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Yu Cheng-yao's life is filled with legends. In 1920, he enrolled in Japan's Waseda University to study economics but he transferred to the Tokyo Army Officers' Academy in the following year to volunteer for military service. Later, he participated in the Japanese Resistance under the rank of a general. Upon achieving success in the resistance, he discharged his duties and returned to his hometown where he operated a business dealing in medicinal materials and entertained himself by reading and poetry writing. Already 58 years of age in 1956, Yu Cheng-yao only just started painting then. Uninterested in fame and wealth, the poor and humble life did not affect his painting. Yu enjoyed the pleasures of playing Nanguan, an ancient music. C.C. Wang, a renowned collector, first visited Yu Cheng-yao at Yang Ming Mountain in 1971 and instantly purchased a piece of 8-panel landscape on that very same day. Painting for 30 years, the first of his personal exhibitions was not officially held until he was 88 years of age (1986), sending reverberating shocks throughout the art circle.

Yu Cheng-yao contends: "Pictures must be thoroughly filled, those closely knitted kind of feeling are excellent, not much skies should be left¹." The work, "Landscape", belonging to works of Yu Cheng-yao's Middle Period, has a dense and solid compositional structure. With greenery yet still perching atop the mountains, the woods in the foreground are however already decorated with specks of autumn, contrasting interestingly with the red brick houses in the middle. Yu Cheng-yao rarely portrays scenery of early autumn. He has a particular liking for landscapes decked out in plush greenery, hence his paintings are always fully filled with the flavors of spring or summer. Looking at the painting, "Landscape", we observe yet again, a sea of jade green, layers upon layers of mountain rocks and faint traces of autumn, further displaying the rich and abundant mood of landscapes.

1 A Centennial Retrospective For Yu Cheng-yao-Years Of Retreat Where Time Ceases, Taiwan Provincial Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, June 1999, p.191.