Artwork Appreciation
The artist Lin Ching-Yuan replaces the brush with a mouse, and besides embedding the features of commercial advertisements, pop art, and cartoons in his works, he integrates aspects of contemporary life into landscapes. World-weariness amid Green Mountains adds common elements of modern life to traditional landscape imagery. It shows a stylishly dressed person sitting cross-legged on a brand-name picnic blanket, looking up at price-marked designer bags hanging from the tree branches. Lin Ching-Yuan believes that in capitalist society, fashion trends drive consumer competition, so that ordinary people feel it necessary to spend a lot of money to arm themselves with these luxuries and find their social identity. Above the person’s head, the big white snake that has twisted itself around the tree branches symbolizes profiteering capitalists—it keeps its greedy eyes on its surroundings. The irregular blank white space in the lower left represents the perforated and empty human heart.