Cloudy Mountains

Liu Haisu, whose father had joined the Taiping rebellion, came from a family with progressive views. Liu studied painting with the leading intellectuals Wu Changshuo and Chen Hengke and learned calligraphy from the revolutionary Kang Yuwei. Liu opened the first public art school in Shanghai in 1912 and became a champion of the New Art Movement there.

He traveled in Japan and Europe, lecturing, mounting exhibitions, studying Western works and developing the oil painting techniques he had first attempted at the age of fourteen in China. In the 1930s, he turned to traditional Chinese media as did many artists, but he has continued to paint in oils as well over his long career.

This fan painting is an example of Liu's enduring interest in the landscapes of South China, here rendered in traditional medium and style. Only the strongly contrasting areas of light and dark show his experimentation with Western ideas and techniques.