Eighty years ago, she painted the popular fashion of Japanese rule in Taiwan - Taiwan's first female painter Chen Jin

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The three teenagers of the Taiwan Exhibition, the only girl you don't know yet

You may have read "The Three Boys of Taiwan Exhibition" in history textbooks, but you may not know much about "Chen Jin" (1907-1998). As one of the three teenagers at the Taiwan Exhibition, she is not only one of the first painters selected for the Taiwan Exhibition and the Imperial Exhibition, but also the first female painter in Taiwan to be recorded in history.

Her brushstrokes are elegant and her colors are delicate, depicting the daily life of a large number of Taiwanese women during the Japanese colonial period. Sheriffa once commented: "There is no one who can so truly express the characteristics of Taiwanese women in the thirties like her paintings." [1]

Chen Jin's modern women, mixed with the details of popular costumes from China, Japan, and the West, are also like the epitome of Taiwan's cultural history that has experienced wrestling with various countries. Every brushstroke she makes is a negative and gentle historical footnote for Taiwan's cultural history during the Japanese colonial period.

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When a Taiwanese girl was selected for the Japanese Imperial Exhibition

Chen Jin, who was born in the Xiangshan family in Hsinchu, entered Taipei State Taipei No. 3 Girls' High School (now Sun Yat-sen Girls' High School) at the age of 15. At the age of 18, her family agreed to let her study in Japan and enter the Japanese painting department of Tokyo Women's Art School, specializing in oriental glue painting. She became one of the few female senior intellectuals who could study in Japan at that time.

In Tokyo, she was influenced by the beauty painters Kaburaki Kiyokata and Ito Fukasui, and specialized in depicting the elegant posture of women. And perhaps because of being a woman, the details of the clothing and female behavior she depicts show a unique delicate and elegant beauty.

In 1932, at the age of 25, she completed her first masterpiece, "The Fragrance of Zhilan", depicting the gorgeous and solemn costume details of Taiwanese brides. In the painting, the bride wears a colorful phoenix crown and shawl, red embroidered shoes, and the background is a black conch wooden table and chair, fringed lanterns, and white orchids. She looked solemn. It fully shows her exquisite painter and meticulous observation.

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She also attaches great importance to the details and tastes of life. In 1936, at the age of 29, she painted "Dressing Up", which depicted the daily life of a middle-class woman. The furniture is the same Japanese black snail table and chair, and the screen pattern is chrysanthemum, wisteria, cherry blossom and calamus. The sitting girl holds a lip pencil, and the table is set up with rouge gouache bottles and cans, all of which fully show the fashion details of Taiwan's middle class at that time.

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Chen Jin's main form of painting is glue color painting, which is first mixed with different colors of mineral powder with glue, and then mixed with water to paint on different materials. The characteristic of glue color painting is that after layers of color, it will produce a thick and dense classical atmosphere. It is very suitable for flowers and clothing, which have a high level of density.

Clusters of petals lining leaves, layers of beads shaking tassels, suitable for her, and also suitable for an island like Taiwan with intricate stories.

Chinese, Japanese and Western mixed, just like she and Taiwan.

In 1934, Chen Jin completed his most famous large-scale painting, "Ensemble", depicting her sister. Two young girls sat side by side to play, one with Western-style perms with bright red high heels, and the other with a classical toe and flat embroidered shoes. We can see how Chinese, Japanese and Western cultures subtly influence the modern makeup of Taiwanese women.

After the completion of "Ensemble", it was selected for the 15th "Imperial Art Exhibition" in Japan, which was the highest honor in the Taiwanese art world at that time. The Japanese art world may never have imagined that a young girl from colonial Taiwan would be able to paint such a huge painting full of emotion, with an emphasis on detail and real life.

According to the report: "When Chen Jin became the first Taiwanese female painter in history to be selected for the Japanese Imperial Exhibition. The newspaper reported that his works were deeply "Taiwanese", and Chen Jin said excitedly in an interview: "Taiwan is a very good place, who doesn't love the hometown where they grew up?" [2]

Taiwan's history is also like these women's costumes, enlightened in foreign countries, developed a set of their own stories, and then let the world see them again.

That is fashion, politics, and everyday.

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From a girl to a mother, and then to herself

Yang Cui once commented that Chen Jin was a "new woman" during the Japanese colonial period: "In terms of the spirit of being able to swallow and endure suffering alone in a lonely foreign land, she is autonomous, resolute, and even self-liberated." [3]

By the standards of the time, Chen Jin was not a woman who entered marriage according to the "normal" timeline, she got married at the age of 40 and gave birth to a son at the age of 43.

