Bouquet de Chrysanthèmes Roses

Pan Yuliang belonged to the first generation of female Chinese artists to study abroad. She was determined to bring Western painting and Chinese tradition together, creating a unique personal style and lauded by contemporaries as “first-rate amongst Chinese artists painting in Western technique.” Bouquet de chrysanthèmes roses is a work dating from Pan Yuliang’s return to Paris during China’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the brutal Nazi occupation of Paris in which the artist used the chrysanthemum’s elegant nobleness as a symbol to express a spirit of unwavering fearlessness. The chrysanthemum in the painting is uprooted all while remaining full of splendor, embodying the artist’s fearlessness, far from home yet staying strong in face of difficulties, while belying her deep affection and concern for her family and the homeland.