Taiwanese ought to be familiar with memorial statues, for the reason that there had been a lot of them sculptured and founded during the period of martial law. Furthermore, a lot of memorial statues still remains until now. Those memorial statues were mostly dedicated to important political figures; thus, in accordance with the common associations and comprehension, people oftentimes simply draw equal signs between those statues and politics.
However, the established memorial statues were not that simple nor did possess equivalent qualities of integrities. In fact, political figures of that era were not the only choice of subject matter in the field of memorial statues. During this period in the memorial statues history, a new series of innovative and unique artworks took "dedicator"-who had sacrificed themselves to help and rescue others-as subject matter had emerged. These virtuous men were originally merely laymen who were remotely connected to governmental local authorities or even hardly possessed direct association with grand narrative schemes who always emphasized on the history of nationhood. Nevertheless, these brave virtuous men were willing to sacrifice themselves to help and save others. Thus, the nation built memorial statues to show their appreciations, honors and commemorations towards these heroic virtuous men. Such phenomenon was rarely to be seen in the development of memorialization history and quite different from the conservative perspective-which used to regard memorial statues as common practice to show deepest and greatest admiration towards leaders from the authoritarian period.
Hence, this study applies art history's vantage point to probe into essence of aesthetics and forms that can be derived from this series of these unique statues; furthermore along with the historical viewpoint, this research is also delving into influences and inspiration of these memorial statues towards entire society during the whole period, and eventually making an attempt to make an approach to historical interpretation. This type of unique artworks is also expected to provide possibilities open to another path of new studies in the future, as well as reflections of plausible problems induced by reductionism and general discussion discourses proposed by the preceding theorists.
Keywords
memorial statue, dedicator, moral discourse, mythology
In the early stage soon after Kuomingdong government retreated from China to Taiwan, a series of literary and art movement with the "fighting spirit" (or military literary and art) was introduced and greatly promoted across the island with both social and governmental propaganda machine. The literary and art movement with fighting spirit had become the main stream of literary and art at that time.
As we look back, sixty years later, at the literary policy and the artistic expression at that time, and from these special topics and contents of the art work, we can look into objectively the humanity of that society and examine the conflicting and relationship between the politics and art during this period of time.
This research covers thirty five years of Taiwan literary and art from 1949 to 1984. It is divided into four periods according to the development of literary and art policy and its influence on the society. The political atmosphere then, the direction of the policy, the actual activity of art and artistic expression exhibited by art works are covered in this work. The neglected art history of this period has been re-examined with an objective and broad viewpoint. It is hoped that the readers will look at this work with a greater and broader view in analyzing and judging the art history of this period.
Keywords
literary and art with fighting spirit (or military literary and art), literary and art policy, fighting for the survival of the country with art, cultural purging movement, new military literary and art movement
In Taiwan, the Folk Woodcarving development which is rooted among people lives reflects civic cultures and becomes a kind of artistic aspect. With the variation of society status under interlaced cultural connotations, the "traditional woodcarving" and the "modern woodcarving" are gradually departed in the contemporary art today. The "traditional aesthetic value" of Folk Woodcarving is conversed to form the "modernization", while traditional woodcarving skills and conceptions are converted into extrinsic formalization of "modern woodcarving." The major discourse of contemporary woodcarvings in Taiwan consists of materials, art cross sections, and pursuits of mental consciousness. It is the "all new pattern" transformed from the "modern woodcarving" that is still created by the modern ways. Styles of manufacturers may be more vivid, exhibiting the responses of emotion and reflecting the raises of manufacturers' self-esteems. The creators reconstruct their knowledge and traditional beliefs, and then produce works that represent more "selfness" and "freedom" by rigorous processes. We can find different periods and phenotypes of "historic progress" in the Folk Woodcarving with gradual developments of ideology and time.
In this study, we used modern aesthetic theories to recollect the convention and the connotation of modernity on traditional woodcarvings. In addition, the Folk Woodcarving in Taiwan were taken as examples to conduct the research on transformation and convention. We wanted to explore why modern woodcarvings have presented a phenomenon of "metamorphism?" or why them decreased from traditional factors and how they convened into so-called the "modern woodcarving?" With analyses and investigations on contemporary woodcarving styles, we categorized the manifestations and the connotation characteristics of contemporary woodcarvings. Moreover, the "discourse of modern woodcarvings" in Taiwan was elaborated to witness the diversities and creativities of woodcarvings in Taiwan nowadays.
Keywords
modernity, convention, cross section, modern woodcarving discourse in Taiwan
The objects of this thesis are about the history of the Taiwan sculptures that use stone as their major material. However, since the 1980s, mixed materials have gained popularity in Taiwan; therefore, this thesis will encounter definition problems if take artists who only use single material as samples. To avoid these problems this thesis will adopt those who use mixed material but major materials are still stone as research objects. In this definition, this thesis will survey the production, marketing or distribution channel, education, consecration, and market of stone sculpture during the period from 1980 to 2003.
In chapter one, I will discuss the definition of the stone sculpture and the beginning of the Taiwan sculpture history. Second chapter will survey the sculpture history of Taiwan from the end of World WarⅡto the 1980s. Then in the third chapter, I will survey the sculpture history of Taiwan from the 1980s to 2003. Chapter four will describe the sculpture styles after the 1980s and discuss development problems of the Taiwan stone sculpture.
Keywords
sculpture, stone sculpture, Taiwan stone sculpture history
