| dc.description.abstract | Chimei Museum established in 1992 by Wen-Long Shi (1928-) was relocated to the Tainan Metropolitan Park in 2014 and reopened in 2015. The museum was known for its western art collections, which were rare in Taiwan. In the permanent galleries of fine arts, the artworks from the 13th to the 20th century are displayed in chronological order, allowing visitors to follow the trail of Western art development. According to the personal taste of founder Shi and artworks available on the art market, paintings in display are mainly academic art from the 18th to the 19th century. These well-skilled paintings present technical methods which Shi pays attention to. He considered these figurative, representational, realistic painting to be ‘understandable’ to the public. Ways of viewing art underlining technical skills are related to the tendency of art education, which once emphasized technical skills. As the aim of art education turned from emphasizing technical skills to the humanistic content, the purpose of displaying western art also turned from learning how to paint by imitating to learning historical, cultural, contextual development of art. Chimei Museum, following this trend, changed their ways of display, while maintaining their emphasis on technical skills and figurative paintings, and therefore occupied a unique place in the world of art education.
This thesis attempts to focus on Shi and paintings in Chimei Museum, examining what role Chimei Museum plays in current art environment in Taiwan. The first chapter traces how Shi formed his idea of building a museum and his taste of western art. In this case, art education Shi received, especially the part of media and techniques, was influential. On this basis, he collected artworks and founded the museum. The second chapter focuses on how Chimei Museum displays their artworks, and how they interpret ‘understandable’ art. In the final chapter, I compare the activities and information Chimei released with other organizations to point out the uniqueness of Chimei. | en_US |