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…