In Taiwan's modern art history, Chen Cheng-po (1895-1947) holds a status that should not be overlooked. He got accepted into the Normal Education Division in Painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1924. Then, in 1926, his oil painting Street of Chiayi (I) was selected to be displayed at the Imperial Art Exhibition of Japan, making him become the first Taiwanese artist to have an artwork featured in the exhibition.
In 1929, Chen Cheng-po went to Shanghai to teach; he engaged in many interactions with prominent figures in Shanghai's art scene. After returning to Taiwan in 1933, Chen Cheng-po not only established painting societies and promoted local art education, but also expressed his own style to the fullest through integrating his past experiences and realizations. He left behind numerous paintings themed around his hometown, Chiayi.
Although Chen Cheng-po is renowned around the world for his Western paintings, he was born in a scholarly family (his father, Chen Shou-yu, was a scholar in the Qing dynasty), so his artistic understanding was developed at a young age from his exposure to calligraphic paintings. Through examining the traditions of ink wash painting, he observed different artists' unique styles of using lines and incorporated them into his works. This means that the aesthetic of lines in calligraphic art is still encompassed in Chen Cheng-po's paintings, and it is applied as a technique to create texture. His aesthetic of calligraphic lines was accumulated from calligraphy practices; it was a foundation established through calligraphy exercises. It created significant influences on the artworks he created in his lifetime.
When it comes to studying the development of Chen Cheng-po's aesthetic and creative path, his learning of calligraphic lines, and the influences his interpersonal network and interactions had on him, are parts that cannot be ignored. Therefore, the National Museum of History organized From Lines to Network - Chen Cheng-po and His Collection of Painting and Calligraphy . "Lines" are used as a starting point with the spirit of calligraphy to bring together and present the three major threads that run through the development of modern Taiwanese art: the local region, China, and Japan. With Chen Cheng-po's collections symbolizing longitude lines, and his social interactions as latitude lines, calligraphy and paintings are used to convey the interactions Chen Cheng-po had with painters and calligraphers from the three places.
Under the guidance from the Ministry of Culture, the National Museum of History collaborated with Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall. Chen Cheng-po Cultural Foundation; Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica; National Museum of Taiwan Literature; and several collectors generously provided a total of 114 artworks to make this exhibition happen. The exhibited items are mainly Chen Cheng-po's collection of works received as gifts from interacting with fellow artists throughout his lifetime. Chen Cheng-po's personal artworks, as well as the calligraphy exercises and manuscripts by him and his family are the supplementary exhibits. This exhibition is different from previous exhibitions of Chen Cheng-po's artworks. The intention of this exhibition is to provide the audience with completely new observations and interpretations of the artistic atmosphere and historical matrices Chen Cheng-po was in through the lenses of his personal collections.