余承堯所畫的《長江萬里圖》，是他的山水畫中花費最多時間，也是最具代表性的一件作品。他作畫的動機，可能是受到張大千與呂佛庭舉辦《長江萬里圖》展覽的影響而來。六、七十年代的臺灣社會，因長期的兩岸對峙而掀起一股懷鄉熱潮，《長江萬里圖》因緣時會而成為旅臺軍民思鄉的圖騰。擁有自我山水風格的余承堯，也想藉助描繪《長江萬里圖》的機會與全島軍民同償思鄉的心願。但是完成後的作品，卻無法獲得觀眾的認同。因為他的畫法過於獨特，傳統觀眾只是感受到新穎怪異，卻無法找到文化傳統的面貌。所以，余承堯的《長江萬里圖》終究還是他個人孤獨返鄉的心靈圖像而已。本文還恢復《長江萬里圖》的歷史傳統，藉以突顯余承刲此作在歷史文化中的定位。

　　　　　The Eternal Yangtze (ch'ang-chiang wan-li t'u長江萬里圖)was Yu Ch'eng-yao's most time-consuming work. It is also the most representative of his style. The impulse that lead him to create the work quite possible stemmed from the Eternal Yangtze exhibition held by Chang Ta-ch'ien and Lu Fo-t'ing. For the mainlanders who came to Taiwan with the Nationalist government in the late 1940s, the long standoff between Taiwan and mainland China that persisted through the sixties and seventies spurred the popularity of homeland reminiscences. The focal symbol of these remembrances was the long and eternally flowing "river of ten thousand li"-the Yangtze. In The Eternal Yangtze, Yu applied his unique and personal landscape style to the depiction of a subject which he saw as a vehicle for sharing memories of home with his fellow mainlanders. Yet, upon completion, his work proved excessively unique for contemporary audiences, whose traditional tastes were affronted by what to them was a strange and peculiar image lacking the traditional cultural images that their artistic sensibilities demanded. Thus, in the end, what we find in the work is simply the reflection of one man's lonely, persona meditation on an imagined icon. By examining the historical circumstances that surrounded Yu Ch'eng-yao creation of The Eternal Yangtze, the present essay seeks to locate the work in both historical and cultural contexts.