THE TWISTED MIND AND BODY: SHEU, YIH-LIN & EDVARD MUNCH

• Main Authors: Yu-ching Li, 李玉清
• Other Authors: Kuang-Ho Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/p7s56p

碩士 === 世新大學 === 圖文傳播暨數位出版學研究所(含碩專班) === 96 === “Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak,” English art critic John Berger once said. Seeing is the basic instinct of a person, who understands the outside world by seeing and observing. To understand the heart and soul of an artist, the most direct way is to observe the self-portrait. Handicapped artist Sheu Yih-lin started his art training in 1991. Cerebral palsy made his limbs distort and shiver constantly, with only his left foot controllable. Therefore, he had to hold the painting brush with his left foot. Strong willed, Sheu overcame the difficulties painting with foot. Despite the bottlenecks that had urged him to give up, encouragement from his older sister, teacher and many others pushed Sheu to get restarted. He went on demonstrating even more vigorous life force, whereby his passion for life could be all presented on the canvas. Norwegian artist Edvard Munch was born on December 12 1863. His father was shy, sensitive, and depression-prone. Tuberculosis claimed his mother’s life when he was five years of age, leading to his father’s melancholy, nervousness, and frantic dependence on religion. When he was 14, his older sister Johanne also died of tuberculosis. In the shadow of deaths in the family, Munch himself was also often ill. As he recalled, “Ever since I was little, death, madness, and illness have stood by my side, to this day. I had long realized the sorrows and perils of life...” Munch wanted to depict a status full of emotional contents and tremendous vividness. In order to achieve this goal, Munch painstakingly constructed his paintings, which as a result had created the tense, nervous atmosphere. For the aforementioned two artists: Though handicapped, Sheu Yih-lin showed his optimisms and endeavor. Edvard Munch had a normal body, yet his mind was all twisted. This paper analyzes the constitutive elements of two artists’ self-portraits, thereby elaborating on the correlation between humans’ outer forms and inner personalities.