形象／意象／意念／觀念─楊英風雕塑創作的四個時期

Abstract

Yu Yu Yang (1926-1997) was one of the most critical artists during the post-war period in Taiwan. He was so versatile that no single artistic titles would suffice to describe him. He was an oil painter, a graphic artist, a photographer, a cartoonist, a product designer, a sculptor, a landscape planning specialist, and even a laser artist. It is because he had worked on so many fields of art, applied such a great variety of materials to his works, developed such unprecedented avantgarde techniques and expanded his profound thoughts of art, that he had become so influential.Among his various achieved works, Yang's series of sculpting art is recognized by both researchers and the general public for its strong coherence and completeness. This article examines the artist's development course of sculpting art by dividing it into four periods: the initial period in which ”form” was explored; the period of ”image” during his years in Italy; the period of ”ideas” when he returned to Taiwan to create the ”Taroko Gorge” series; and the ”concepts” period when he incorporated traditional Chinese cultural symbols, such as dragons, phoenixes, the Sun, the Moon, and the Universe into his stainless steel sculptures, while reflecting on the meanings of landscape sculpting. It is hoped that, by analyzing the course of development of Yang's sculpting art, this article would serve as reference not only for researchers to further explore his works, but also for other artists to learn about and interested members of the public to appreciate Yang's creation.