The scene was tranquil in 1927 at the newly established "Taiten" annual fine arts exhibition in the Japanese colony of Taiwan, which had been ceded by China in 1895 as a result of the First Sino-Japanese War. None of the artists practicing in the Qing Period (1644-1911) styles of Chinese painting were accepted for the "Toyoga (Eastern)" painting section. In all, only three Taiwanese artists had any work selected in that division. Two of them had actually lived in Japan and all three were producing nihonga -- Japanese style paintings. The majority of paintings in the exhibition were the work of Japanese officials or other Japanese living in Taiwan.
The first Taiten was a carefully orchestrated affair designed to promote the cultural authority of nihonga as the national style of expansionist Japan. As a national consciousness grew in the Meiji Period and thereafter, the delicate lines, brushwork and atmosphere of nihonga was promoted as the essence of Far-Eastern art. Nihonga, it was imagined, might become representative of a pan-Asian alliance.
The three Taiwanese artists in "Toyoga" were Lin Yu Shan, Kuo Hsueh Hu and Chen Chin (1907-1998), who had three entries in the exhibition, the most in the section. An anonymous contemporary Chinese review in the Taiwan Nichinichi Shimpo newspaper praised her: "Miss Chen Chin of Hsinchu alone displays unusual color for the people of the island. Her brush is light and her colors bright and alluring." All three artists, who were around 20 years old, were acclaimed as models for the future and dubbed "The Three Youths of the Art Exhibition of Taiwan," thus helping nihonga to become Taiwan's mainstream art style.