Yang San-lang is a founding member of the Taiyang Artist Association, a group of famous early Taiwanese artists who made direct and lasting contributions to the development of the arts in Taiwan. He left home in his youth, travelling to Japan, where he entered the Kansai Art Institute, and then on to Europe for further studies, eventually entering the Autumn Salon in France. When Kuomintang Party Chairman Lien Chan travelled to Mainland China for the historic ice-breaking visit, he presented Chinese President Hu Jintao with Yang's painting of the Yeliu Rock Formations. We can see his important position in art history.

Yang excels at depicting seascapes, especially those that combine the sea with the sunrise, conveying surging momentum and a positive outlook. In this work, "Sunrise", the entire sky fades from a bright blue to a faint yellow, with peaceful, breathtaking imagery. The waves in the center of the painting are rendered in deep blue with white foam, expressing movement and rhythm in passion and tension and incorporating the mysterious forces of change in nature. The artist has applied several important components in the artwork, using the coarse depiction of the rocks, the colorful sky and sea, and high-contrast techniques to fully convey the natural scenery, while the intermingling of the waves and the rocks form a golden coastline across the artwork.

Throughout his life, Yang San-lang has pursued the impressionist approach, focusing on painting from life outdoors, emphasizing sunlight and observing the changes of light and shadow over time. He expresses the waves of the sea and the clouds in the sky through a sense of quantity created by the texture of brushstrokes. He is held in high regard as a forefather of Taiwanese art, and was awarded the Cultural Medal, the highest mark of artistic achievement. Among the great masters of the Chinese-speaking world, none can compare in terms of the vitality of the moments he captures, the layering of his spaces, and the profound spirit he expresses in his work.