Taiwan Today

"Ladybugs are pretty. Under the pen of the poet they become fair maidens. They are particularly welcomed by scientists and horticulturists because they are a natural enemy of injurious insects. As for philosophers having fondness for them, it is not because they eat thrips, but because they are experts at playing dead," stated watercolorist Max Chi-wei Liu in a footnote written several years ago for his painting Wedding Party.

Altogether, 17 red ladybugs flaunt the black dots on their backs in a dramatic arrangement on Liu's canvas. Although each of the insects is in a mechanized shape—suggesting the painter has a background in engineering—the overall surface is bright and lively, underlining the artistic attainment.

The content of the footnote is also part of the context of the painter's philosophy of life—he likes all living things, he says, except human beings (and no one really knows whether he is serious or not when he states such views; at least he likes young people better than those who are as old as he, the latter being "too sophisticated").

In the painting circles of this island, Liu is considered a bit weird, but also a funny and friendly person. For the last 33 years, according to his own admission, he has constantly appeared in khaki pants, a wrinkled shirt, and a short mustache, a painting bag on his back. A pipe always dangles from his lips. Over the years, he has witnessed the joys, angers, sorrows, and delights of life. And when­ ever he talks, they enrich his facial expressions. He is not a man who adheres to formalities.

Although 73, he still spends 22 hours each week teaching—he is a professor concerned with art history, art criticism, and art-environment control systems at Chungyuan University, and modern art at Tunghai University. Even on the one day a week he holds forth on the teaching podium for almost eight continuous hours, he never tires. He feels strongly that "only by busying myself can I feel that I still exist in this world," but he smiles and lights his pipe.

Those who know him well like to say that five material items—his pipe, pen, hunting rifle, painting brush, and a field pack—have controlled the different realms of his life. The five aspects of his life, though colorful, have not necessarily been full of happiness, as witness the wry lines he penned to his self-portrait in 1979: "A man who has spent a lifetime in various careers—as a gunman fighting for money, as a clown amusing people, and as a teacher trying to bring truth to art. "

Although he produced numerous portraits for others, Liu did only this one for himself, explaining, "In ancient times, although architects built temples to honor kings, heroes, and religious beliefs, the last to be commemorated were themselves."

Painting, he says, is only his side interest. Unlike those professional painters who bury themselves all day in their studios, Liu makes a few strokes only when he is not particularly occupied. "I teach for a living. Therefore, I feel no pressure to paint and I paint as I wish." And his opportunities for such leisure are rare. Most of the time he is busy writing, traveling, teaching, and conversing with friends. But he has two "pens," he says, "one for painting life, the other for writing down what I see and experience."

Liu was born in Kwangtung Province on the mainland in 1912, so he is "as old as the Republic." By the time he began to remember things, his family was haunted by poverty. "I still remember my parents pawning things to feed the big family," Liu recalled. A stern, bad tempered father shadowed an already unhappy childhood. "Countless times I tried to run away from home. I was a rebel all the time, but I gave up leaving each time because I hated to part from my grandmother."

His cherished memories of his grand­ mother are revealed in a 1979 painting, Evening Call. On the canvas, against a blurred, lonely, brownish-green background, is a lovely bird. Liu explained: "The bird is called Po Yu (Grandmother in Sorrow), and the painting arises from a story my grandmother told me when I was little:

"Once upon a time there was a poor family. On the Dragon Boat Festival, the little boy told his grandmother that he wanted to eat glutinous rice dumplings. But she was so poor, the old woman then could only make a fake dumpling stuffed with mud in an attempt to please her grandson. The little boy ate it and died. After losing her darling grandson, the woman cried every day. Later, her grand­son was reincarnated as a beautiful little bird. And at dusk, he would fly to a nearby branch and cry out, 'Grandmother in sorrow! Grandmother in sorrow!'"

During World War I, Liu's father's tea business went into a disastrous decline. Unable to find an export market, the tea, piled in a storehouse, finally got moldy. The father moved the family to Japan, trying to rebuild his life. Liu was nine years old that year.

But the father's lofty aspirations could not find fulfillment in the new land, even though in 1933, Liu Chi-wei was lucky enough to become a mechanical engineering student at the National Tokyo Railway College—a result of a Japanese government scholarship. "Without the scholarship, my family's financial situation would have prevented me from becoming a college student," Liu ruminated.

At 26, he was invited to return to the mainland to teach mechanical engineering at Canton's Sun Yat-sen University. He started to learn again to properly speak Chinese, then got married. The Eight-year War of Resistance against Japan swept the nation soon after his return and he moved to southwestern Yunnan Province with the school.

One of Liu's uncles was an officer in the ROC army, and he encouraged Liu to enter the army ordnance department as an army technician, since his skills were badly needed.

At that time, munitions and weapons were procured from U.S. depots in India, and the transportation effort over the Burma Road was difficult. Liu was ordered to Burma and southwestern China, where he was made responsible for the assembly and repair of such weapons. Later he was assigned to Annam and the border of Kwanghsi Province. Finally, afflicted by illness, he was transferred back to the ordnance factory in Chungking, Szechwan Province.

