An irreplaceable art form
At present Chen is not overly fussy about accuracy in his work. He prefers to capture the vitality of the natural world as he perceives it. Scientific illustration is just a means of expressing his affection and apprehensions for the natural world.
A decade ago he created Primitive Taipei, a painting that depicts the Taipei Basin as it might have looked 500 years ago. Capturing a lost ecosystem required him to rely on his imagination while also applying our scientific understanding of the natural world of that day.
For the setting he chose the landscape of Shipai, an area in modern Taipei’s Beitou District. He adorned this landscape with the nearly extinct bamboo orchid and the blue lotus, which is thought to be extinct in the wild in Taiwan, along with sika deer foraging in shallow water and otters playing in the wetlands.
These are scenes impossible to capture through photography. Chen hopes that this type of imaginative rendering of the natural world will resonate with humanity’s collective unconscious. In this way he hopes to stimulate discussion and contemplation and arouse public interest in the natural world.
Li Cheng-lin recalls that it took him four and a half years to complete the illustrations for A Field Guide to the Birds of Taiwan. Just as he was beginning the project his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and she passed away six months later. The pain of losing his mother was almost unbearable. It affected his work, and his editor noted that the birds he painted had a sorrowful appearance.
The loss slowed Li’s creative output, but he threw himself into the difficult job of illustrating birds of the sandpiper family (Scolopacidae), which have complex markings and a high degree of similarity. He had to render the differences clearly so that the viewer can easily distinguish between different birds. He learned to divide the bird’s body into different blocks and identify the patterns of each section of plumage. Once this was done, he replicated the results to fill in other parts of the body.
During this difficult period, Li found great comfort in observing his favorite bird species, the sanderling, a small wading bird with a body only 20 centimeters long. He tells us how once when he went birdwatching by the sea, as he watched the tides roll in and out he noticed the sanderlings darting in and out between the waves, scavenging for food. Li uses his fingers to show the birds’ size as he says excitedly: “Just look how small they are, and yet they fly all the way from Alaska to Australia, migrating twice a year. They have likely traveled to more countries than us and certainly flown farther. We will probably never witness the sights they have seen. But wherever they land, all they do is fill themselves up by feeding on tiny bugs in the wet sand along the shoreline, fulfilling their role in nature.”
Reflecting on these stories while working on his illustrations, Li came to terms with his mother’s passing. He realized that her life’s journey had come to an end, while his work as an illustrator was not yet done. He found a certain tranquility, and the quality of his work improved.
Peng Hsuan Yu concentrates on illustrating a longhorn crazy ant at the scientific illustration exhibition at the National Museum of Natural Science, which has proven popular with visitors.