The painter from Shanghai is a real page-turner, a compelling read and a witness to bigotry and prejudice...

books:


	• The Painter from Shanghai: A Novel Jennifer Cody Epstein W.W. Norton & Company, 2008 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Fantastic Book!

'The Painter from Shanghai' is a wonderfully written book that tells the real life story of the artist Pan Yuliang. Crafted in meticulous fashion and sporting a beautiful dust jacket cover (I wouldn't mention this if I didn't feel it didn't add to the book), the detailed research and quality content is a book that drips with the work that was put into it.

Easy to recommend, impressive to read, kudos to the author!

***** RECOMMENDED

Incredible book

This is the very first work of "biographical fiction" I've ever read and I can't help but be impressed by author Epstein's research and the heart that she has put into this novel. Based on the life of turn of the last century, pre-revolutionary Chinese painter Pan Yuliang, Painter is clearly written with the same passion with which Yuliang painted her art.

An orphan at approximately age 5, Yuliang is left with only her opium-addicted uncle to live with, but deeply in debt, he sells her into prostitution (a horrific reality which still exists today). Life in a brothel is as bad as one could imagine - beaten regularly, belittled for her "not-quite-bound-tightly-enough" feet, and treated as a slave, she is eventually taken under the wing of the "top girl" at the brothel and, as she grows up, they fall in love. Since this is technically a work of fiction, I don't know if this actually happened but it does enrich Yuliang's story. Eventually, her lover is killed and Yuliang takes her place as top girl. Yuliang never recovers from the loss of her first love.

Fortunately for Yuliang, she meets an incorruptable government official (of course, I live in Washington DC so I'm not sure if such a thing exists, but I digress...) who takes her for his concubine, and moves her to Shanghai. There she discovers her love for painting and is eventually accepted into the prestigous Shanghai Art Academy, where she learns who she is - a very modern, liberated, outspoken and incredibly talented artist.

Yuliang is one of the most interesting characters I've ever read about, be it fiction or non-. I can't say I really even like her, mainly because of her lifelong selfishness and apprehension toward her husband, who not only unbound her feet, but truly liberated her.

Don't let this author get away!

for more information click here

The painter from Shanghai is a real page-turner, a compelling read and a witness to bigotry and prejudice in China

The painter from Shanghai is a compelling read and a witness to political changes in China in the years 1913 to 1957. Although the book is a work of imagination, the painter, (Xiuqing) Pan Yuliang did in fact exist. Cody Epstein effectively shows her vast weight of erudition and expertise pertaining to this Chinese era.

This impressionistic saga begins in 1957 in Montparnasse Paris where we find Pan Yuliang, a successful artist, struggling to make ends meet. Cody Epstein prefaces this section with a saying by John Sloan: "Though a living cannot be made at art, art makes life worth living. It makes starving, living. It makes worry, it makes trouble, it makes a life that would be barren of everything - living. It brings life to life."

The book's preface summarizes (Xiuqing) Pan Yuliang's strong will who against all odds was unwavering in her quest to succeed as an artist.

Epstein reconstructs Pan Yuliang's past with an authentic Chinese brush wherein we can actually feel, smell and taste the kind of a life Pan Yuliang's experienced in China during these turbulent years.

In 1913 at the tender age of fourteen Xiuqing was an orphan who was taken in by her opium dependent uncle or Jiujiu. Both voyaged to the big city where Xiuqing assumed she would be able to be employed as an embroiderer as was her mom. Sadly, her uncle's dependency on opium forced him to sell Xiuqing to a brothel, complete with an actual deed of sale, wherein even her name is changed to Pan Yuliang.

We follow with shock her sordid descent into the hell of whoredom. She even loses her only friend, Jinling, the top girl of the "flower" house whom she eventually replaces as the top "flower."

During one of her trysts, she meets a civilized customs inspector, Pan Zanhua, or Yi Gan, who is handsome, young and who initially is not very much interested in having sex with her. Eventually, this gentleman succumbs and falls in love with her.

In 1916, the couple move to Zuhu where to her surprise Pan Zanhua becomes her tender lover. Taking her under his protective wing, Pan Zanhua commences to instruct her in writing and reading. However, she finds herself doodling more and more, as she is attracted to art like a butterfly to a flame.

Shy at first, because of her troubled past, she vacillates in applying to Shanghai's Art Academy. However, in the end she becomes an exceptional student and wins a scholarship to Paris, notwithstanding that her self-portrait drawn in the nude was very controversial. Reluctantly, Pan Zanhua agrees to permit her to go and pays for her stay while he remains behind.
Pan Yuliang proved her art teacher right who once told her that: "our wounds are what drives us to create. ... After all, loss in one arena compels us to compensate in others... what if it is true of the creative process?"

