YIM Mau-Kun, Spring Comes to Lishan, Taichung, Taiwan

From Songbai Village, heading further up into the mountains, pear blossoms and apple blossoms are in full bloom, bringing a lively vitality to the hillsides. A small off-white chapel gleams in the morning sunlight, while the ridge behind it is veiled in drifting dawn mist, its outline completely obscured. This is the early spring scenery of Lishan.

I have sketched in Lishan several times, both in spring and in autumn. On my first visit, I stayed in Songbai Village and became thoroughly familiar with the area around the Lishan Guest House, wandering up and down its slopes. I completed several plein-air sketches there, and after returning to Taipei, I used them as the basis for creating a number of large-scale landscape paintings.