The reception of Fauvism in the portraits of Chinese artist Pan Yuliang (1895–1977)

The subject of this study is the reception of Fauvism in the works of Chinese artist Pan Yuliang (1895–1977) as one of the defining mechanisms for the formation of her synthetic artistic method. The analysis focuses on the process of integrating key Fauvist principles – the autonomy of color, the decorative organization of the pictorial surface, expressive contours, and contrasting local color patches – with traditional techniques of baimiao and "iron line." The author demonstrates how the Fauvist color expression and flat decorative qualities are reinterpreted by the artist not as external stylistic borrowing but as a crucial tool for artistic self-representation and the assertion of the master's professional and cultural identity. Special attention is given to the evolution of the interaction of color and line in the works from the Shanghai period (1928–1937), Paris, and later periods, exemplified by key works: "My Family" (1931), "Song of Spring," "Woman with a Fan" (1940), "Portrait" (1944), "Woman at the Window" (1946), as well as self-portraits from 1947, 1949, and 1963. Thus, the material covers a complex intercultural dialogue between European modernism and Chinese artistic tradition in the context of Pan Yuliang's personal and professional self-determination. The methodological foundation of the study consists of four interrelated approaches: historical-cultural, formal-stylistic, iconographic, and comparative analysis. This allows for a consideration of the reception of Fauvism in the context of the intercultural synthesis of European modernism and Chinese artistic tradition. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the analysis of the reception of Fauvism in Pan Yuliang's work not as an external stylistic influence, but as a key mechanism for forming a synthetic artistic method and the strategy of self-representation for a woman artist. For the first time, Fauvist principles of color autonomy, decorative flatness, and expressive contour are systematically related to the Chinese linear tradition (baimiao, "iron line"), revealing their organic interaction in the intercultural dialogue. The author emphasizes the formal-stylistic and iconographic analysis of the evolution of color and line as means of asserting professional and cultural identity. As a result, it has been established that Pan Yuliang transformed Fauvist color expression into a tool for personal self-determination, creating a unique synthesis of Western freedom of color and Eastern expressiveness of line. This allowed the artist to move from professional self-assertion to deep psychological self-expression, enriching the history of Chinese modernism in the 20th century with new mechanisms of intercultural synthesis.