As the Bright Moon Shines over the Sea1

作品賞析

The creations of artist Lai Yu-Cheng often revolve around the three main axes of nature, environment, and humanity. As the Bright Moon Shines over the Sea 1 is one part of a tetraptych. He uses “lines” to symbolize unnatural, manmade concepts, while large blank spaces symbolize nature. When the four parts of the full work are seen, the viewer will sense the increases or decreases among the lines and blank spaces, symbolizing man’s interaction with nature. As the Bright Moon Shines over the Sea 1 has a mostly rectangular shape but an arching top, to express the traditional cosmological belief that the heavens are round and the earth square. The bright moon on the top and its reflection on the bottom in the painting echoes a couplet from a poem on longing for one’s home: “The bright moon rises from the sea;/ Though you are far away, we share this moment.” The artist also uses this to show that people put their feelings into the scenery, and that when they look at the moon, in their hearts they can also see the bright moon of home, wherever they might be. It brings out the relationship between nature outside and people’s inner psychology.