Self-Portrait--Pan+Yuliang

=**Self-Portrait**=

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Artist: Pan Yuliang Title: Self-Portrait Medium: Oil on canvas Country: China Date: 1949 Size: 23.6 x 28.5 inches
 * Artwork identification**

Pan Yuliang was born as Zhang Yuliang in East China's Jiangsu Province, orphaned at age 8 and sold to a brothel in Wuhu at age 14. There she met her future husband who married her as his second wife. Encouraged by her husband Pan studied art in Shanghai and went to France and Rome for higher art education. After achieving great success and recognition in Europe as an artist, she came back to China to teach art at China's famoust art schools. Due to the socio- political situation in China that did not support the idea of a woman, who had been a former prostitute, teaching life drawing, Pan had to leave for France where she lived till the end of her life, constantly missing her homeland. Her pain, loneliness and suffering were expressed through her art.
 * Introduction**

 The above mentioned artwork by Pan Yuliang is one of her self portaits. The artist has depicted herself as a partial nude figure. The figure is seated in front of a table laden with liquor bottles and an ash tray with cigarette butts. She is wearing an oriental garment which is open exposing her breasts. The figure is smiling in a mocking way.The color pallet is that which uses very vivid and intense colors. The play of the green in her shirt and the orange of the back ground make for great contrast. The positioning of the bottles help your eyes move around the painting which is continued by the outline of her head and the slope of her shoulder then down through her are which is echoed by her folded up leg. The composition is semicircular and closed for the most part aside from the spilled bottle in the foreground which seems to lead off the canvas. This particular image seems to depict a scene of everyday life.
 * Descriptive Analysis**

Pan Yuliang was a master of Expressionism and Realism. She combined traditional Chinese art style with Western art to create a unique style. Inspired by Chinese Calligraphy, Pan used bold and curved lines to define her figures. Her women are often full bodied figures suggesting female strength and sexuality. Pan chose the female nude as the subject of most of her paintings to depict the vitality, healthy beauty and maternity of women. During that time nude figure paintings were viewed as vulgar and cheap. Pan was criticized by the Chinese for painting and exhibiting her nudes in the conservative Chinese society. Her nudes were not meant to convey any sexual descriptions. They were the artist's medium to express social criticism and human concerns. Her figures were painted to celebrate the self. Her self-portraits are meant to be viewed as the artist's expression of her inner feelings. Pan's portraits depict her sorrow, her desire for a family and her loneliness. She spent most of her adult life living in poverty in a foreign nation because her art was not acceptable in China. Being a woman artist and coming from a brothel, Pan never commanded the respect of Chinese people of her time. Her art often reflected her anger and frustrations in a subtle way. Her images were often elegent and self-respectful.
 * Formal Analysis**


 * Printed Sources**

Sullivan, Michael. //Art and Artists of Twentieth Century China//. California: Berkeley, Unversity of California Press, 1996.


 * Online Sources**

China Daily Article, September 5, 2007 [] Pan Yuliang online biography []