chin is thought to have only been directed toward "continental China." If so, then Chin had no reason to depict the book On Proletarian Painting in My Family, as at that time Chiang Kai-shek and his government were indeed the representatives of the "motherland." This article examines My Family and Japanese Double-Bridge, including their years of production, and concludes that the appearance of On Proletarian Painting and the theme of the Imperial Palace are both the results of the situation at that time.