Shy

Deng took this photo of a young woman in the courtyard of a traditional farmhouse, echoing Tang-dynasty poet Bai Juyi's?Ode to a Pipa?(a Chinese lute): "After countless entreaties she finally appeared, her face half-hidden by the?pipa?she held." In framing the photo, Den Nan-gwang ingeniously used the foreground scenery—the courtyard wall, decorated with balusters made to look like joints of bamboo. The model is leaning slightly forward, half-hiding her smiling face.?In the left background, a blurry image of a woman leaning on a wall is visible. In the 1960s, photography associations in Taiwan all took part in the "Chinese Cultural Renaissance Movement," a government program instituted in opposition to the cultural destruction wrought in China's Cultural Revolution; even artistic photo portraits had to conform to the national cultural policy. Den Nan-gwang chose an unconventional, elaborate setting for the portrait: The large, upright decorative bamboo-shaped balusters are implicit references to peace and harmony within the family and career advancement, the photo's themes, the gate a foil to the shy young woman's smiling face. In that era, the Nationalists and Communists were still locked in a standoff, and artists had no choice but to comply with national arts-and-culture directives.