"Formosa Evergreen" is a special exhibition co-organized by the Tainan Art Museum and the Taipei-based National Museum of History to celebrate the inauguration of the museum that was transformed from Tainan's earliest existing police station. On display from May 25 to Sept. 24, the exhibition's namesake is Taiwan's longest collectively created scroll at about 66 meters.
In 1981, Ho Hao-tien (何浩天), director of the National Museum of History then, proposed commissioning a large-scale landscape painting to showcase the island's majestic landscapes, modern developments, folk customs, and traditions. Ten renowned ink wash painters across different generations whom were based in Taiwan at that time were invited to work on the project:
- Huang Chun-pi (黃君璧, 1898 - 1991)
- Chang Da-chien (張大千, 1899 - 1983)
- Zhang Gu-nian (張榖年, 1905 - 1987)
- Hu Ke-min (胡克敏, 1908 - 1991)
- Lee Chi-mao (李奇茂, 1925 - 2019)
- Fan Bo-hong (范伯洪, 1937 - 1998)
- Lo Fong (羅芳, 1937 - )
- Su Fong-nan (蘇峰男, 1943 - )
- Lo Chien-hsien (羅振賢, 1946 - )
- Tsai You (蔡友, 1973 - )
They traveled extensively across Taiwan, sketching landscapes and referencing aerial photographs that were obtained with special permission from the military. The artists then took on different sections of the scroll and collectively completed "Formosa Evergreen." The scroll was exhibited abroad after its completion in 1982 in places including Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Europe, drawing great acclaim.
The multi-perspective composition links different features together from various places in Taiwan. Temporal and spatial components are fused together in its multiple layers and crisscrossed sections, and its sheer scale projects a sense of majestic vastness and imposingness. Both abstract ink strokes and figurative sketching techniques have been applied, with settlements vaguely nestled in the rolling peaks.
Moreover, magnificent seashores and crashing waves are depicted at the beginning and the end of the scroll, with peculiarly shaped rocks and cliffs extending into golden paddies populated by farmers and cattle carts. Modern infrastructure and buildings are scattered throughout the challenging topography, adding to its richness and extraordinary appeal and paying tribute to the hard work that ancestral settlers had to put in to cultivate this land.
Although currently closed for renovations, the National Museum of History’s mission to serve continues, and by collaborating with the Tainan Art Museum in organizing this exhibition, an opportunity is created for the scroll’s artistic merits and historic significance to be appreciated in a new setting.
The objective is to create an experience that will evoke intimate connections with this masterpiece of epochal significance through multisensory displays such as a sound installation and a reproduction of the scroll identifying featured landmarks and places.
‘Formosa Evergreen’