ILLUSTRATED:

"Traveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling al l ci t ies, places exchange thei r form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that assortment of qualities which are like the letters in a name." Thus spoke Marco Polo to Kublai Khan. (cf. Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities, Taipei: China Times Publishers, 1993. 1st ed, p. 170) In 1962, Liao Chi-chun, following an invitation by the US State Department, began extensive travels across the United States and Europe which lasted for about a year and gave Liao - a painter who already had made a name for himself in Taiwanese art circles - much food for thought and considerably broadened his horizons. He browsed and mulled over countless (mostly American) impressive, large-format paintings in the abstractexpressionist style, reflecting on the essential nature of modern painting. One has to remember that Liao had previously tried his own hand at this particular style and its abstract imagery, but it had only been a short episode in his artistic life. After all, he came from a very different background and school of thought, and his strengths had always been sketching and traditional oil painting. During his studies in the West, Liao realized that he had hit a stumbling block in his creative work. But this arose not entirely from the tension between abstract and concrete ways of expression - to say so would be oversimplifying matters.

Like all artists of his period (i.e. the year s preceding and fol lowing the end of J apane s e coloni a l rul e and Taiwan's retrocession to China), Liao was faced with a difficult environment overshadowed by a great deal of political and social turmoil. While not all changes were for the worse, they all required a measure of stoicism to be properly digested and turned into fresh artistic impetus. Liao's generation already carried a burden of too many historic memories to develop much of a revolutionary spirit: whether they had opened themselves to Japanese cultural influences, or focused rather on "native" topics, throwing out the old ways and introducing reforms was rarely an issue adopted by local artists. Most chose to stick to a down-to-earth realism that concerned itself more with describing the world than changing it, even those who are now considered to have been rather "avant-garde". But the winds of change kept blowing, and soon this kind of conservative attitude became untenable for any artist of true ambition. Some painters of the old guard were unable to shake off the restraints of their limited upbringing and lack of exposure to new ideas. They were quite happy with what they had already achieved, shut themselves off from new developments and made no real effort at improvement. Not so Liao: the main reason why he is still considered one of the foremost Taiwanese painters of any time is that he was willing to go out into the world and enrich his experience, and to invest all his energy and creative powers in experimenting with new styles and techniques, without ever betraying his roots in the traditional arts.

Liao Chi-chun entered one of his most productive phases in the 1960s, some six or seven years after he set out on his "journey to the West". Any Easterner who has ever come into intensive contact with Western culture and civilization knows that such contact involves a learning process that is challenging and full of hidden dangers, frustrations and confusions. The adept in search of new concept s wi l l meet wi th many obstacles and doubts, as well as critical voices questioning the purpose and meaning of his quest. Of course, this is all a necessary part of an artist's growing pains. The pursuit of art, after all, was never meant to be easy. When we look at one of Liao's waterscape paintings, we invariably think of the "Impressionist style", or "Fauvist use of color", and while such associations are certainly correct, they do not convey the whole picture. Renowned art critic John Berger once pointed out that the clear distinction now made between a professional artist and a craftsman only began to emerge in the 17th century when some painters began to push the limits of traditional art, looking to express new things and redefining the content and form of painting. It was a turning point in the history of art, and resulted in an innovative process that would carry over well into the 20th century. The Impressionist movement was part of this ongoing evolution, but by no means its culminating point. Still, for many Taiwanese painters of the "old school", nourished on traditional Chinese painting, the Impressionists certainly opened up new avenues of representing and interpreting our world, forcing them to absorb new concepts and techniques.

Traditionally, the training of painters began at a young age, providing them with all the basic skills such as sketching, painting from life, choice and application of color. By the end of his apprenticeship,a literati painter was in possession of very powerful tools allowing him to create pieces that conformed perfectly well to the time-honored rules of composition and artistic insight. An artist with such a background may develop in one of two directions: either he always remains true to the skills he has acquired, honing them to the point where he may create works that are expressive in the classical sense, but very rarely truly original or "out-ofthe- ordinary". The other possible route is to take the traditional training as a basis for daring explorations of new territory.

