As I was traveling to the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art on a bus bound for Caotun, I could not help feeling somewhat saddened upon seeing a large area of rocky riverbed emptied due to sand and gravel excavation near Yanfeng Bridge when crossing Dadu River. A couple of months before the opening of Immersing in Mountains: Dissolving the Boundaries, there was a news report pointing out that this very location was the primary source of construction pollution in Nantou County.

Nowadays, news reports and information about climate change as well as natural and ecological destructions can be heard all the time although we have all been taught to cherish and preserve nature since childhood. Furthermore, different contemporary art concepts based on the notion of the Anthropocene in recent years have also reflected people's anxieties about diminishing nature and the depletion of natural resources. In the well-known Romantic masterpiece, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (Der Wandere über dem Nebelmeer), the figure overlooked an expansive sea of fog on the summit, which has often been viewed as the manifestation of the sublime and pursuit of spirituality. Nevertheless, to some researchers, the sea of fog might be the result of industrial smog. This conjecture might stand partially because of the ideal of the Romantic movement: to shed the shackles imposed on humanity by national power and the Industrial Revolution, one must revisit and revere the pristine nature to escape rational development and achieve the sublimation of sensibility. As a result, "approaching the mountain" has since then become a leisure or spiritual activity for human beings. A paradox is consequently visualized by the masterpiece: humanity is the worshipper of Mother Nature, and at the same time, her conqueror.

In the modern times, when the human civilization has densely and extensively developed, in addition to natural epistemology employed in the tradition of landscape painting, artists who have been conducting observations based on different disciplines would probably need to acquire another scientific identity: the futurist. On top of representing nature from a humanistic view through various artistic approaches, the futurist also needs to make cautionary warnings about human being's living environment while conveying subtle suggestions and critiques.

It is a rather challenging task to theorize and comment on three artists in a group exhibition; after all, they respectively engage in different fields and adopt individualistic creative strategies. Lu Hsien-Ming, Hung Tien-Yu and Lin Wei-Hsiang are individuals with highly unique and dissimilar characteristics. This essay therefore focuses on how these artists, despite their use of different painterly languages, unknowingly share a common expressive quality they all tend to somewhat obstruct the spectator's visual experience and utilize the perceptual frustration caused by the obstructed view to revisit the "hors cadre" and move beyond the appearance to deliver the socialness, politicalness and spirituality behind the landscape. Although their subject matters do not fit the traditional or strict definition of "landscape painting," I would still be happy to discuss their works within the framework of the genre instead of rejecting typological classification, one might as well try to disrupt an existing genre and strive for a referential expansion of its meaning.

Desiring a Grander Sight: Humanity's Longing for the Panoramic

Right before the opening of this exhibition, there was a heated debate about an evaluation of building a cable car system in Matcha Mountain (Sacred Mother Peak) in Yilan' s Jiaoxi. Since the ancient time, human beings have always longed for and tried to approach nature, a longing that has also been mixed with an aspiration to have a more expansive and clearer field of vision from a higher vantage point. Whether it is mountain climbing in the wilderness or green landscaping in cities, they are all a type of landscape economy that attempts to catch one's eye.

The view of aerial, broad, panoramic, high-definition images represents the desire to contain and conquer landscape. In terms of visual cultural history, examples can be found in Chinese scroll paintings that have more than two thousand vears of history and the panorama painting developed in the late 18th century in the West. In the cinematic field, two years after the invention of film in 1895, more techniques had been applied to gradually widen the scale and screen; from the almost century-old Cinerama to the IMAX movie and virtual reality today, these have all been inventions that aim to

expand our field of vision.

The ascending order embodied by the exhibition space of Immersing in Mountains: Dissolving the Boundaries, instead of imitating a rising stratal structure, signaled the expansion and elevation of visual structure. On view in a smaller gallery on the first floor was Hung's submarine under the sea, in which the limiting and narrowing portholes forced a specific, partial view. The paintings of streetscape with marabutan trees also on the first floor showed a horizontal perspective. The alternative aerial view on the second floor brought to mind the documentary of Beyond Beauty: Taiwan from Above. The third floor displayed a panoramic view potentially from a summit enshrouded in clouds and fog.

Being in the galleries, it was not difficult to notice that there was something unusual about these so-called "landscapes" or "natural sceneries": Lu's images of marabutans, apart from the minute yet partial delineation of tree trunk, were without any background. Hung's delicately painted landscapes were partially blocked by various blank or hollow areas. As one reached the third floor with considerable efforts, the view from the "mountain top," which was supposed to offer a panoramic vista, was rendered blurry and misty by Lin.

