on the lawn of the south side of Art Center, Kuang-Fu Campus.

Ying-Jie Chen devoted a lifetime to creating art for Tainan. After his retirement, he chose to settle down in Tainan and participated enthusiastically in various cultural events. His art is deeply rooted in Tainan and the subject matter of his works are closely linked to the vernacular culture of this city. He was an influential sculptor in southern Taiwan, whose works have been exhibited across this region. A total of 12 pieces of his work are titled The Thinker. Each of them shows a mesmerizing hybridization of realism and abstractionism, as well as sense and sensibility. In 2010, the 87-year-old artist fulfilled his great ambition to remake The Thinker in considerable dimensions. This large remade work has been placed in the square in front of the Student Activity Center, National Cheng Kung University. The Thinker has a giant torso, minimalist geometric shape, and a concave head, chest and abdomen. Copper, as the creative medium, gives a cold and unapproachable tactile quality to the sculpture, conveying the otherworldly image of a polymath who stands aloof from the mundane world. Showing a calm and unperturbed expression, the thinker with its head lowered is deep in contemplation. Meanwhile, it sits silently and listens attentively to the subtle yet information-rich sound of the world. The artist modeled this work upon the figure of an oriental philosopher, laying his emphasis more on intuition and introspection than on anatomical analysis. The smoothly streamlined shape of the sculpture embodies both the zeitgeist of Chen’s time, and the state of “consummate interfusion,” namely his artistic pursuits of a lifetime. Text/ Wen-Wen Su Translator/ Sheng-Chih Wang