In “The Reformers of Traditional Chinese Painting over the Last 100 Years,” Shiy De-jinn writes, “To respect Chinese painting is to bring it back into the reality of life in front of us, giving it new lifeblood. Searching for a new subject, a new composition, and a new concept, we blend watercolor into ink wash painting, bringing new vitality to the color of Chinese painting.” (Artist Magazine, November, 1980)

In the 1970s, Shiy De-jinn began taking Taiwanese landscapes as subject-matter for his paintings, applying traditional Chinese ink-brush painting techniques to the depiction of these landscapes. Shiy felt that conventional Chinese landscape painting lacked a sense of presence; he advocated a direct contact with nature, and the need to paint from life. Shiy once commented that “I have never shut myself away in a room to paint; what I paint is the landscapes that I see before me.” Shiy sought to create landscape paintings that would have a modern feel to them, a sense of modernity that would transcend national boundaries, and he felt that this could only be achieved by painting directly from life. Both Shiy’s Taiwanese landscapes and his paintings of human scenes reflect a strong attachment to Taiwan.