“At elementary school， the teachers would often take us out to the hill behind the school to paint pictures.  Actually， the whole thing was more for fun than to teach us about painting as such. One day I had an urgent need to do a pee up on the hillside， so I hid behind a big tree to do it. Little did I imagine that a wild rabbit would leap out from the place I had found for my toilet， and it almost made me jump out of my skin!”

  Reminiscing about the early beginnings of his painting career， Yuan Chin-ta takes enormous pleasure in dredging up precious memories like these from his early youth. Clearly his childhood days were a time when lovely seeds were sown in his garden of art， and surely it is precisely because Yuan Chin-ta grew up in a care fret countryside environment that the love of nature became so deeply embedded in his heart.  In due course that deep love of nature welled up and found eloquent expression in the mature artist's later paintings.

Doodling Cartoon Characters

Yuan Chin-ta confesses that when he was young the idea basically never entered his head that he might one day take up a career in art.  The only thing was that during class he enjoyed doodling on his textbooks， filling them with cartoon characters popular at the time. It was when he entered junior high school that he began con sciously to paint， while his first genuine contact with fine art did not come until after he entered Hsinchu Normal College.  Fine art was the course he felt most fascinated by during his time at Hsinchu Normal College， especially since the teaching faculty included such distinguished teachers of painting as Li Che-fan， Liu Ping-ho and Chen Wan-tang.  These teachers would often take their students off on trips into the mountains around Hsinchu to paint from life. In those days the mountains， forests and streams were quite unspoiled and utterly beautiful. Their favorite spots for painting expeditions included Mt. Feihuang， the Koya River and Kouchin Bridge.

Like a Fish to Water

As someone who loved to paint and who now found himself surrounded by sympathetic teachers， Yuan Chin-ta took to life at Hsinchu Normal College like a fish to water. In his sophomore year he took charge of the college's fine art club， and on weekends and holidays he would lead its members off into the mountains and countryside， or off to some riverbank to spend an enjoyable day painting.  It was during the second term of that year that he held his first exhibition of paintings， which proved a huge success. Although this was his first solo exhibition of work， he still never imagined that he would one day become a professional artist.

徐卉卉

 

作者：徐卉卉