Woodblock printmaking originated in China at least a thousand years earlier than in the West, it is estimated. Its history is brilliant, boasting numerous illustrations of Buddhist sutra and books of fiction and drama, as well as in the drawing manuals and the colorful New Year decorative pictures later.
    As new materials are gradually introduced to printmaking in the West, it has given new life to the art. During the late nineteenth and the twentieth century, it attracted many famous artists, such as Picasso, Vuillard and Matisse, who contributed to the growth and popularity of this art. Of all art forms, printmaking, rendered methodically and mechanically stroke by stroke, can most effectively express an idea, aesthetic or otherwise. Manually produced, woodblock prints are bound to retain more the spirit and flavor of the artist both in the texture of the wood and perhaps more in the cuts made.


A Pastoral Song 牧歌, woodblock engraving, 14.1× 12.7 cm, 1956

    Woodcuts appeared in Taiwan roughly 300 years ago. In the beginning, they were not so much art as an effort to fulfill people’s needs for their everyday life: pictures of gods to worship, New Year decorative pictures to highlight and celebrate the occasion, etc. In other words, they were “folk art.” It was not until after the retrocession of Taiwan in 1945 when local artists seriously practiced woodcut printmaking as an art form.
    Chen Chi-Mao, who arrived in Taiwan from Fukien, China, in 1946, is one of the pioneers of Taiwan’s printmaking art. He


A Little Pavement Artist 小畫家, woodcut, 48.5×66.5 cm, 1974

started his creative career in his low teens, never once swerving from art and literature for the rest of his life. Over the years he naturally developed his own unique style. He was good both at printmaking and at oil painting. His Chinese brush painting, never officially shown in public, was admirable, too. Yet printmaking was undoubtedly the genre he devoted his heart and mind to, indefatigably and unfalteringly through the years. It is in printmaking that he achieved the most and left a remarkable artistic legacy. In fact,...