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Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Guo Xuehu, Solitude, 1933.

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Tōyōga Painter, Nihonga Artist
Guo Xuehu displayed his paintings in the tōyōga division of the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. Nihonga painter and juror, Araki Jippo, made following comments on works in the tōyōga division at the salon in 1935:
I have heard that at the first and second Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition there were some extremely crude literati landscapes and flower paintings. Today, works on display have progressed and aren't any different from contemporary nihonga. It is truly a remarkable development (Araki 1935, 58).
Already in 1927, Japanese art critic, Ōsawa Sadayoshi (1886-?), suggested that the division itself was improperly named and should be called nihonga instead (Yen 2007, 86). Also, when Taiwanese tōyōga artists submitted their paintings to the salons in Tokyo in the 1930s and early 1940s, their works were on display in the nihonga division.
To address this conflation of nihonga and tōyōga, art historian Yen Chuanying has proposed an expanded definition of nihonga for the colonial period. She has described nihonga as painting with Eastern qualities under Japan's leadership (Yen 2009, 296; see also Lin 2008, 145). Similarly, Jason Kuo has argued that the naming of tōyōga division reflected Japan's ambitions to best represent East Asian art (Kuo 2000, 36).
Yen's political take on nihonga takes into account nihonga's popularity in Taiwan as well as its material affinity to painting in other East Asian countries vis-a-vis oil painting. It points to the cultural imperialism inherent in the official exhibitions' and Japanese artists' promotion of nihonga in the colonies. I argue that in the process Japanese artists lost their monopoly on nihonga. By the 1930s, nihonga became a creative medium for some Taiwanese Chinese artists. The naming of the tōyōga division helped to obscure this fact.
The shift in the meaning of nihonga became even more apparent in the early 1940s, when art critics in Japan began to discuss the implementation of the ideals of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (Daitōa kyōeiken) in art. Some art critics found it difficult to praise paintings at the metropolitan salon simply for depicting ideologically relevant and politically correct subject matter. So, they were relieved to notice paintings by young Korean and Taiwanese artists in the nihonga division. Art critics envisioned these colonial artists as the vanguard, leading the metropolitan salon to becoming a center for all cutting-edge artists from each region of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in the near future (Kolodziej 2018, 217-218; Ōyama and Kimura 1942, 37). Such comments suggest that, under the wartime regime and imperialization policies, art critics began to imagine the boundaries between Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese art in new ways.
One of Guo Xuehu's most striking works is "Solitude" (also translated as "Silence," jakukyō in Japanese) from the 1933 Taiwan salon. This work is said to have been inspired by Guo's visit to the Nanzen Temple in Kyoto, during his first trip to Japan in autumn of 1931 (Taipei Fine Arts Museum 1989, 25). This painting includes typical elements of a literati landscape, with mountains, a waterfall, and trees. Yet, the unusual composition and execution in all encompassing dark color make it appear so fresh and modern, foreshadowing developments of postwar nihonga.
Guo Xuehu did not study art in Japan for any extended period, nor did he exhibit his works there in the prewar period, unlike some of his more wealthy peers. The Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition, the Taiwan Government-General Library, and the community of Japanese-settler artists in Taipei brought him into the purview of Japan's imperial art world. His paintings shared the stylistic and thematic concerns with nihonga artists, pushing the boundaries of the medium, and redefining its very premises. By rendering the distinction between nihonga and tōyōga superfluous, his work complicates our understanding of nihonga as simply "Japanese-style painting" or neo-traditional painting.
Prize-winning Landscapes
Guo Xuehu's hours spent studying at the library and sketching around Taipei paid off. In 1928, his painting titled "Scenery Near Yuan Shan" (Maruyama fukin) received a special award at the second Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. Moreover, the Government-General purchased the work at a very high price of 500 yen (The Art of Kuo Hsueh-hu: Seventy Years of Painting. Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 1989, 207).

The viewer's eyesight takes in the lone worker, maize, sunflowers, and fields in the lower part of the painting, then travels through the hilly park, finally to discover an iron Truss bridge and street lamps towards the left. A small flock of birds draws the viewer's attention to the landscape on the other site of the bridge, not represented in the painting. These are the grounds of the Taiwan Shrine (Taiwan jinja). Taiwan Shrine was constructed in 1901 to enshrine the spirit of the imperial prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa. Kitashirakawa died in Tainan in 1895 during the military campaign to occupy the island (Allen, 164). The whole area of the park and the shrine was developed in the early years of colonial rule. Even the maize and sunflowers are not local plants but possibly crops introduced by the Japanese. The white boundary tablet in the lower side of the painting indicates that the land has been measured and defined by ownership. (New visions 29-30). The lush greens evoke the natural beauty of a landscape. Yet, it is a clearly man-made site, imbued with historical and political significance.

