Pan Yuliang by Malwina Maczka

Pan Yuliang was born in Jaingsu, China in 1899. At the age of fourteen she was sold into a brothel where she eventually met Pan Zhanhua. Zhanhua took her as his official concubine and saved her from life as a prostitute. It is interesting to consider that as a heroic deed, when Yuliang was just an extra woman that added to the display of male wealth. He supported her painting career and even encouraged it. She was drawn to Western styles of painting and undermined the traditional Eastern ink painting. Eventually she found Liu Haisu, who helped her learn to paint Westernized nude portraits. She studied in France and Italy, and eventually became a professor back in China. For the rest of her career she dappled with both Western and Eastern styles, the sharp inky outline of bodies and objects with washed out colors of the East versus soft oil paintings with prominent colors and textures of the West.

Pan Yuliang's Bathing Women is a great representation of the Eastern inky outlines
And Western painting with texture and color

            The social conditions of China were extremely conservative in those days. Confucian beliefs were at the core of Chinese society, and his beliefs in females occupying the bottom of the societal hierarchy influenced the reality of Chinese citizens. Females were expected to display total subservience to men, and were also viewed as less desirable as children. Female infanticide was popular in Asia, usually to deflect the high cost of baby girls such as the dowry expected to be paid by the parents. Around Yuliang’s time, selling female children was unsurprising for low-income families for reasons such as poor harvest or multiple dowries that were unaffordable. Because females were expected to come with a dowry, it was up to the father to decide whom the daughter marries, because if dowry is not paid then the woman will end up unmarried and uncared for. Unfortunately, Yuliang was orphaned and because she had nobody to support her, she was sold into a brothel. This was the unfortunate situation of women in China. They had no control over their own destinies, and were forced to rely on a heavily patriarchal society to make decisions for them.

Confuscius's early ideas on the separation of gender and his ideas on the
roles of women influenced Chinese society for centuries.

            Pan Yuliang chose to paint the female body, using a modern post impressionist style of art. She chose to paint the female body to liberate the suppressed sexuality of women. Women were so hidden from the public sphere and bound to the home that they rarely received any attention in terms of the societal crimes bestowed upon them. Their bodies were being controlled by everyone but them. Pan Yuliang's own body was sold without her consent into a brothel at the young pubescent age of fourteen, and she painted herself naked to show the world how exposed she felt because of these experiences. On the other hand, she also used the naked female body as a form of empowerment. The paintings seemed to say, "Yes I am naked, and I feel freed". These females seem content, and reveal that these are their natural forms and should be cared for.

Four Beauties After Bath

Pan Yuliang Self Portrait

In Pan Yuliang's self portrait, she used oil on canvas as her medium. Yuliang has a serious face indicative of her need to be taken seriously in the art world. The colors she used are not bright and contrasting, but rather faded and dark. She used delicate dark outlines around the flower vase, windows, and her hands, and very lightly around her face. This indicated the Eastern style that she added to heroil paintings which are expressionist because of the odd angles that are delicately off, and texture created through specific use of the paint brush. Indeed it feels like a dreary reality, the colors blending together in the background and Yuliang staring at something distant as if she did not want to be present wherever she is. It subtly displays Yuliang's frustration with life. 

Pan Yuliang Self Portrait

In conclusion, Pan Yuliang led a difficult life, where she felt she lost control of her body. Her body was sold by her uncle to a brothel, and she was too poor to be anything but a concubine to a man. She was fortunate enough to have support and go to France to paint, but again her beautiful work was not appreciated in super conservative China. Reasons for that is because females were not taken seriously in the art world, and because her past shamed the patriarchal art university. Leave it up to men to choose what they can do with women and then shame them for the choices they thrust upon them. In addition, Yuliang was unable to bear a child to Pan Zhanhua and that deepened her frustrations. She left China and returned to Paris, where her art was viewed with appropriate recognition. She won The Paris Gold Prize and the Belgium Silver Prize. She died in Paris, but her work was transported to China and she finally gained the appreciation her art deserved posthumously. She even has a museum built in China in her memory. 

Cited from Guerilla Girls page 72