杜簦吟   Du, Deng-Yin   1927~

Deng-Yin Du, alias the “Host of the Yuan-Mo Hut,” has been a well-known art magnate in calligraphy and painting. Nature and painting have been his long-time favorites since childhood. His childhood experience of painting, edification from teachers, and inclination to draw sustenance from painting during his service in military, collectively prompted him to devote himself to arts creation and education after receiving an honorable discharge. He has spent nearly half a century teaching freehand flowers-and-birds painting in Taiwan. Du specializes in flowers-and-birds ink painting, laying equal stress on traditions and modernity. He often incorporates into traditional Chinese painting the merits of Western painting techniques, such as the combination of points, lines and planes, as well as the application of perspective and the interplay of light and shadow, rendering his works more expressive. He also strongly advocates outdoor sketching and expects that students could learn to master ink painting techniques from close observation of natural ecology. Besides, Du always internalizes the strengths of ancient techniques, and then transmutes them into his distinctive signature: embedding modernity in ancient techniques, without being a stickler for such formality. Meanwhile, he employs a “half-freehand” method of painting, ingeniously reconciling basic skills and profound expression of ethereality. Du has not only maintained a harmonious balance between the freehand style and forms, but also artfully blended his personal values, aesthetics and ecological observations into his works, which is the concrete manifestation of his lifetime achievements.