liu haisu
The Visionary Spirit of Liu Haisu In the grand tapestry of twentieth-century Chinese art, few threads shine as brightly or as provocatively as those woven by Liu Haisu. Born Pan Jifang in 1896, this transformative figure emerged from the Jiangsu Province not merely as a painter, but as a revolutionary force who dared to bridge the ancient traditions of the East with the burgeoning modernism of the West. Often revered as one of the “Four Great Academy Presidents,” Liu Haisu possessed an unyielding spirit that sought to dismantle the rigid hierarchies of traditional art education, replacing th…
The Subject Atlas
A chart of liu haisu's corpus mapped not by date but by subject. Spokes are what they painted; rings are when; and the threads between stars reveal the patrons and places that secretly connect them.
Spokes — Subject
Each arm of the atlas gathers works by what they depict: portraits, sacred scenes, mythologies, and the scientific studies. Click a spoke to swing that cluster to the top.
Rings — Career Period
Distance from the center marks time. The innermost ring is the earliest period; the outermost, the final years. Style matures as you move outward.
Threads — Shared Context
Coloured lines link works bound by the same patron, commission, or theme. Trace a context to watch related clusters light up across subjects.