Guo Xuehu's Prize-winning Essay
The insistence of the young Taiwanese-Chinese artist on the importance of looking at art, a desire for art instruction, and his striving towards professional recognition at the official salon gesture to emergence of a shared knowledge in Japan and Taiwan of what it meant to be a professional artist.
In January 1932, Taiwan nichinichi shinpō published two articles as part of its mini-series "Toshokan riyō jitsuwa" ("True stories of library use"), introducing the first and second prize winners of its Taiwan-wide contest for library users. Both winners were Taiwanese-Chinese men in their twenties with modest family backgrounds, who attributed their professional success to their persistent library use and expressed themselves fluently in Japanese. The first prize went to an entrepreneur Xie Yonghe (ADD REF). The second one to painter Guo Xuehu (ADD LINK).
Xie Yonghe explained his own success at launching a lacquer-importing business and studying for a license exam, all with the help of the library. In addition, he revealed that he encouraged his artistically inclined younger brother to study art at the library. As a result, his nineteen year old brother, a self-taught artist, had his painting accepted to the tōyōga division at the fourth Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition (1930). This artistic success story resembles that of the second-prize winner, Guo Xuehu. Both essays suggest that the users discovered the library in a seemingly serendipitous manner and that the library transformed their lives by providing them with instruction and access to information, which they were otherwise unable to obtain.
Based on the information in Xie's essay, we can assume that his younger brother was Xie Yonghua. Yonghua received his first acceptance to the Taipei salon in 1930 for his work Miyanoshita Area (Miyanoshita fukin), depicting the vicinity of the Taiwan Grand Shrine (ADD IMAGE?). He is said to have studied with Guo Xuehu and had in total five works accepted to the official salon in Taiwan (Taiten 4, 6, 7, 10, Futen 2; Ref: website http://ndweb.iis.sinica.edu.tw/twart/System/database_TE/04te_search/LargeMode_DetailForm.jsp?Aid=1940).
The two essays paint a positive image of the library, and by extension of the colonial government. By focusing on the usefulness of the library to colonial subjects, they divert attention from some of the library's major goals.
In his essay, Guo Xuehu provides us with some insight into the types of books he had used at the library:
In other words, he focused on looking at works in reproduction and reading about painting theory and technique. While the essay does not explicitly reveal the artists whose works he was looking at so carefully, scholars have suggested (perhaps based on later interviews with the artist) that he had studied acclaimed works of artists in Japan active during the Meiji and Taishō periods, as well as masterpieces of Chinese painting from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties (ADD REF: Ex. cat. 1989 p. 17). His interests overlap with those of many Japanese artists, who mined the artistic pasts of East Asia for a mode of expression suitable to the present.(...) I looked mostly at books featuring new Eastern Painting (tōyōga), read about painting theory, copied old masterpieces, and studied new painting techniques. (ADD REF/LINK)
Guo Xuehu also mentions how librarians would show him books from the special collection (tokubetsusho). Indeed, some books in the arts section have the mark "special collection" (toku) next to their call number. Many of the books marked in this way were rare or lavishly published volumes with reproductions, such as for example the Shinbi taikan (Selected Relics of Japanese Art), Nihon kokuhō zenshū (National Treasures of Japan), or the annual catalogues of the official salon in Tokyo. To view these books, a patron needed to obtain a special permission from the library's director and provide a justification (Taiwan sotokufu toshokan gairan, showa 13/1938 page 12).
In December 1931, the twenty three year old Guo Xuehu submitted an essay in Japanese to a contest organized by the library, in which he extolled the benefits of library use for aspiring artists (Link). Since he had used the library quite extensively and applied to the library's director to access books in the special collection, the library staff was well aware of his professional aspirations and goals. Quite possibly, the library staff may have encouraged him to participate in this contest.
In the essay, he describes the development of his professional career as a painter and the difficulties he encountered in achieving the two credentials necessary to become a professional artist: 1) acquiring art education, and 2) receiving social recognition. Guo Xuehu's successful acceptance to the first Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition launched his career in 1927 at the very young age of nineteen. Yet, a one-time success was not enough to secure a lasting social recognition. He needed to prove himself as an artist of true ability by securing admission of his works to the salon in the following years. In this pivotal moment, he turned to the Government-General Library for art education.
The official salon and the library brought Guo Xuehu into the orbit of Japan's imperial art world. His relationship with colonial institutions would only expand in the subsequent years, as many government offices would purchase his paintings at the salon.