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自画像 (Self-portrait) by 郁風 / Yu Feng (Chinese) - Oil on canvas / Undated (possibly 1940s) - Kyoto National Museum (Japan) #WomenInArt #WomanArtist #art #artText #FemaleArtist #WomensArt #ChineseArt #京都国立博物館 #KyotoNationalMuseum #YuFeng #郁风 #ChineseArtist #油彩 #二流堂 #LayaboutsLodge #BlueskyArt #bskyArt
We see a young woman shown from torso up in motion, turned to her left, eyes lifted toward a pale sun. Her dark hair streams back in the wind; her mouth slightly open as if calling out or catching breath. A rust-red cape wraps her shoulders and flows behind, its thick brushstrokes creating ridges. Her near left arm rises across the foreground, hand clenched in a fist, knuckles towards us. Behind her, a smoky, gray-green sky and low industrial skyline with smokestacks; a faint procession of small dark figures stretches across the middle distance. Below, patchwork green fields form diagonal bands. Light glances across her cheekbones and nose, leaving deep shadows under the eyes and chin. The overall scene reads as forward movement and urgency, with wind and smoke sweeping left to right. This dynamic self-portrait was painted by Yu Feng (郁風, 1916–2007), a pioneering Chinese artist, cartoonist, and designer whose work bridged Republican-era modernism and the social upheavals of twentieth-century China. A student of groundbreaking female Chinese artist Pan Yuliang, Yu Feng brought Western techniques such as oil painting and modernist composition into dialogue with Chinese cultural expression. She became one of China’s first female cartoonists, contributing to Shanghai’s vibrant print culture in the 1930s, and later worked as a painter and illustrator while navigating the challenges of war, revolution, and political persecution. By depicting herself in motion, windblown and resolute, Yu Feng breaks from the conventions of static portraiture. Her raised fist and forward gaze embody strength, urgency, and momentum, while the smokestacks and distant marchers situate her within a larger narrative of modern China. For a woman artist of the Republican period, such imagery was a radical act of self-assertion and anticipates the resilience she would later show when imprisoned for 7 years during the Cultural Revolution.
September 3, 2025 at 6:36 AM