Irish writer Oscar Wilde once said, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Being romantic is one of the most important qualities of an artist. Most artists are narcissistic, and they must be. Self-portraits are oftentimes the expression of an artist’s narcissism. In the history of Western art, humanism grew in popularity during the Renaissance. A man’s intrinsic value was appreciated. Thus the form of self-portrait began to take shape. Artists turned the focus inward, on themselves, watching the world through their own bodies and faces in their paintings while demonstrating their own personas to the world at the same time.

Throughout history, many art masters have left their “Self-portraits” behind as a way for their viewers to elicit a piece of their intrinsic monologue. Standing in front of a self-portrait, one seems to be reading the artist’s autobiography. The self-portraits of Rembrandt van Rijn, the 17th century Dutch master artist, are among the most well-known. He created more than 100 self-portraits throughout his life. Famous 19th century impressionists van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and Monet also accomplished many celebrated self-portraits. Even more artists produced famous self-portraits during the 20th century, such as Lautrec, Modigliani, Chagall, Picasso, Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Francis Bacon, and Andy Warhol. Early Chinese painters Xu Baihong and Pan Yu-liang, along with Taiwanese artists Chen Cheng-po, Liao Chi-chun, and Shiy De-jinn, also left behind self-portraits to stand as a testament to history.

Portraits were always one of Shiy’s specialties. In his early years, he was famous for making commissioned portraits for celebrities. Without a doubt, his self-portraits also became classic in the Chinese art scene. To date, only four oil paintings are known as his self-portraits. One was made when he taught at Chiayi Senior High School at the age of 28 (1951), two were painted when he turned 40 (1963), and another was accomplished when he was about 50 (1972).

Shiy often received high scores in painting and won many first prizes in art contests while studying in Sichuan. He was considered an outstanding student at school. Upon graduating from Hangzhou National Academy of Art in 1948, he obtained the highest average combined score. His diligent practice gave him a solid foundation in painting. After fleeing to Taiwan with the retreating Nationalist revolutionary Army in the same year, he became an art teacher at Chiayi High School.

This “Self-portrait”, made in 1951, is his earliest self-portrait in oil. His 28-year-old youthful face reveals an air of confidence and arrogance that had yet to be tarnished by worldly values. Judging from the parting of his hair, we can see that the artist used a mirror to create this particular self-portrait. The expression of his handsome face bears a sense femininity and melancholy. Shiy was considered by and large as one of the most important modern artists in Taiwan. He was also homosexual. His close friends knew of his sexual orientation; however, his desire had to be repressed in a conservative era. The fact that his love could not be accepted afflicted him bitterly.

Taiwanese art critic Cheng Hui-mei introduces this painting in Shiy’s biography thusly: “After relocating to Taiwan in 1948 and working as an art teacher at Chiayi Senior High School, Shiy’s “Self-portrait” (1951) reflects his youthful years. His delicate and handsome face, white and tender skin, graceful posture in holding his cheek, and a provocative and flirting squint are all exactly the same as the pretty face appears in his photographs. This Self-portrait seems to imply his self-indulgence and offers room for one to imagine the existence of his homosexual desires.” (Cheng Hui-mei, Aphrodite Sacrifice: Shiy De-jinn, UNITAS Publishing Co., Taipei, 2005, p. 291)

In psychology, for homosexuals who see themselves as an object, narcissism is a start for them to look for a homosexual romance. Narcissistic quality is also a means for them to hide the homosexual inclination that cannot be made public, a vessel for them to leave a witness to their desire. Shiy left his hometown in 1948. On the one hand he wanted to escape the marriage arranged by the elders at home, and on the other, he was also anxious to experience the art xanadu in the southern tropical island as Gauguin had in Tahiti. While traveling around Taiwan and seeing beautiful tropical landscapes amazed Shiy, the political oppression of the White Terror during this time shackled the young artist’s free spirit. The dullness and poor quality of life depressed him very much. He wanted to see a different view before his prime passed away. It was at that time that his works were selected for the Sao Paulo Biennial. Innumerable unaccomplished dreams were waiting for him to accomplish. His “Self-portrait” in 1951 depicts such a self-indulgent and passionate state of mind.

