San-Lang YANG

Yang San-Lang was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1907. He went to Japan to learn painting without family’s permission at the age of 17, graduated from Kansai Bijutsuin in 1928, and then went to France for further studies in 1932. In the art history of Taiwan, Yang was not only a participator but also a leader. He made a great effort to transform the “Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition” into the “Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition,” and also made the Taiyang Art Society the most long-standing painting group in the country. Yang was influenced by French Impressionists, mainly Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875) and Claude Monet (1840-1926), hence mountains, forests and landscapes became the major theme of his paintings. In the later years, Yang fell in love with ocean, and started depicting impressively unique churning waves in his paintings.