Abstract
This article exemplifies the “Terrible Inspection” (1947), a work of Neorealistic woodcut painter Yung-tsam Huang (1916-1952), to illustrate the injustice experiences, during the 228 Incident and the White Terror in Taiwan. The “Terrible Inspection” implies the Power transforming from visible to invisible. It was the invisible power that simultaneously conducted the state apparatus, penetrated the legal system, distinguished the antagonistic and the traitorous from the docile ones, decided who to live, who to die, and whom to be arrested, whom to be released. Through managing the state-party, martial laws, court-martials, secret investigations and interrogations, confession extortions, information collections by secret polices or militants, collective punishments, the invisible power permeated every corner in the society and constructed a rigorously surveying network of discipline. The Neorealistic woodcut ideals that Huang insisted, and musical works of Sicon Ma and the Barley Wave Ensemble that Huang promoted, were all firmly viewed as the evidences of the criminal act that “intent to overthrow the government in illegal ways”. Sadly, Huang perished solitarily at the age of 36 in the beautiful island Formosa, and buried alone in the weedy graveyard located in Liuzhangli, Taipei. Nevertheless, “Terrible Inspection”, his aesthetic work passing through generations, still testifying, and always reminding the descendants to carefully review the cruelty, the misery, and the absurdity of the past.
Keywords
Yung-tsan Huang、woodcut、228 Incident、White Terror
Cite
Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.
