The Soul of Painting

The legendary life of Pan Yuliang, a female painter in the early Republic of China. Pan Yuliang was originally a prostitute from Jiangnan. She had a unique talent for painting, but no one appreciated it. By chance, she met Pan Zanhua (played by Er Dongsheng), director of Wuhu Customs Salt Industry, and was immediately adopted as a concubine. She followed Pan Zanhua to Shanghai. Seeing that she liked painting, Pan Zanhua introduced a professional teacher to let her study. From then on, she started studying painting as a student. Later, due to the intervention of Pan Zanhua's wife, the two people who had a good relationship gradually developed conflicts. She then studied in Paris and gradually became an internationally famous painter. Liu Haisu, the president of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, was open-minded and asked her to return to China to teach. Unexpectedly, the situation in the European art world with an open academic style was very different from that in the domestic art world. Pan Yuliang, who devoted herself to art, was accused by conservative intellectuals of being a "whore artist" and criticized and hindered the art of body painting she taught...