EXHIBITED:
Three Masters of Art: Calligraphy and Ink Paintings by Yu Cheng-yao, Shen Yao-chu, and Zhen Shan-xi, National Museum of History, Taipei, December 20, 2013-February 23, 2014

ILLUSTRATED:
Three Masters of Art: Calligraphy and Ink Paintings by Yu Cheng-yao, Shen Yao-chu, and Zhen Shan-xi, National Museum of History, Taipei, 2013, color illustrated, p. 50

Joined the army when he was young, and after over twenty years’ life in army, Yu Cheng-yao began painting after retirement. Although he is a self-taught painter, he created a mess pen style landscape painting of powerful expression, with his innate art talent and travel experience around China. In the eye of the art critics, his painting is completely different from the traditional China landscape painting with two thousand years’ history, yet very close to the real Chinese landscape. Yu Cheng-yao said: “Mountains have life, they are changing. If you use lines obey to rules instead of disorderly pen traces, and then you will easily create a mountain with rigid accumulations, not conform to natural.” The independent character of Yu Cheng-yao’s ink trace is a brand-new visual point which established a unique art status.

Artist and critic Lin Chuan-chu analysis Yu's originality as below: “From the traditional perspective that ‘poem, calligraphy and painting are one’, to review famous artists throughout the second half of the 20th century, I think Yu Cheng-yao’s importance is only second to Pu Hsin-Yu; from the highly combination of personality liberation and ink, his achievement is different from Jiang Zhao-shen but should be equated with him; the “surface” from techniques aspect, Yu Cheng-yao is not varied as Zhang Da-qian, however, from the aspect the role of “surface” that literary sentiment played in painting and calligraphy art, Zhang Da-qian’s natural super notion was not equal to that of Yu Cheng-yao; from the aspect the genuineness of essence, is undoubtedly that Yu Cheng-yao was better than Zhang Da-qian; from the view of reform and innovation, Yu Cheng-yao had less significance or impact breadth than Liu Guo-song, but he was much deeper than the latter...” Lin Chuan-chu thinks there was nearly no one in Taiwan ink painting circle that could be compared with Yu Cheng-yao except the artists mentioned above. We could see his remarkable model and altitude from this point.