Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits provide an important case for examining female identity, the female body, and women’s self-representation in modern Chinese visual art. Existing studies on Pan Yuliang have mainly focused on her life experience, artistic style, Chinese–Western painting methods, and female consciousness. However, less attention has been given to how specific visual elements in Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits construct female identity. Therefore, this study adopts a qualitative case study approach and visual analysis to examine how female identity is constructed in three selected self-portraits by Pan Yuliang: Self-Portrait (1940), Self-Portrait (1945), and Self-Portrait in Red (1945). The analysis focuses on posture, gaze, clothing, bodily presentation, and space. The findings show that female identity in Pan Yuliang’ s self-portraits is not presented as a fixed feminine image. Instead, it is constructed through changing forms of self-representation. In particular, Self-Portrait (1940) presents an idealised and culturally refined image of femininity, while Self-Portrait (1945) develops a less decorative and self-aware form of female self-representation. Self-Portrait in Red (1945) further strengthens the visibility and self-definition of the female subject. Overall, these findings suggest that Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits move beyond conventional representations of feminine beauty and present the female body as a site of self-expression, identity negotiation, and subjectivity. This study contributes to research on Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits and female self-representation by foregrounding the visual construction of female identity.
Borzello, F. (1998). Seeing ourselves: women's self-portraits. Thames & Hudson.
Chadwick, W. (2020). Women, art, and society (6th ed.). Thames & Hudson.
Chau, A. (2023). Paris and the art of transposition: Early twentieth-century Sino-French encounters. University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12256143
Chen, T. B. (2016). Research on Pan Yuliang’s paintings [Doctoral dissertation, Nanjing University of the Arts]. China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Chen, Y. (2021). A comparative study of female consciousness in the nude paintings of Pan Yuliang and Suzanne Valadon [Master’s thesis, Shandong Normal University]. China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Croll, E. (1995). Changing identities of Chinese women: Rhetoric, experience and self-perception in twentieth-century China. Zed Books.
Fan, B. Q. (2023). The awakening and presentation of female consciousness: A study centred on Pan Yuliang’ s paintings. Journal of Huainan Normal University, 25(6), 104–109.
Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage.
Jin, M. (2025). Pan Yuliang: Painting a legendary life with a brush. Trade Union Expo, (23), 44–45.
Kong, G., & Wu, Z. Y. (2026). From “other” to “subject”: Identity construction and visual language in Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits. Art Observation, (5), 83–86.
Li, X. J. (2000). Feminism?: Cultural conflict and identity recognition. Jiangsu People’s Publishing House.
Lian, L. (2020). A study of self-identity in Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits [Master’s thesis, Sichuan Normal University]. China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Meskimmon, M. (1996). The art of reflection: Women artists’ self-portraiture in the twentieth century. Columbia University Press.
Ng, S. (2019). The art of Pan Yuliang: Fashioning the self in modern China. Woman’s Art Journal, 40(1), 21–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26746738
Pan, J. R. (2025). Self-examination from a female perspective: An analysis of Pan Yuliang’s self-portraits. New Art Field, (5), 25–27.
Rose, G. (2022). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (5th ed.). Sage.
Shan, G. Q. (1995). An introduction to ancient paintings of beautiful women. Journal of the Palace Museum, (s1), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.16319/j.cnki.0452-7402.1995.s1.005
Stake, R. E. (1995). The art of case study research. Sage.
Sturken, M., & Cartwright, L. (2018). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Yang, L. J. (2016). Pan Yuliang of oil painting art research "female consciousness" [Master’s thesis, Shandong University of Art & Design]. China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Yao, P. (2021). Women, gender, and sexuality in China: A brief history. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315627267
Teo, P. (2016). Rewriting modernism: Three women artists in twentieth-century China: Pan Yuliang, Nie Ou and Yin Xiuzhen. Leiden University Press.
Wang, J. X. (2025). Contradiction and rupture: Visual modernity in Pan Yuliang’s oil paintings. Journal of Art and Design, (6), 90–92.
Wang, X. (2022). On the source and flow of “body image” by Chinese contemporary female artists. Journal of Beijing Normal University (Social Sciences), (3), 77–83.
Wang, X. Y. (2026). Self-line drawing: On the construction of female aesthetic subjectivity in Pan Yuliang’s figure paintings. Beauty & Times (Middle), (4), 70–73. https://doi.org/10.16129/j.cnki.mysdz.2026.04.022
Wang, Z. Y. (2009). The art history of Chinese paintings of beautiful women. Southeast University Press.
West, S. (2004). Portraiture. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Wu, Q. (2021). The visual construction of female consciousness: A study of Frida Kalo and Pan Yuliang’s paintings [Master’s thesis, Qufu Normal University]. China National Knowledge Infrastructure.
Yin, R. K. (2018). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). Sage.
Zheng, Y. (2010). Lingering charm of silk and gauze: Women in famous paintings. Culture and Art Publishing House.
Ling, H., & Fauzi, T. B. A. (2026). Female Identity in Chinese Art: A Case Study of Pan Yuliang’s Self-Portraits. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 16(6), 395–407.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