There can be no doubt that Liao Jichun is the latter kind of artist. If we take a close look at the most avant-garde of his works, particularly in the use of color, we find that he is never just original for the sake of originality, but strives to generate a lasting impression, to produce images that linger long in the observer's mind. He wants us to feel a sense of déjà vu, as if we were, or still are, part of the very picture we are looking at.

Venice has been the motif of innumerable representations in the arts, including many paintings that usually focus on the play of light on water, the reflections of sunshine or lamps on the canals in "the city of light". Liao's 1973 painting "Venice" was the product of a t ime when the a r t i s t ha d reached a mature equilibrium and confidence of expression. During his last years, Liao's favorite subjects were leisurely panoramic views of Taiwan's landscapes, but as this piece shows, the city of Venice still had the power to tickle his creative impulses. For a man in his seventies, as Liao was at the time, any images from the past will have accreted many different layers of meaning and emotional impact, many of them of a very personal nature. Therefore it may not be too surprising that this painting does not give us a view of, say, San Marco, but instead captures a different part of the city that is less frequented by tourists. This choice of subject may be a subtle hint that the things that get lodged in our memory, and persist there often for decades to resurface at a later stage in our life, are often not the obvious impressions or features we would think of first. No, more often than not it is the small, infinitesimal even, that sinks deep into our subconscious, tiny details or barely perceptible atmospheric vibrations that are easily overlooked by all but the most sensitive observer. In terms of coloring, it is evident that Liao allowed for a lot of variation in the composition and texture of the multi-chromatic underpainting to increase the expressiveness of the thickly applied palette of mostly blue and red tones. This approach is quite typical for Liao, as it delicately intertwines reality with the reverberations it triggers in the artist's psyche. This is a Venice fa r removed f rom the spot l ight of travel itineraries, a Venice full of faint suggestions of nostalgia and sentimental longing, which, for all its faintness, still has a significance and authenticity that is neatly reflected in the firm brush strokes and the tight structure of the composition. In nature, space falls into a pattern of its own design. In a city, space is arranged and distributed by human design-and is thus far more likely to become embedded in the recesses of our mind, and reemerge in some sublimated form during artistic endeavors.

A city is more than a "place", it is composed of the people who live in it, their dreams and daily encounters. An artist's vision of a city comprises all that, as well as the painter's own reveries and images. The observer will find this view validated in Liao Chi-chun's renderings of Venice, Tungkang, Tamshui or Yehliu, visions finely tempered by the passing years. As time goes by, the artist's mindset undergoes subtle transformations. This is why Liao's "Venice" from 1967 has a somewhat different visual effect than the 1973 painting - the later painting is enriched by Liao's increased wisdom and melancholy, which in a way make it both purer and more complicated.

A painter is not only concerned with depicting people, things or landscapes. What interests a true artist even more is how his subjects relate to himself, how they shape and furnish his inner world and artistic imagination. Liao is a good case in point. If he is often called a Fauvist painter, it is probably because for him colors are just a means of recording his own reactions to his environment, of making visible the barely appreciable strings that connect him, emotionally and intellectually, to the world around him. Only a very gifted artist is able to muster the subtlety and attention to detail needed to strike a balance between visible, concrete reality and subjective emotional response. By allowing his colors to oscillate freely between these to poles, Liao manages to create attractive compositions that are brimming with inner tension yet held together by an overall sense of ethereal harmony.

With "Venice" Liao Chi -chun once more confirmed his status as one of the doyens of Taiwanese painting, even though the theme of this particular picture is, for domestic audiences, an exotic one. In his heart, Liao never severed the intimate ties with his homeland, this island that strangers from a faraway country once called "Formosa". Even though his palette was clearly influenced by the Fauvists, as well as by individual artists such as Japan's Umehara Ryuzaburo, Liao's individual style is firmly rooted in the training and upbringing he received in Taiwan. The tropical heat and dazzlingly bright, colorful vistas that formed the backdrop of his childhood shine through in the saturated, vivid colors of his densely textured paintings-colors that serve as a vibrant code for his own feelings and reminiscences. This is how Liao is able to lift even the faraway city of Venice high above gloomy melancholy and indifferent apathy, and turn it into a sparkling metaphor for the artist's inner life.