The light of four seasons yearned for a tranquil sanctuary, yet found itself caught in the graceful whirl of Pu Tien-Sheng's Exercise Series. Here, amidst the fluidity of movement, the dust of time is stirred, swept aloft to waltz with the sun's tender caress. Like a delicate balance, the body becomes a scale, navigating the interplay of motion and stillness. The tardy feather settles with languid grace, while tilted sculptures ascend in a waltz of their own. And so, sunlight rises, carrying with it the transient remnants of time, questing anew for a haven to dwell.
Pu Tien-Sheng believes that “the human body is a microcosm of nature, and every part of nature can be found in the human body”. His lifelong devotion to figure sculpture has made him a renowned master of modern realistic sculpture in Taiwan. In 1988, he was struck by the beautiful balance beam movements of Romanian artistic gymnast Daniela Silivaş on television. With the fluidity of the balancing movement, Pu blurred the solid surface details of the sculpture and transformed the sculpture's volume into movement, creating Exercise Series, which demonstrates the extremes and beauty of the body's flow, balance and movement.
Pioneer of Modern Sculpture in Taiwan—Pu Tien-Sheng
Pu Tien-Sheng is a representative first-generation sculptor in Taiwan. He was the second artist to go to Japan to study sculpture during the Japanese colonial period, when Taiwan was just coming into contact with modern art. Born in 1912 in Meijie, Chiayi, Pu's path to becoming a sculpture giant was marked by dramatic twists and turns.
Originally, Pu had already shown great talent in Tōyōga (Eastern style) painting, and in 1932 he was admitted to the Japanese Painting (Gouache) Department of Teikoku Art School (also known as Imperial Art School) in Japan. The following year, fascinated by the splendour of sculpture, he transferred to the sculpture department. He was later taught by Fumio Asakura, who is known as the “Father of Modern Japanese Sculpture” and “Japanese Rodin”. After World War II, he served as an examiner for the Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition (1946) for decades, and more importantly, his work Aura of Spring (1958) was selected for the first Japan Fine Arts Exhibition. Pu became a pillar of Taiwan's sculpture field, and was known as “Taiwan's Modern Western Classical Sculpture Artist”, and the “Pioneer of Modern Sculpture in Taiwan”.
Pu Tien-Sheng's sculptures are a combination of objective realism and modernist sculpture aesthetics. His works are always able to adequately express the spiritual beauty of the body and the eternal transience of the soul. In the expression of form and texture, Pu has infused his subjective emotion into the expression of the works, making his sculpture in general display the temperament of robustness and perseverance.