Pan Tianshou was born in 1897 in Ninghai, Zhejiang Province. He was known by several names such as Tianshou and Dayi. His sobriquet include Ashou and Landaoren (Lazy Daoist). His early training in painting was based on copying images from printed books depicting popular stories such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Tales of the Water Margins, and the Mustard Seed Garden Manual for Painting. His university education instilled in him a strong moral responsibility, which he applied to the preservation of Chinese painting as an art educator.The lotus is one of Pan’s favourite subjects. He often captured its brilliance at dawn. Pan’s graphic tendencies are displayed in this painting. The lotus flower, its stalks and leaves are abstracted and fitted into a pleasing composition. The broad, diagonal sweeps of ink denoting the leaves are balanced by the rising lotus and an empty space to the right. A short inscription written on the top right hand corner enhances the poetical qualities of the painting and balances the emptiness. This kind of reduction of a subject matter to its most salient features is derived from Bada Shanren’s (1626-1705) style. Certain parts of the stalk or flower could have been painted using the fingers and testifies to Pan’s obsession with line work and its variation.
