Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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The purpose of this thesis is to examine the image of Western art in Taiwan with a focus on the Chimei Museum (*1990). Motivated by the recent trend for acquiring and displaying Western works of...Show moreThe purpose of this thesis is to examine the image of Western art in Taiwan with a focus on the Chimei Museum (*1990). Motivated by the recent trend for acquiring and displaying Western works of art in East Asia, I concentrate on the Taiwanese response in an attempt to bridge academic gaps in interpreting how East Asia reacts to Western culture. On the one hand, Taiwanese art collecting and exhibiting has definitely mirrored the cultural environment in East Asia as it was one of the earliest international art markets in post-war East Asia (*1945). On the other hand, having been colonized by the Japanese who introduced their westernization strategies (1895-1945) and then with a fresh injection of Chinese culture as the seat of the Republic of China (*1945, post-war period), the Taiwanese public’s impression of Western art provides a copybook example of how the Western aesthetics were constructed under Japanese, Chinese and local Taiwanese rules. The Chimei Museum is an exemplification of the introduction of Western art in modern Taiwan. As a private museum, the educational background of its founder, Xu Wen Long (許文龍, *1928), who was brought up under Japanese rule, marks the initial point of entry of Western aesthetics into the colonized society. During her directorship of the Chimei Museum in the late 1990s, Xu’s successor, Kuo Ling Ling (郭玲玲, *1956), has shown a new attitude toward appreciating Western art in post-war Taiwan. Taking the perspectives of collecting and museum culture as the starting point, my analysis of the Chimei Museum hopes to provide a pioneering discussion about the general Taiwanese reception of Western art.Show less
