"My life is a life of Chinese women fighting for women's self-confidence for love and ideas."
The person who said this sentence was Pan Yuliang, a famous Chinese oil painting artist.
She was the first chinese painter to enter the Louvre, and was awarded the National Gold Medal by France, the First Class Medal of Culture and Education in France and other honors.
Xu Beihong, the founder of modern Chinese art, once commented: "There are only three painters in China, and one of them is her."
But these supreme honors, in the eyes of many people, can not withstand her unfortunate experience to attract people.
It is also this period of the past, like a net made of magic that firmly locks Pan Yuliang's life of resentment.
Pan Yuliang
In 1895, a girl named Chen Xiuqing was born in a civilian home in Yangzhou.
The experience of losing her father at the age of one and her mother at the age of eight left her to wander under the fence in the homes of several relatives.
At the age of 14, Chen Xiuqing was sold by his uncle to a brothel in Yangzhou for the price of an animal.
From this day on, she never gave up the struggle and made up her mind to escape.
Young Pan Yuliang
For several years, escapes and beatings became the norm in brothels.
In the days when he was unwilling to surrender, Chen Xiuqing chose to disfigure and take his life.
In order not to let the money in her hand drift, the old bustard asked her to learn to play the piano and sell songs, and to be a selling artist.
Perhaps for Chen Xiuqing, this is the best solution.
But she has been bullied all the time, but this time she waited for fate to take care of her.
Once holding the piano and singing, several new young people who returned from studying in Japan sat during the banquet.
One of the young talents was Pan Zanhua, then the customs supervisor of Wuhu.
Panzanization
He was not used to such an old-fashioned fireworks and willow lane communication field, but he could not refuse such official communication.
When Pan Zanhua saw the singer in front of her, who was gentle and resentful, she was touched by the depressed affection under her eyes.
The desire for freedom is like a spark at the bottom of the lake, reflected under these eyes.
It just so happened that this spark could be seen by Pan Zanhua.
In the midst of thousands of people, you meet the people you meet, no step earlier, not one step later, just caught up.
Pan Zan redeemed herself as Chen Xiuqing and bought a white wedding dress for her.
At the wedding of the two, the only guest and the only guest was Pan Zanhua's classmate Chen Duxiu.
On that day, Chen Xiuqing changed his name to Guan Fu's surname pan Yuliang.
After marriage, the two people who lived in Shanghai for a long time respected each other as guests.
Pan Zanhua taught her to read and write, and asked his friend Mr. Hong Ye to teach Pan Yuliang painting.
The white canvas and the colorful world of paint have brought new feelings to Pan Yuliang.
While painting, she felt free and happy as never before.
Pan Yuliang's still life works
In 1918, the 23-year-old Pan Yuliang, with the support of Pan Zanhua, was admitted to the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts with the first place in the drawing professional class, becoming the first batch of female students in China to enter the American College.
Department of Western Painting, Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts (Pan Yuliang, front row, first from left)
The artistic atmosphere in the classroom and the cheerful time of extracurricular style brought Pan Yuliang a lot of inspiration.
During this campus life, she painted a large number of body art paintings.
Pan Yuliang's
However, the good times did not last long, and the experience of the Qinglou women was exposed by her classmates, and Pan Yuliang was forced to withdraw from school.
At the suggestion of the principal and Pan Zanhua, Pan Yuliang had to travel as far as France to continue his studies in painting.
In 1921, Pan Yuliang was admitted to the École Nationale d'Arte école d'Arte de Lyon together with Xu Beihong, and later to the National Academy of Fine Arts in Paris.
In the days of drifting overseas, without the company of a lover, Pan Yuliang returned to the world of a person.
In her free time, she practiced sketching and taught herself sculpture and sculpture.
Pan Yuliang sculpture working photo
In 1926, Pan Yuliang's work won a gold medal at the Rome International Art Exhibition, and in addition to the 5,000-lira prize, she also became the first Chinese to win the award.
The oil paintings "My Girlfriend on Painting", "Beautiful Buyikal" and "Tulip" were selected for the 56th Independent Salon Exhibition, and "Nude Painting" won the "French National Gold Medal".
Huamei Daily also praised her as an "artistic elite" and "admirable artist".
In 1928, after ending his eight-year study abroad career, Pan Yuliang returned to China and became the director of the Western Painting Department of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts.
In 1935, Pan Yuliang held his fifth exhibition.
Xu Beihong also gave a very high evaluation in the "Central Daily": the doctor has nothing to gain, but the hero Pan Yuliang has to get.
Xu Beihong: "Mrs. Guan Yuliang's Solo Exhibition has a Feeling"
In the exhibition, a huge oil painting "Hercules" attracted the attention of many people.
On the closing day, the painting was torn and affixed with the note "A whore's praise to a prostitute!" ”
All suffering is not rendered by the paint in the world of oil painting, and the scars of the past are difficult to cover.
This time, Pan Yuliang, who was once again scarred, cut off his last attachment to this land and his lover, and went to France alone to study again.
Forty years apart, Pan Yuliang and Pan Zanhua only exchanged brief letters.
"The old woman of Liu'er is like a maiden, and the monster is engraved with ancient carvings." Gentle and thick is still like yesterday, and the literary style has not diminished before. ”
Ban Tamara Self-Portrait
In Pan Zanhua's eyes, the old wife in the self-portrait looks just like the young girl in the past.
And he did not know that the French in World War II had already approached the city, and Pan Yuliang's life was also in trouble.
She rarely sold paintings, earned little money, and relied on friends to help her.
Loneliness became a catalyst for her inspiration, and the paintings conveyed the spirit and emotions of a frustrated painter.
During this period, Pan Yuliang's works were mature in style and charming in artistic conception.
The women in the paintings all have the same trajectory as her, self-growth and awakening consciousness.
Pan Yuliang's work "The Sound of the Moonlit Piano"
In 1959, Pan Yuliang received the Dorré Prize from the University of Paris. This is also the first time the award has been awarded to an oriental female artist.
Her work has been exhibited in Belgium, England, Germany, Japan and other places.
She also became the first Chinese painter to enter the Louvre.
Faced with the French government's invitation to join her French citizenship, she refused and wrote a letter of return to her country, but received the news that her husband had died.
In 1977, Pan Yuliang died in a dilapidated apartment in Paris, surrounded by a pocket watch that Pan Zanhua had given her.
Pan Yuliang and Pan Zanhua's promise necklace
Before dying, she instructed her friend Wang Shouyi to return the pocket watch to Pan Zanhua's family, and all the paintings were transported back to China.
Of the more than 4,000 posthumous works left by Pan Yuliang, women are the most popular themes.
The figures are no longer the images of the Virgin of Suppleness and Love in traditional Western oil paintings, and their facial expressions are either resolute or severe, or unwilling or scrutinizing.
The square-inch paintings enclosed in the frame also show a sense of rebellion against the repressed spirit of traditional women.
In the devastation of fate, Pan Yuliang used his paintbrush to cut through the imprisoned darkness to meet the light.
In the long silence, she held fast to her fidelity to freedom.
As she said: My life is a life of Chinese women fighting for women's self-confidence for love and ideas.