| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立屏東師範學院 === 視覺藝術教育學系碩士班 === 92 === A Study on Creations of Printmaking by Chen Kuo-Chan
Abstract
This study aims at analyzing the creation background, life philosophy and artistic thinking of printmaking artist, Chen Kuo-Chan, investigating the evolution and characteristics of creative style of Chen Kuo-Chan’s printmaking works, and keeping a biographical record of Chen Kuo-Chan. To accomplish these research purposes, this study adopts historical research, style analysis and interviews as the research approaches of the study.
The main conclusions of this study are as follows:
1. Great prints resulted from assiduous work
Born in a poor but warm family, Chen Kuo-Chan was cultivated to work hard, with eagerness to learn and a heart full of love. As Chen was just a juvenile, his remarkable artistic talent was shown. During the process of his artistic learning, he learned continuously in pursuit of newness and changes. No matter the 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional art, he was willing to try new things and get in touch with various kinds of artistic creation positively, including water color painting, oil painting, architecture, design, sculpture carving and wash painting, etc. This learning spirit was especially beneficial to the diversified presentation of the internal qualities of printmaking. In 1968 Chen started learning printmaking on his own. Having gone through continuous attempts and mistakes, overcome the insufficiency of hardware equipment and accepted valuable advice from Liao Shiou-Ping, Chen turned to have a better understanding of the concepts and techniques of modern printmaking. Now it has been 35 years ever since Chen involved in the creation of printmaking. His copperplate etching works achieved local and foreign awards time after time. He even owns the highest honor of permanent examination-free artist.
2. Open-mindedness
When absorbing his creative inspiration from nature, Chen strongly protects the man-nurturing nature. He thinks that aesthetic form should be possessed of the ten principles of aesthetics, and there should be the three properties of the true, the good and the beautiful in artistic works as they should exert the social teaching function of art. His creative ideas are originated from abstract art, classicism, life aesthetics, social critical spirit, fun of “clumsiness,” world view, Buddhist philosophy, etc. All along he has a consistent belief in the idea of “adoption of Western knowledge in Eastern work.” He thinks that the important thing of artistic creation is the creation of something new and original, and the making techniques are merely the means. To him, the sources and motives of his creations come from the breakthrough of his concepts, open-mindedness and approval of subjective value.
3. Continuous Innovation
The creative style of Chen’s printmaking mainly employs the Western modern printmaking techniques to transmit the internal qualities of Oriental spirit. Of course his life experience and inner feelings, as well as the social phenomena are also the essential sources of his creative inspiration. Summarizing the evolution of Chen’s printmaking creation, it can be divided into the following ten stages:
1) Ideas of Creation: Reflect the life experience and social pulse through “adoption of Western knowledge in Eastern work,” and hold the spirit of making incessant attempts.
2) Form of Work: The outlines in Chen’s works stress smooth, broad and thick lines, and complicated, multiple, sharp and fine lines, which are matched with textured color blocks. The shapes are drawn from subjective deformation to objection proportion. The colors adopted can vary from vicissitudinous colors in one print to presentation in single color. The lightness expression can alter from neglect of light rays to emphasis on light rays. Due to the different qualities of plate to be applied, the sense of texture presented in prints is different. Spatial presentation is changed from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional. The action trend composed of abstract rhythms mainly acted by concrete symbols and objective matters is evolved to be a moving sense of time units, constituting a symmetrical and balanced form that would turn to be a layered form with contrast rhythms.
3) Contents of Work: The subject matter can be taken from the daily life and surroundings, or from the tested material. The internal qualities can be presented by direct description or symbolic implication. They show self concerns as well as concerns for the next generation.
4) Materials of Media and Techniques: The materials of media adopted by Chen’s works are mainly the metallic plate (e.g. copper plate and zinc plate). Later on, there added serigraphy, acrylic plate, lithography and paper block. The technique of printmaking is mainly etching. For enrichment of the general appearance of print, there gradually added the techniques of vicissitudinous colors, layered printing, aquatint, separated plate making in two separate plates, gold foils stuck on etching plate, photomechanical printing, gampi collage, mezzotint, etc. Chen can even control the six aquatint single colors, letting them give layered effects from the dark to the light. Sometimes he leaves some space blank on the plate so as to achieve an alternative composition of picture. He develops some tools and techniques for making various kinds of special textures.
Synthesizing the printmaking works of Chen Kuo-Chan, we can find out some characteristics. Over the creative ideas of his works, he all along keeps the idea of “East-West combination,” employs philosophical thoughts full of profound artistic conceptions, and holds the spirit that “creation must be innovative.” Over the form of his works, Chen is extraordinarily skilful in the presentation of lines, unique abstract symbols and patterns, strong local and traditional folk colors, astonished special light and shadow effects as well as surrealist styles. Over the contents of his works, he is good at turning humors to solemn themes, using metaphors to express the internal feelings of himself, showing strong human concerns and reflecting the real life of human beings. The materials of media and techniques he adopts are plentiful and diversified. He can completely grasp the characteristics of various materials of plates, and test different kinds of materials and techniques continuously.
Key words: Chen Kuo-Chan, printmaking creation, printmaking history
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