1.About Chen Chin's Record of Life and Thoughts

(1)Life Record

Chen Chin once said: "I am not the same as most artists. I have no special interest or preference in art since childhood. I only remember when I was a child; there were mountains, fields, and sea in front of my house. Everyday, I watched the sun rose from the top of the mountain and went down at the side of the sea slowly, it looks beautiful. I want to be best at everything, and I refuse to concede defeat. When I was studying in the third girls’ high school in Taipei, I have to be good at every subject; therefore, I don't think that there is anything special about art this subject. As soon as I graduated, my art teacher, Mr. Shang Yuan Gu Tong, suggested that I should develop in the area of fine arts. My father is a very enlightened man in that conservative feudal era; he agreed the art teacher’s suggestion. Then I took a four-day, three-night boat trip to Japan under the schoolteachers and students’ see off. After I arrived in Japan, I entered the Tokyo Women's Art School. I chose Japanese painting, when Mr. Chieh Chen Su Ming taught landscape painting, and Mr. Song Dao taught plaster and sketching of human bodies.

Chen chin's hometown in Hsinchu Xiangshan

In the freshman year, the Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition was established. I took my semester painting as attendance, the three works "Pose", "Poppy Flower", and "Morning" were all selected. The only painters selected at the first Taiwan Exhibition were Lin Yu Shan and Kuo Hsueh Hu and me who were the only three Taiwanese. The others were Japanese, so people called us “Three Youths of the Taiwan Exhibition”. I like to eat pork floss and peanuts. My family will send these items to Japan for me regularly. After Taiwan’s recovery, I returned. The social atmosphere was very different from that of the previous era of the Japanese occupation period, and some people in the society rejected the Oriental paintings. When I was 40 years old, I got married, and after my marriage, there was almost eight or nine years I stopped painting."

Chen Chin once said: "If you want to paint your own country, you must express your own nationality and unique style. Otherwise, people cannot agree with the content of the author's attributes. An artist cannot paint his own country’s nationality. How can they leave history and culture for their own country? Of course, the painter must also go deeper into his life: Chi Bai Shi once said that everything is the best thing that I have the most affectionate theme, than my own personal experience. ”

Chen Chin said: “To appreciate the bites you can enjoy in your lovely home life, you also need to make the best comments at the same time. If you do not paint it, your own painting process The omission of the fragment will not be a conscientious manifestation of self and society.”

Before starting to paint, she must first sketch a draft and work hard to conceive the configuration of the protagonist. She said: "When you compose a picture, you have to think about it, usually what to draw on a picture, and what configuration to use, will look good... For example, when you're sketching a draft, a copy of the paper is printed behind the cloth, and draw the line. You cannot draw the line directly, and then paint the background. A picture needs a lot of work."

"Whether from the perspective of Taiwanese literati or the role of a new-age woman, Chen Chin accepted the power of modern education, stepped out of the social activities space outside her family, and won respect. The development of Taiwan’s fine arts, Mrs. Chen Chin is definitely a person with innovative status. Mrs. Chen Chin and other first generation of Taiwanese artists who challenged “impossible” also inspired people to pursue a good example of the meaning of life...”

“The social aesthetic ideas that can be screened out in Chen Chin’s works are always positive, and beautiful than the criticism of negative values. In today’s creative wave of dissatisfaction, frustration, decadence, and rebellion, Ms. Chen Chin’s works expressed her own opinions and give us a thinking space that is full of beauty."

The Buddha’s Work incorporates the persistence and style of Ms. Chen Chin’s life for the painting. These ten images of Buddha's biography are not only a result of her achievements in gouache painting, but also create a new page of Buddhist paintings. Therefore, everyone's comments on this series of works can be said to be the heartfelt praise of Chen Chin's lifelong painting.
"In Chen Chin's painting industry, the drawing of The Buddha’s Work is of a innovative significance. This series of Buddhist images is the first time Chen Chin painted a religious painting, and also enabled her to create religious paintings in the future. When Chen Chin was painting depicting religious paintings, she upholds a rigorous attitude, she must first understand the meaning of the subject matter before she begins to paint. In painting skills, it is consistent with the simple spirit of the Buddha, so she used delicate brushwork to paint. She changed her painting skills to a simple stroke of ink, and completed the Buddha's biography. Besides, Chen Chin's biography of the Buddha is different from traditional Chinese works. For example, she expresses nirvana in a peaceful atmosphere; it is different from the traditional sorrowful picture. Therefore, the Buddha’s Workhas a profound significance."

"(The Buddha’s Work) uses Chen Chin’s habitually practice- gouache painting to present. The colors are bright and impressive, the layout is imaginative, the background is clearly set off, atmosphere is created, etc. It is true that in the history of Buddhist paintings, this is an immortal masterpiece representing the art scene in Taiwan."

The Buddha’s Work

Xu Yi-Zhi： The research of "The Buddha’s Work" by Chen chin