Danfeng Mountain View

作品賞析

With colored woodblock reduction prints, one must carve out the image on a single block, but at different stages for each color, from lightest to darkest. The large work—103 centimeters long—by artist Yu Ya-Lan titled Danfeng Mountain View reflects a long, arduous, and complex creative process. She took photos of the scenery during her hiking trip from Junjianyan in Beitou to Danfeng Mountain and used them as a reference for this print. Yu believes that the whole process of printmaking is like running a marathon, since it requires continuous, repeated carving movements for a long time. Persevering may be painful, but she felt an incomparable sense of accomplishment after completing this work. The foreground here is deliberately blurred and the tone is dim, but the bright yellow trail is like a golden road that leads the viewer’s gaze farther into the distance, to the far mountain and the small bushes on it—much as the aim of the mountain-climber or marathon runner is fixed on the goal.