The inability to comprehensively view the landscape led to a sense of frustration in viewing. The obstruction of one's experience of approaching nature and unfolding the field of vision here denied the greed of visual consumption. Lu's "partialization," Hung's "hollowing" and Lin's "blurriness" offered no "clearer sight after climbing high" and caused many exclusions in "the panoramic view."

The Foregrounded Trees: Partial Close-ups by Lu Hsien-Ming

Trees in communal streetscapes are mostly roadside trees that are purposedly planted; however, old marabutan trees are usually found in older areas of a city or places where the urban texture has only been slightly changed. In addition to enjoying the shade, our modern everyday routine rarely intersects with old trees; despite their massive size, these old trees do not catch our attention. One sees them but seldom pays attention to them. Such minor presence is often echoed by actors who play "trees" in and the background in some school dramas. As a supporting role of the least importance, they are usually tucked away near the fringe areas and at the very back of the stage.

Lu began his Old Tree Series in 2017, in which he portrays old trees with the means of personification - the tree bark in Endless, the aerial roots in Lingering Affection, and the veins and folds in Unending Remembrance are all delineated with partialization and remind the spectator of the human skin and organs. Trees might be insignificant in peoples eyes when viewing their surrounding; however, when the artist minutely depicts these trees, he treats them as his subjects that have equal value to human beings. That is, these portrayal of trees, which should have been classified as works of "painting from life" or " still life" are somewhat like "portraits." Painting from life basically means to represent real scenes, whereas still life is the representation of chosen objects. On the other hand, portrait denotes elaborate delineation of a represented subject, and can be with or without a background that is, in this case, not of great importance. Therefore, Lu's paintings of marabutans are completely devoid of the background - the original space in which these trees are growing - and solely focuses on the painting subject, leading to a reversion of urban landscape paintings - the trees are moved to the very foreground of the stage whereas the people and streetscape are hidden.

When I was a child, drawing trees tended to mean some random strokes to shape out the tree trunks, and much more effort was put into the extending branches, spreading leaves, blooming flowers and growing fruits. In this series, when the audience expect to see a full tree, the artist contrarily leaves out the most dramatic part of his chosen subject matter, leaving a section of the tree trunk that supposedly supports the verdant crown above. Such approach to redirect our perspective also validates the artist's consistent attention to the fringe groups in the lower social stratum that are rarely cared for in the progression of social development, as we can see in his previous painting series, including Bridge, Figure and Urban Theater Period.

As the witness of time, each aerial root of marabutan trees is accumulated and developed in time.

Contrary to the people and things come into and fade out of the background, the old marabutans seem to remain relatively unchanged in decades. As a result, when the background is removed, the rapidly changing temporal dimension is canceled out. It is as if the only thing that exists is this "time-honored presence" in front of our eyes in the very moment of now, which is freed from the past, present and future. Nonetheless, paradoxically, the marabutans are the only organic life that has survived from the past until the present

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Counterforce to Visual Obstruction: Why expanding the Meaning of "Realism"?

After the surrounding view at the top on the third floor, one could climb up the staircase at the back of the gallery and reached the attic of the museum. It was a tranquil space for meditation with books that allowed one to enter a state of seclusion from the mundane world. In particular, the window on the wall of the attic permitted one to overlook Jiu Jiu Peak from afar, though a partial view it was. The exhibition title, Immersing in Mountains, brings to mind the fact that the museum literally sits in the embrace of mountains and the relatively idealistic strategy that the museum has been endeavoring; just like what the three artists have been practicing is a form of modulating the imbalance between nature and society. Their "re-unfolding" of the view is not limited to painting or viewing perspective but by means of confined, incomplete landscape that redirects our attention to situations that are "waiting to be unveiled" - the spectator needs to fill in those "obscured areas" that are unfinished and suspended. The counterforce of an obstructed vision might just as well produce the consequent non-visual tension of perception.

The English words "high definition" are rather intriguing: images require high recognizability so that the image phenomenon can be defined, explained and expounded. Whether the field of vision is unfolded smoothly or not also affects the definition of realism. If the realistic depiction cannot clearly represent and restore the appearance of the depicted object, it will surely move towards the opposite end of the spectrum - the abstract, the non-objective, the surreal, etc. If we all agree that there is no absolute and complete "representation" and "restoration" in the world of art, can this exhibition expand, explain and expound the definition of "realism" through the "low definition" images created by the three artists?

Since its inauguration, the Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art has presented more than twenty exhibitions. No matter it is painting, sculpture or installation, these exhibitions have expanded and addressed the definition of the term "realism." From "'partialization," "hollowing" to "blurriness," Immersing in Mountains: Dissolving the Boundaries as a group exhibition has constructed a visual effect that promises a new direction and position to respond to "contemporary realism." Perhaps, after all sorts of distorting, surreal and non-realistic works of art and exhibitions, "the obstructed" and "the obscured" might just be the next route in "contemporary realism."