Ye Huo-cheng was born in 1908 in Fengyun, Taichung. Ye graduated from the Department of Education of Taipei Second Normal School (now Taipei Municipal University of Education). During his study, Ye was under the instruction of Ishikawa Kinichiro. In 1927, Ye’s watercolor work A Corner in Fengyun was selected by the first “Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibition.” Ye also participated in the fourth, sixth, and eighth “Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibitions” and the first to sixth “Taiwan Governmental Fine Arts Exhibitions.” Ye’s works were also under his pseudo name Hayasaka Yoshihiro. After the war, Ye inaugurated as the principal of schools such as Fenzhou Elementary School in Shengang Township, Fuchun Elementary School, and Fengyun Elementary School. After his retirement, Ye was invited to work as the chair and the professor in the Department of Industrial Design of Private Ming-Chi Junior College of Engineering. Afterwards, Ye also served as the standing council member of the ROC Oil Painting Association, a member of Tai-yang Art Society, and the chair of Huludun Fine Art Studies Association. Ye’s creativity lasted for a long time. From 1946 on until 1991, after winning two “Taiwan Provincial Fine Arts Exhibition” and served as the exhibition jury, Ye continuously presented works and participated in the exhibitions. Ye supported Taiwan’s local official exhibition and helped to promote regional art and education with his sincerity and professionalism.

Under the influence of Ishikawa Kinichiro, Ye Huo-cheng’s creative themes focused on spirits of live sketches. His choice of themes in the early years was mostly portraits and stills. His touch of strokes was refined and tranquil. After the war, Ye mainly focused on landscape paintings. With the development of his painting skills and his faith, Ye’s strokes became less limited and wilder. Ye often painted objects such as buildings with heavy overlapping colors. Ye was especially fond of using a palette knife to present more elaborate strokes in order to add sensations to the weightiness and firmness to the object. Nevertheless, Ye would render lighter and thinner strokes and warmer colors in order to add touches to the mixtures of colors and the textures. One Morning is a work illustrating the still objects in front of the window sill and the rear view in the garden outside the window on one early morning. In the close sight, one can see the gradual arrangement of still objects creating a space with depth with the contrast to the rear view. Toy aircraft, vessels and tanks—if considering the painting was completed at the time of the war, these objects might infer the circumstances of warfare. The strong contrast between the tranquility of the garden and the uneasiness of warfare best described the ambivalent feeling the artist had for supporting the “Taiwan Governmental Fine Arts Exhibition” which was held by the Japanese government during the Japanese occupation.

While the Second World War was ongoing, Japanese local master painters, including Fujishima Takeji, were mobilized to enter the warzone to paint “war documentary paintings.” However, the war theme did not prevail in Taiwan. Most of the Taiwanese artists were not enthusiastic about war themes, most of them were still pursuing local colors and romantic landscapes and sketches of nature. The inclination had to do with the criteria of exhibition curators such as Siotuki Touhou. Touhou believed: “If only every artist can pursue what they follow and present individual features with strength,” even the work illustrated only a tree or a bush, it will reflect upon the change of the world and became a legend. Touhou insisted on not being involved with the direct portray of the warfare. With Touhou’s argument and insistence, there were hardly any work of art illustrating war scenes in “Taiwan Fine Arts Exhibitions” and “Taiwan Governmental Fine Arts Exhibitions.” Thus, under certain circumstances, One Morning applied a metaphoric methodology to represent the war theme that reflects upon the current political position.