The Central Cross-Island Highway opened for traffic in 1960. The difficulty of the engineering and the beauty of the landscape leave one breathless, a theme which the painter Chang Gu-nian loved incorporating into his works. This particular work was finished in 1968. It has a special composition, with the image divided into two halves by a diagonal line that runs from the bottom left to the top right.

In the left half, everything is painted with a diagonal slant from the top left to the bottom right—the rock formations with their thick ink texture in the foreground, the rocks with a thick axe-cut texture in the middle, the row of trees connected by thick and thin dotting, and the clouds behind the trees and mountain range in the distance. On the right half, aside from the large trees dotted in with thick ink, the shape and style of the rocks, highway, and trees in the middle ground are done with a slant from top right to bottom left.

Different from the sense of calm and stability created by a horizontal or vertical composition, this kind of steep incline makes one feel a sense of movement and instability. The many diagonal lines give the painting a strong visual orientation, adding to the painting’s sense of depth. On top of that, Chang Gu-nian used the diagonal lines to contrast left and right and extend towards the middle to enhance the attraction and tension. We can feel how deep, winding, and rugged the cross-island highway is through the painting.

Chang Gu-nian tried many styles of painting in his early years. After coming to Taiwan, he emphasized sketching, with his works mainly focused on showing “the style of Taiwan”. This signaled the start of a new chapter in his painting career as he would make sketches on site using traditional painting methods.