In his 1951 “Self-portrait”, he wears a long black shirt and possesses a handsome and confident look. It is a 3/4 full-face shot in which the artist is watching himself in the mirror and the audience at the same time. The enchanting expression in his eyes is Shiy’s self projection of his emotion and soul. Influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, the picture as a whole reveals a sentimental, mysterious ambiance. He coated the canvas in a thick impasto like Cézanne, which enable his brush strokes to come off as natural and sincere. Shiy even used a masculine outline to emphasize the man’s spirit, a technique which his teacher Lin Fengmian had impressed upon him by asking him to “demonstrate objects with lines instead of chasing light and shadow.” This oil painting reveals a polished and minimalist look, yet also carries a delicate and gentle classic tone. The young Shiy, in searching for the realization of his aesthetics through the Western tradition while combining his narcissistic and passionate quality, enabled this piece to fully express his personality.

This “Self-portrait”, which records his youth at the age of 28, remained in his possession for 30 years, up until the last few days of his life. It is, therefore, possible to imagine how much he valued it. Before he passed away, Shiy asked his butler to send the oil self-portrait to his room. With a trembling hand, he wrote: “This Self-portrait in oil is for my best friend, ...Shiy De-jinn's last words on August 2, 1981.” The name appearing on the note-belonging to one of Shiy’s closest friends during his lifetime-is now the owner of this painting. Treasuring this “Self-portrait” for more than thirty years, this man has shown such a profound friendship he had shared with the artist. Since the collector is getting older, he wishes to give this work to someone who truly appreciates the artistic value of Shiy so that the master’s graceful bearing can continue on.

SPECIAL AUCTION OF WORKS BY SHIY DE-JINN

FROM HIS CLOSE FRIEND'S COLLECTION OF 30 YEARS

A final gift on the last night of his life

It was one o’clock in the afternoon of Sundy, August 2, 1981, when Mr. L boarded a train in Taichung, going up north to visit his old friend Shiy De-jinn at Taiwan University Hospital. Shiy was suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer, and L had lost track of how often he had gone to Taipei to see him since his diagnosis, but it must have been almost every other week. This time on the train, however, he felt an unprecedented sense of anxiety and foreboding. Upon arriving at Taipei Train Station at around 4 p.m., he immediately called the hospital, and Shiy’s butler Kao Chuan told him that Shiy wanted to eat some cantaloupe. After failing to find any in the fruit stalls near the bus station, L suddenly remembered that Shiy liked to drink sugarcane juice. He hurriedly bought some and rushed to the hospital, room no. 919.

It was now about 5:30 p.m., and Shiy’s condition was critical, but stabilized temporarily after doctors gave him an emergency blood transfusion. As Shiy’s other friends left for dinner, L was left alone with his buddy of many years, “Old Shiy” as he used to call him. “Old Shiy,” willful and stubborn as ever, refused to drink his sugarcane juice, saying he only drank sugarcane juice from the East Gate shopping district. So L asked a friend to go and buy the designated juice.

Later, at 9 p.m. that evening, Shiy, his voice already weak, asked L to give Kao Chuan a call, and tell him to bring one of his oil self-portraits to the hospital room. At first, no one knew what Shiy’s intentions were, but later the artist asked for his glasses, a ball pen and sketch pad, indicating that he wanted to write something. With trembling hands, he put the following words on paper, “This Self-portrait in oil is for my best friend, . . . . Shiy De-jinn's last words on August 2, 1981.” The name of the best friend was L’s. Upon seeing the words “last words,” L couldn’t hold back the tears, but Shiy turned over another page of his sketch pad, which showed his own designs for a little cemetery garden. His feeble voice breaking with the effort, he told L, “Take care of this for me, will you!”

As a sign of his gratitude for long years of support and sponsorship, as well as for being a friend and companion, and in sort of recompense for taking care of his funeral arrangements, Shiy, in an exceptional moment of generosity, made a present to L of the Self-portrait in oil he had painted as a young man of 28: a final gift. Shiy insisted on sitting up in his bed during the night, unwilling to let go of life just yet. His struggle against death entered another critical phase around midnight, and around 12:15 it seemed as if he might wrest another day from the hands of fate; yet in the end he lost the struggle with the grim reaper. In the small hours of August 3, one of the great masters of his generation passed away. L was the only person by his side when he left the world.

A close friend and appreciator since the 1960s

Shiy De-jinn, one of the most eminent artists in the history of Taiwan’s fine arts, passed away at 58. He had shown considerable artistic promise from early childhood, learning embroidery and traditional flower and bird painting from his mother. He enrolled at the Chongqing National College of Art, gaining the highest score in sketching during the entrance exam, and later studied under Lin Fengmian at the Hangzhou National College of Art, graduating in 1948 with the highest average in the entire school. He left for Taiwan in the same year, where he served as a teacher at the Chiayi Senior High School before moving to Taipei and becoming a professional painter. He excelled at portraits and liked to describe himself as “the best portrait painter in Taiwan.” In 1962, Shiy went abroad with Liao Chi-chun, another outstanding Taiwan painter, to sample the museums and galleries of Europe and North America, and experience firsthand the latest movements and developments in modern art. Eventually, Shiy settled down in Paris for several years, working and holding exhibitions, before returning to Taiwan in 1966.