Since Liu was proficient in English and Japanese, after Japan's defeat, the Military Council considered sending him to Dairen, a major seaport in Liaoning Province on the mainland, or to Taiwan, to serve as an interpreter. But in October 1945, now out of the army, he left Chungking, the wartime China capital, and traveled to Taiwan by himself. He did not take the job of interpreter, but opted instead for a post as electrical engineer responsible for repair work, with the Taiwan Power Company in northern Taiwan. After he began work, his wife and child joined him from the mainland.

Then he moved on to put his training to use for the mills of the Taiwan Sugar Corporation and one day, during his spare time, idly picked up an art book and decided to translate it as "something interesting." And the interest soon moved from translating to the art itself. During his nine years at Taiwan Sugar, he translated articles related to art, as an intense avocation. Occasionally, he also began to write something of his own in this category.

Later, he moved on to a job as an engineer with a military engineering unit. And in this period, he began to paint in his spare time "just to kill time" while he was in the field on official business. Sometimes he did sketches from nature, sometimes watercolors. His limited financial circumstances and moody nature had made art his major source of spiritual sustenance.

Although he had a job, the burdens of a family of four kept him almost penni­less—and frustrated. "Like a broken boat, I was cast off to one side," Liu described his feelings.

One day, he met a classmate who proceeded to tease him, "An engineer is displaying his paintings now at Chung-shan Hall in Taipei, why don't you hold your own exhibition?" The remark shook him and led him to iron out his ideas.

His first really satisfactory work, he says, was a portrait of his then half-year old son. "He was in deep sleep on the tatami; he was so cute that he became my first model," Liu recalled.

Through his art, he also made friends in painting circles—Huang Chun­-pi, Ma Po-shui, Liang Chung-ming, Ma Tien-fei.

Then in 1950, his Setting Sun and Solitary Temple won him first place in the Fifth Taiwan Provincial Art Exhibition, and when Liu heard the news at his office, he jumped straight up from his chair. A footnote he wrote for the painting reads: "The main and back halls of the Tainan Confucius Temple are separated by a courtyard paved in perforated concrete slabs. Grass fills every gap in the slabs. The crimson temple walls, symbolizing peace, are set off by golden-red pillars, illuminating a lovely and harmonious ambience. At one corner of the shrine, I sat cross-legged on the ground to paint. I made the stone steps warm, and they cooled my heart. On the late autumn day in this southern land, it was still warm. A swarm of spar­rows chased one another in the evening breeze about the temple eaves. Placid, dispassionate shadows cast by the setting sun painted out all the silence, all the loneliness."

Although he has never considered himself a painter, imperceptibly, in painting circles, he has filled a position that is both protruding and harmonious. And in one of the ironic turnabouts of life, whenever his painter friends feel depressed, they turn to him, to his humorous, honest ways. But, isn't he still sometimes depressed? Aren't there still setbacks? Where does he go when sad? "I go to the mountains, or to the locales visited with the military many years ago," Liu said. No matter where he travels, he brings his painting brush and writing pen; one or the other is never idle.

In June of 1965, when Vietnam was wracked by war, Liu took only a light traveling bag and went off to that country by himself then, finally, onward to other lands. "Some of my friends said later that my 1965 to 1967 stay in the southern part of the Indo-China peninsula, and the later tours of Thailand and South America, were to satisfy my curiosity about the ancient architecture and art of those parts of the world, especially the ancient arts of Champa, the Khmers, and Siam," said Liu. "Well, I would rather say that I went there just to try my luck—to see if I could make a good living." As a matter of fact, both views are correct.

He signed on in Vietnam building airports for the Vietnamese government—since engineering is his original trade. Disregarding the warfare that could crop up anywhere, he used his leisure exploring the ancient arts of the Indo-China peninsula.

The trip opened up new territory for his artistic creation. The ancient, mysterious stone reliefs embellishing the old temples were like a flow of vintage wine; they made him drunk for three years in a row. And his painting style changed. The paintings he did there, later collected in the volume An Epic of Indo-China, were both representational and abstract. Un­ sophistication radiates from their elegance, a flavor that is fresh and lively, yet dreamlike.

This style change was long in the making, really. It can be traced back to his earlier series, Totem Analysis, concerning the art of the Paiwan, an aboriginal tribe living in the high Taiwan mountains that are gifted with artistic talent, yet very little known to the world.

Liu fulfilled a dream in Indo-China, tracing the influence of the ancient Chinese and Indian cultures on the arts. He was particularly interested in painting dilapidated temples, broken bridges, ancient alleys. He painted with all his might, and continued to lead a simple and frugal life. Sometimes he mingled with beggars, eating "newspaper noodles"—his way of describing the food at the street stands near the pier. He was happy to have a taste of that kind of life.

