Wang Baiyuan (Chinese: 王白淵; pinyin: Wáng Báiyuān; Wade–Giles: Wang2 Pai2-yüan1; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ông Pe̍k-ian; November 3, 1902 – October 3, 1965) was a Taiwanese modernist poet and a Japanese-language writer.

Due to individual members participating in anti-imperialist marches being arrested by the police, the whole group was implicated, and Wang Baiyuan suffered and lost his teaching position.

In 1934, after Wang Baiyuan divorced his Japanese wife, Kubota Takashi, he left Japan and went to Shanghai to work at Hualian News Agency.

[1][2]Wang Baiyuan, following his tenure as an educator within the Pattern Department at the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, encountered tumultuous times as stability eluded him.

However, after enduring a series of harsh setbacks and residing in a highly oppressive and politically charged atmosphere, Wang Baiyuan's youthful vigor gradually faded.

In his later years, he began organizing literary materials and published an article titled "History of Taiwan Art Movement" in the 1954 Taipei Cultural Relics.

"; My friend and classmate Xie Chunmu said that Wang Baiyuan was "very innocent and happy, like a bird singing and dancing brightly before spring" and "left the school loved by everyone.

[9] Wang Baiyuan was inspired by the book "The Departure of Human Culture" by Japanese scholar Naotaro Kudo and developed a strong interest in art.

[12] During the semester at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, Wang Baiyuan collaborated with his classmates Hiroshi Junichi and Sato Shigeichi to release the fan magazine "Gon".

[13] Due to the mismatch between the school education and the art environment in Japan at that time, Wang Baiyuan gradually shifted his attention to poetry and prose creation.

Still, he was worried that the publication of his poetry collection and the left-wing literary and artistic activities he wanted to engage in might affect his wife, so he voluntarily requested a divorce.

[20] After divorcing his first wife, Chen Cao, Wang Baiyuan fell in love with a student from a girls' school, Kubota Tanaka.

Wang Baiyuan had some contact with local literati and scholars in Morioka and had made friends with colleagues such as Shingo Matsumoto and members of the Iwate Poets Association, Koyama Kazuki.

During the first one or two years of Wang Baiyuan's arrival in Shanghai, he often had contact with the Taiwan Art Research Association in Tokyo, Japan, and continued to send manuscripts.

The lecture notes he compiled were easy to understand and organize, and he could explain and compare the common points of ancient and modern patterns between China and foreign countries in detail, which was very popular among students.

Xie Lifa, who wrote "A Chronicle of Excavated Figures in Taiwan," once heard a rumor that Wang Baiyuan had served as a Japanese teacher for Jiang Qing (who was then an actor in Shanghai) during his time in China.

However, after the 813 Incident, one day, when Wang Baiyuan took his pregnant wife to seek refuge at the French Consulate in Shanghai, he was arrested by the Japanese military police and forcibly escorted back to Taiwan, where he was imprisoned and served his sentence.

[29] Xie Lifa described it in more detail in his "Taiwan Excavated Figures Chronicle" and mentioned an exciting incident, stating: "Wang Baiyuan, who was imprisoned for six years, gained the greatest benefit from his life in prison.

[30] Not long after his release from prison in 1943, Wang Baiyuan wrote an article titled "Miscellaneous Thoughts of the Sixth Government Exhibition" in response to his paintings at the Taipei City Hall.

Wang Baiyuan cited Immanuel Kant, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others to illustrate the conditions that great artists should possess.

Based on this, he examined the performance of exhibition authors and criticized Taiwanese painters for generally lacking philosophy and personality, and their works could not arouse the audience's joy, resulting in superficial and impoverished issues.

However, after leaving the newspaper industry, Wang Baiyuan frequently switched careers and held positions in aluminum plate factories, the Red Cross, electrical appliance guilds, handicraft centers, and other institutions.

Each person recounted Wang Baiyuan's life story, which is said to be the most exciting and moving anecdote from the "Formosa" era in Tokyo, narrated by Wu Kunhuang and Zhang Wenhuan.

[38] Song Dongyang [zh] (real name: Chen Fangming) compared the poetic styles of three Japanese colonial poets - Yang Hua, Loa Ho, and Wang Baiyuan - and believed that they were all interveners in the political movement, and their works were enough to represent the setbacks, pride, and achievements of the beginning of new poetry.

He said, "Wang Baiyuan uses metaphors and highly circuitous techniques to connect a humble heart with the vast emotions of the human world, allowing us to see that the poet's ideas are no longer personal but belong to the masses.".

[42][43] In his book "Unearthed Figures in Taiwan," Xie Lifa positioned Wang Baiyuan as a "hero of resistance against Japan" and a "cultural fighter of democracy.".

[44] Yan Juanying [zh] believes that Xie Lifa's portrayal of "anti-Japanese heroes" and "democratic cultural fighters" is not suitable for Wang Baiyuan.

The criticism lies in Yan Juanying's point: "Most of the artists during the Japanese occupation period belonged to a small group of people who had received a good education in society and had never taken to the streets for the nationalist movement.".

In short, during the stage when the ethnic political groups in Taiwan were not fully formed, discussing how the Taiyang Art Exhibition or any modern Taiwanese painting could specifically 'showcase the characteristics of the Chinese nation' or 'resist Japanese discrimination and oppression' was nothing but a political lie of the 1950s In addition, regarding Wang Baiyuan's research on Taiwanese art, Yan Juanying believes that there are still two points that need to be reviewed.

The article states that in 1947, Wang Baiyuan experienced a series of brutal blows due to the February 28 incident, and it was not until his later years that he began actively organizing literature.