Page 10 - The Pioneers, November 26, 2016 Hong Kong

Artists should not be governed by others, should not be restricted
by nature, and should not be enslaved by money. Art is beyond
everything. Art is the expression of an artist's personality, individuality
and life.

– Liu Haisu

…in broad strokes, loud red and tragic green, these striking colours soon
were being used in all parts of the country following the growth of the
art school. This greatly frightened those who tried to restore the old
order.

– Liu Haisu, 'The Modern Chinese Painting as Observed in an Art Exhibition'
Meizhan Huikan (Collected Writings of an Art Exhibition), April 1929.

Fig. 3 Artist in his youth of Graphic Art, later becoming the Shanghai Fine Arts
圖 3 創辦上海美專之劉海粟 School, which stood to become the most influential art
school in China (Fig. 3). Important lecturers for Western
Few can say they have visited Mount Huang ten art include Wang Jiyuan, Guan Liang, Pan Yuliang, while
times, fewer still can say they visited the famous Chinese art lectueres included Huang Binhong, Zhang
mountain at the age of 92, yet this is exactly what Daqian, Pan Tianshou. Liu also invited intellectuals to
Liu Haisu desired, one final opportunity to study give talks, such as Cai Yuanpei, Kang Youwei, Liang
the natural wonder which has been featured Qichao and Guo Moruo (Fig. 4), with Liu interposing
countlessly in his works during his career. his own art direction through the contribution of essays
and the establishment of the art paper in 1918.
EARLY INFLUENCE
Liu firmly believed that everyone was entitled to
Liu was born into a distinguished family where education study art – the establishment of a purely arts-
was a priority. His father had been an active participant oriented establishment was a major contribution to
of the Taiping Rebellion, his influential mother the the reformation of the education system in China, at
granddaughter of a highly regarded economist and a time when learning art and culture was restricted
calligrapher of the Qing dynasty named Hong Liangji only to a closed group of intellectuals. This school was
(Fig. 1). An emphasis on learning the arts was therefore a crucial place for learning European art in pre-World
instilled in him from an early age which saw him excel in War II China. Liu propounded democracy, freedom
the study of traditional Chinese painting and literature and sketching from observing nature (Fig. 5), and
under the tutelage of Kang Youwei (Fig. 2), whom Liu was the first to organize trips to surrounding rural
regarded as his philosophical and artistic mentor - after areas to observe and take inspiration from nature.
the revolution of 1911, leading reformer Kang became a
loyalist and began to apply to painting his principle of The next few years were critical to Liu's development
"reviving the old in order to evolve the new". He decried of his ideologies which saw him opening more art
the free sketch (xieyi) style literati paintings of the schools and pioneering both national and international
Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties but approved of the art exhibits in the 1920s and 30s. Always vocal with his
meticulous detailed academic style that traces back to philosophies, he remained steadfast when facing moral
the Song dynasty. Kang Youwei also greatly admired objection to his practice of incorporating the Western
Giuseppe Castiglione, propounding the slogan "integrate idea of studying the nude female form at his schools,
Chinese and Western to Develop a New Era of Painting". refusing to bow down to national criticism. In 1915 Liu
introduced the first models to pose nude for his students,
Due to the passing of his mother and an unhappy beginning a controversy that would span until 1927,
marriage forced upon by his father, Liu desired where Liu was forced to head to Japan to avoid arrest.
to study overseas and travel to Japan. His father, This opportunity enabled him to come face to face with
who opposed this idea, suggested instead for him Japanese modernist artists as well as Western art works,
to set up an art school in Shanghai, and so, in such as Van Gogh, Matisse and Cézanne. He desired
1909 at the age of 13, Liu set off to Shanghai. to bring to China the art practices from afar, and his
experience and artistic vision would form the pillar of his
A REVOLUTION IN THE MAKING activism and in the decades to follow, shape his legacy.

On 23rd November, 1912, at the age of 16, Liu Haisu,
together with two friends, established the first art college
in modern China known then as the Shanghai College

8 THE PIONEERS 先 鋒 薈 萃