Besides painting, he contributed articles and photos to local newspapers and magazines. On one occasion when the Vietnamese were preparing to celebrate their national day, as he had before, Liu prepared several rolls of films and thought he would earn some money from photographs for news organizations. At around 7:00 a.m., a burst of gunfire came from a surprise Vietcong attack. Thinking it a golden opportunity, he climbed to the top of the roof and began taking pictures. "I went all the way to Vietnam just to stake my life for a little money," said the old man, now amused.

He regards his life as subject material for an absurd joke. He tells old friends, "I still love to hide myself in the mountains to meditate, contemplating what I have done with my life. My conclusion is that I have never done anything worthwhile. Besides a healthy body, nothing else is worthwhile.

"Shakespeare once put lunatics in the same category with poets, painters, and lovers, because madness means single-mindedness. And single­-mindedness must be the motto for painters, always," he said quite seriously.

"Anyone who wants to engage in artistic work must be able to endure loneliness," he advises. "Only when one is completely immersed in loneliness, can the creative work he is producing reach true art....Art is born in loneliness and dies in ostentation."

Much of his earlier work was of rural scenes. Then he decided that giving vent to the imagination is more important than being exact—than realism, shading, proper use of space, and kindred aspects. His later explorations of modern art theories and a concurrent study of folk arts convinced him to paint in praise of life—to develop the connotations of life.

During the 1950s, as Taiwan came into ever wider contact with Western culture, available foreign painting materials and related information set off a new up­surge in the study of modern Western painting. This tidal wave not only influenced the academic environment, but also irrigated the vast art fields outside the high walls of academia. Consequently, many self-taught painters were born, Liu Chi-wei among them.

After leaving the Taiwan Power Company, he devoted himself fully to watercolors and to research into painting theories. Thus, when he was an artistic neophyte, he did not follow step-by-step learning procedures; and he did not become an adherent of the style of any certain master. The foundation of his creation mirrors his own training-unconstrained and lively, characterized by the ability to adapt to a great diversity of creative methods.

His study of modern Western painting technique was not connected to any movement, but entirely based on curiosity—a seeking after knowledge. When art traditionalists and reformists were in confrontation on this island, Liu joined neither side. He pursued his independent studies and continued to translate Japanese and English art publications into Chinese. His contribution in this latter respect has been considered historically valuable to the theoretical pioneering of the 1950s.

Liu's book knowledge of the development of watercolor internationally, keeps him free from the confinement of stale tenets. He has a proper simile for watercolor: "If we compare oil painting to a novel, then watercolor should be meaningful and thought-provoking, like an essay or a poem." Characteristics of watercolor paintings, he likes to point out, include a certain lucidity and a lively, yet deep, remote beauty. There is a sense of briskness and sleekness.

In recent years, most of his works have dealt with birds, fish, horses, and portraits of the young. In lyrical colors, he produces artistic conceptions that are indistinct—graceful and dreamlike. The work is innocent as children, a world full of love and sweetness. Hatred and griev­ances, fear and worries are strangers to his picture surfaces.

He prefers simple pigments—low-keyed and sentimental, yet neither pallid nor overly delicate. On austere surfaces, he very often distinguishes the most important parts of his paintings in rich colors. For instance, a mysterious dark brown is stressed with undisguised crim­son. Or, a grayish-green tone accompanies an expanse of cold blue, giving it an indistinct and mysterious touch. He also adopts the rubbing techniques from etching. Through the use of a white powder, his colors become mottled; a touch of amusement is created.

Evening Call is the one work that truly satisfies him. In it, he simplifies the shape of the bird to its utmost essence—to enhance the work's interest and charm, purifying reality. Sometimes he reduces his focal subject to a line, then composes with that line. The result is the artistic conception known as "simple yet abundant."

When the "Old Wizard" (a nick­name given him by younger painters) was younger, he loved to go to the mountains to hunt and to muse. It was an im­portant part of his life. He may be the only painter on this island to have had a run-in with a wild boar. Whenever he describes the event, he almost glows with vigor—shrugging his shoulders, widening his eyes, twisting the wrinkles on his face.

Be Happy with Art is one of the more than 25 books he either wrote or translated. In it he advises, "Those in the hubbub of the big cities who live an insi­pid life, on entering the forest will experi­ence the loftiness of nature and the free­dom of life....In the forest, every broken branch, every turned rock, every turbid pond, and every indistinct footprint tells you stories of all those masters who have ever lived in nature."

Now that Liu has aged, he does not hunt anymore. "In the past, I was an executioner; now I have become a Bodhisattva." He has been planning to make a trip to the Republic of South Africa to write a book on its ecology. He is also concerned for the conservation of threat­ened species on this island and has told the public forcefully that "the legacy of our ancestors should be kept for the gen­erations to come."

This summer, he is going to spend a month in Sabah, Malaysia, in continuing research for his Material Culture Catalog of Southeast Asian nations. "I prefer writing to painting. Painting is just my hobby. Whenever I return from a trip, if I do not write anything, I feel I can't forgive myself," he declared.

His knowledge of engineering has helped him to focus into the core of art. That journey was risky—just like his sheer enthusiasm, plunging himself into the war-torn Indo-China peninsula. His achievements are proof that technology and art, and battlefields and art, are not contradictory at all.