After entering marriage, Chen Jin's painting subjects gradually changed: she began to paint the bodies of her wife and mother, as well as her children. Her meticulous observation shifts from the folds of the skirt and the patterns of flowers and birds to the colorful school-age toys. In 1954, from her painting "Little Boy", we see the boy focusing on a small truck with wooden multicolored abacus, geometric blocks, and scattered reading books. It was the fifth year of the Nationalist government's arrival in Taiwan.

From these scattered stories, we can find the mother's ardent expectations, and also see the violent transmutation that the world is experiencing, in the baby's school-age toys.

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After middle age, Chen Jin began to come into contact with Buddhist themes. The painting is still full of exquisite details. In 1965, at the age of 58, she painted "Shakyamuni in His Childhood", with the theme of Mrs. Maya holding the baby Siddhartha, but the special thing is that the scene is actually the living room of a gentry family common in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period, with the same black furniture and white orchids. [4]

It was both Mrs. Maya and herself. She still sits in her favorite living room with her son in her arms. The lady is focused on her eyes, and the baby has a holy light.

All things are eternal and sacred.

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Painting, fashion and politics: it's not just small and beautiful

Those who appreciate the painting may comment that as the first female painter in Taiwan, she was somewhat protected by her family to achieve such achievements. She was born in a prominent family in Hsinchu, and the girl was able to learn calligraphy and painting from an early age and cultivate a good taste. After getting married and having children, her husband also understood her artistic world, so she was able to get rid of the fate of women in the early 20th century who had to dedicate themselves to their families and give up their careers to focus on teaching and painting. However, this certainly does not mean that she has never encountered a setback in her life.

During the Japanese colonial period, she once said to herself: "Competing alone with heroes from all walks of life in the painting world of my colonial motherland for a long time made me deeply feel the difference in treatment between 'native islanders' and 'mainlanders' (referring to Japanese), and the social status of 'men' and 'women'. Therefore, I learned from it that only by perseverance and self-improvement and striving for the top can we break through the constraints of the external environment on a woman from the colony."

Similarly, she did not think that if she wanted to be more successful, she could paint more Japanese subjects rather than focusing on Taiwanese life. But as a female intellectual in Taiwan, she believes in her choice.

In an ARTouch report, an excerpt is from her conversation with Jiang Wenyu. "It was the first time I was competing with others, and I wanted to be distinctive, and I didn't know what would be better to draw. It would be more convenient if I painted some Japanese subjects, especially when I was in Japan; But after thinking about it, we Taiwanese still paint our local things." [5]

Chen Jin always cares about the lives of Taiwanese women. It also opens up a negative perspective for our art history during Japan's rule. She shows us the private and intimate daily life of women. Boudoir dressing, cheongsam shoes and bags are all the result of Taiwan's surging undercurrent and cultural wrestling between countries.

In her time, the world was rapidly changing, and people often did not have time to identify and locate themselves. In the face of such a world, she said.

"Only by faithfully expressing the posture of the times through the pure artistic spirit can there be eternal life and eternal value (omitted) But this does not mean that we should rise and fall with the world, we should not ignore the trend of the times, but should also understand the spirit of the times, and think about the characteristics of the times, and strive to create works full of life and beauty."

The way she uses to observe the world and position herself is painting. She believes that as an art creator, only when you are fully immersed in life and faithfully present the spirit of the times is a manifestation of responsibility for the world.

"To be able to reminisce about the bits and pieces of lovely home life, and at the same time, to make the best annotation of the pace of life of the times, if you don't paint it, your own painting process will form a fragment of omission, and it is not a manifestation of responsibility to yourself and society." She said.

According to the People's Daily, the Japanese art critic "Wanchao Bao" once called her a "female genius in the South China Sea", but she said modestly: "I don't compare with others, only with myself, am I more progressive? Is there a breakthrough?"

When we talk about the first woman and the first person in Taiwan, we also see that Chen Jin never tries to be a representative of anyone. She is herself. She faithfully observes and records the daily lives of women. In the paintings, the girls shake off the gold powder of the times. Lifelike.

Every brushstroke of Chen Jin is a gentle negative footnote for the cultural history of Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. For her, drawing the spirit of the times may be her lifelong responsibility as a woman, as an intellectual, and as a Taiwanese.