The knowledge and experience gained from travels in 15 countries helped to establish his status as one of Taiwan’s most renowned artists, and Shiy, who had no problems moving in elevated spheres, soon became something of a celebrity with connections not just in art circles, but also among diplomats and intellectuals, counting among his friends many painters and writers. Back then, L was still a university student in Taipei, a promising young man destined for a career as a scholar and educator, who somehow became acquainted with the famous painter Shiy De-jinn. Before long, a close and lasting friendship developed between them, bolstered by their shared interest in art and culture. In 1967, Shiy made two portraits of L, one a drawing and the other an oil painting, tokens of the strong bond between them.

In the more than ten years that followed, Shiy would frequently go back to Taichung to sketch from life, and L accompanied him on these trips whenever possible. With the artist as a mentor, L’s eyes were opened to a whole new world of artistic enjoyment and appreciation. Shiy would often spend Chinese New Year with L’s family, and was treated like a member of the household on such occasion. After he fell ill, Shiy began to open up even more, talking of things he would rarely mention before. Coming from a well-known literati family in central Taiwan, L had always had a passion for the creative arts, and so he gradually became one of Shiy’s main patrons and a collector of his paintings and calligraphy. Over the decade and a half of his friendship with the painter, he built up an extensive collection of the artist’s work, including some monumental watercolors, ink wash paintings and calligraphic pieces that L had sponsored and bought. Also found in this collection are works by Lin Fengmian and Guan Liang, which L had asked Shiy to purchase on his behalf.

A collection of beautiful memories from 30 years

After his death in 1981, L and a group of other good friends organized a very dignified funeral for Shiy, and had a memorial monument and cemetery garden erected in accordance with his wishes. They also established the Shiy De-jinn Foundation, which continues to do much for the recognition of his art and genius. This year, he would have been 90 years old, and his friends are still eager to promote his oeuvre to other connoisseurs of fine art. L has been living abroad for many years, and in his fairly carefree old age he has decided to part with some of his most prized possessions, and give other collectors an opportunity to obtain works by Shiy, thus allowing the great painter’s creative light to keep on burning brightly.

In memory of the deep friendship between Shiy the artist and L the collector, Ravenel on June 2 this year will be holding, as part of its Spring Auction, a Special Auction of Works by Shiy De-jinn from His Close Friend’s Collection of 30 Years, which will feature 23 of the painter’s most important works, long hidden from public view, as well as three paintings by his teachers Lin Fengmian and Guan Liang, works that Shiy knew and treasured. Each of these 26 works is a masterpiece, making this a rare opportunity for collectors. One piece deserving particular attention is Shiy’s 1951 “Self-portrait” in oil, the very same one he presented to L as “a final gift,” and one of only four self-portraits in oil by the artist.

Looking over this lot of outstanding works, L can still recall many little stories connected to their genesis and making. For example, there is “Wu-ling,” the second-largest of Shiy’s monumental ink and color works, both traditional Chinese and impressionist in style. Or there is “Autumn” from 1979, an ink and color sketch that Shiy made when an old house caught his eye while strolling through Taichung’s Qingshui and Shalu areas. And there are other gems, such as the “Self-portrait” mentioned above, and the monumental semi-cursive calligraphy “The Poem Man Jiang Hong in Running Script,” which the National Palace Museum previously borrowed for its Shiy De-jinn Retrospective on the 10th Anniversary of the Artist’s Death. Meanwhile, the rhyming couplets calligraphy “Selected Messages of President Chiang Kai-shek” used to hang in the office of one of Shiy’s close friends, a school principal, giving it historical as well as artistic relevance.

A romantic at heart, Shiy once wrote into one of his paintings the famous poetic words, “True brightness lies in the seasons, genuine fragrance in the soil, and real beauty in the wind and rain.” These words perfectly describe the enduring charm of the artist’s oeuvre, as it is also reflected in the lines of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), “Let life be beautiful like summer flowers and death like autumn leaves.” Shiy lived his whole life for his art, and sublimated the hardships and suffering he experienced into works of unique aesthetic appeal, artistic treasures worthy of repeated appreciation. All this makes the upcoming Special Auction of Works by Shiy De-jinn from His Close Friend’s Collection of 30 Years a fantastic and not-to-be-missed opportunity for art aficionados and collectors. (Text by Odile Chen)