Innocence

"Innocence"?is one of a series of works that was enlarged by Den Nan-gwang himself and archived by the Council for Cultural Affairs (today's Ministry of Culture). There is little information on record, and a review of digitalized files of photos Den took over the course of his career turned up no negatives of those photos, indicating that there few surviving originals from the series among collections of Den's early works, an important fact to consider when studying his creative aesthetic concepts. This picture shows that Taiwan's rural areas were still undergoing modernization at the time it was taken, and most kids went barefoot, playing in lanes and alleys. Den cleverly included two "stimulation points" into the scenes: The first is the narrow passageway in the upper right, wide enough for only a single person to pass through; the second is the ascending cement staircase. Both are indications of the relative space of the living environment. The subject's body language, revealing her surprise at having her picture taken, and the stream of water flowing across the cement pavement, hint at the area's undeveloped living conditions. The little girl's happy amazement is shown in her pure, innocent little face—that purity and innocence were probably Den's chief motivation for snapping the photo.