In Paris, initially she is a success with her freshness and originality, but gradually poverty overtakes her. As her scholarship dwindles, Pan Zanhua cuts down his financial support. However, she is reunited with one of her schoolmates, Xudun, who has become an anarchist. They become lovers but politics looms and threaten their newfound love.

Will she ever be accepted in China with her western style nudes? Read on....

The painter from Shanghai is a real page-turner, a compelling read and a witness to bigotry and prejudice in China. Jennifer Cody Epstein has imbued this saga with authentic scenes, sights, smells, language and paintings. She has brought forth the harrowing life of this much maligned painter from Shanghai.

Lily Azerad-Goldman, Artist and reviewer for bookpleasures

for more information click here

A Captivating Journey

I have been transported, which is, in my opinion, the best thing you can feel at the end of a novel, especially historical fiction. THE PAINTER FROM SHANGHAI is a captivating journey to an unfamiliar land, culture and time; a fascinating introduction to a remarkable woman. The amazing bonus here is that the main character, Pan Yuliang, child-prostitute-turned-acclaimed-artist, really did exist.

Pan Yuliang was born in China in the early years of the 20th century. Orphaned at a young age, she lived with her opium-addicted uncle, who sold her to a brothel at age 14, for drug money. Unlike the vast majority of women sold into sexual slavery, Yuliang was able to escape. Through sheer force of will and an undeniable, irrepressible artistic talent, she ultimately transformed herself into one of China's most pioneering modern painters.

Not without controversy and challenge: Unable to find models to pose nude for her in China's Confucian-based society in the 20's and 30's, she often resorted to painting herself nude -- gorgeous, lush and provocative paintings that evoke Cezanne and Matisse, and led to fame and infamy both at home and abroad. Ultimately clashing with the neo-Conservative movement in China, just prior to the revolution of 1949, she left China and lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity in Paris.

I was a little skeptical about this book, in the early chapters. How authentic and accurate could all of this be? It certainly read well, but I wondered: Is the author Chinese? (Jennifer Cody Epstein? Chinese heritage doubtful, at best.) Did she live or visit China extensively? Study Chinese history and culture? Art?

These questions were an issue only very early on. As the story unfolded, THE PAINTER FROM SHANGHAI, became an epic novel of place and time, with glimpses of politics and history, and world-changing events in the background of this unconventional woman's incredible personal and artistic struggle to survive and create, to fulfill her own destiny.

THE PAINTER FROM SHANGHAI is thoroughly-researched and richly-imagined by a very talented writer. Turns out, Jennifer Cody Epstein has a BA in Asian Studies; a Masters in International Relations; lived seven years in Asia; and researched extensively for this book during her MFA program at Columbia University.

Enjoy THE PAINTER FROM SHANGHAI as a fictional biography, based on a real life. Allow yourself to submerge in a re-imagined masterpiece, rich with accurate detail and authenticity.

To learn more about Jennifer Cody Epstein and THE PAINTER FROM SHANGHAI, don't miss the Focus on the Author feature interview on [...].

-- Sherri Caldwell, Humor Columnist & Reviewer at [...]
Co-Author, The Rebel Housewife Rules: To Heck With Domestic Bliss!

for more information click here

Truly absorbing

Jennifer Epstein has opened up a whole new world for me, and I am happy to have learned about a person, place and time of which I had little prior knowledge. Yuliang comes to life on the first page, and her story remains riveting until the end. Jennifer Epstein has a true gift for bringing her characters to life. I loved every minute of reading it and can't wait to explore Yuliang's paintings more on my own.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Reminiscent of Memoirs of a Geisha, a re-imagining of the life of Pan Yuliang and her transformation from prostitute to post-Impressionist.

Down the muddy waters of the Yangtze River and into the seedy backrooms of "The Hall of Eternal Splendor," through the raucous glamour of prewar Shanghai and the bohemian splendor of 1920s Paris, and back to a China ripped apart by civil war and teetering on the brink of revolution: this novel tells the story of Pan Yuliang, one of the most talentedÂ?and provocativeÂ?Chinese artists of the twentieth century.

Jennifer Cody Epstein's epic brings to life the woman behind the lush, Cezannesque nude self-portraits, capturing with lavish detail her life in the brothel and then as a concubine to a Republican official who would ultimately help her find her way as an artist. Moving with the tide of historical events, The Painter from Shanghai celebrates a singularly daring painting styleÂ?one that led to fame, notoriety, and, ultimately, a devastating choice: between Pan's art and the one great love of her life.

for more information click here

hot