Art historians have pointed out that the coloring of this painting is similar to the painting style of a Japanese juror and settler artist, Gōhara Kotō (1887-1965). Guo Xuehu is said to have admired Gōhara's set of three hanging scrolls on view at the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition, depicting birds and flowers (for black and white reproductions click here) (New visions, 248). In 1929, Guo Xuehu began studying with Gōhara and joined the Sendansha (Sandalwood Society, 1930-36), an exhibition group founded by Gōhara Kotō and another established nihonga settler-artist, Kinoshita Seigai (1887-1988).

The official salon and the library brought Guo Xuehu into the orbit of Japan's imperial art world. Culture and Education Bureau, Tainan Public Hall, and Navy Officer's Department would purchase his salon works. His paintings were accepted to all annual salons in Taiwan. Moreover, Guo Xuehu received special awards in 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932; the Taiten Prize in 1930 and 1931; the Tainichi Prize in 1932; and, the Asahi Prize in 1935. Starting from 1933, his works were exempted from review (mukansa). Except for one figure painting, all of his salon works were landscapes, sites in nature or around the city.
His works demonstrate technical mastery of complex compositions and great attention to detail. The artist explored different techniques and styles: he produced works in lush greens and drip-in technique reminiscent of Rimpa painting ("Scenery Near Yuan Shan" 1928; "After the Rain" 1931), applied perspective and vivid colors to capture a bustling urban scene ("Prosperity of South Street" 1930), and carried out an unconventional experiment with ink and paper to convey a mysterious evening mood ("Solitude" 1933). In his depiction of the Dihua Street in the Da Dao Cheng's Yon-lo District, he deliberately chose to depart from naturalistic depiction by extending the buildings upward and foreshortening the depth of the street to convey prosperity of shops on this street with many signboards in Chinese and Japanese (New Visions, 35-36). He achieved balance between naturalism and an overall decorative quality of the painting surface in a way that spoke to Japanese jurors and audiences familiar with nihonga (Compare Yen on "Scenery Near Yuan Shan" YEN p. 103).
Art historians have pointed out how the early development of landscape painting in Taiwan went hand in hand with colonization and exploitation of the island (Yen, 250). They have also likened the ability to represent a landscape in art to conquest, as it allows the artist to manipulate the image freely (Kikuchi, ed. 45). Maps, travel writing, postcards, photographs, and paintings during the colonial rule have represented a particular kind of Taiwanese landscape. These representations reflected and shaped the stereotypical image of Taiwan as Japan's colony, with unspoiled nature, picturesque sites, exotic natives, and colonial urban development (Kikuchi ed. 14-15). As Hsin-Tien Liao has pointed out, such images promoted tourism, transformed the landscape into a consumer product, and encouraged an exoticizing gaze (Kikuchi, 55-56).

Young Taiwanese artists who grew up during the colonial rule received their artistic education from Japan-trained teachers and competed at the salon, with Japanese artists appointed as jurors. Jurors emphasized so-called "local color," demanding that art in Taiwan depict local subject matter and display distinct native characteristics (See discussion on this topic here, in relation to model works). At the same time, they assessed the paintings of artists in Taiwan based on their mastery of metropolitan painting styles. Young Taiwanese artists had to negotiate contradictory demands. They were expected to represent colonial difference and exoticism for the metropolitan audiences, as well as collective experience of and for the colonized. Literary scholar Aimee Nayoung Kwon has coined the term "conundrum of representation" to describe these contradictions (Kwon, Intimate Empire, 10-13). Kwon's work focuses on Korean writers writing in the Japanese language during the colonial period. I suggest that colonial painters, including Guo Xuehu, faced the same conundrum as their literary counterparts.

The double prize-winning "After the Rain" (1931) depicts a site of great historical import in Taiwan's colonial history, the Zhishan Cliff (Shibayama in Japanese), where, in 1896, six pioneer Japanese teachers were assassinated. The flourishing garden and park rest atop a site of sacrifice for the imperial cause and of anti-colonial resistance. A pathway through the carefully cultivated fields leads the eyesight into an elevated area of the park, with two distinct rooftops visible amidst foliage: that of a memorial shrine established to commemorate their deaths, and a local temple. The two buildings were in fact situated apart from each other, yet the artist depicted them in close proximity. The memorial shrine was completed only in 1930, a year before this painting. The juxtaposition suggests a peaceful integration of Japanese and Taiwanese elements (Compare: YEN p. 103. New Visions, 254).
Guo Xuehu's works were on view in the tōyōga division at the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition. They shared their artistic concerns and even subject matter with nihonga, as many Japanese artists traveled to Taiwan in search of a distinct subject matter for their figure and landscape paintings.

In 1935, Taiwan Government-General Library gave Guo Xuehu a special award of 500 yen. This award was given out only once a decade and provided enough money to sustain a small family for a year. The same year, his painting "The Junk" (Janku) on view at the ninth salon won the Asahi Award and was purchased for the exorbitant amount of 1500 yen by the Taipei Police Station (Ex. cat. 1989 p. 208). Within the span of less then ten years, Guo Xuehu established himself as a professional artist.