100 years ago today, on August 24, 1925 (July 6, 1925, the lunar calendar), Liu Haisu's use of naked models caused controversy. Teachers and students from the 17th graduating class of the Western Painting Department of Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts took a group photo with a naked model. Since 1914, Liu Haisu used human body sketching to teach here for the first time. On August 24, 1925, Jiangsu Province held an education conference and adopted a proposal to ban models, which attracted the attention of various art schools. Liu Haisu, principal of the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, who uses female models, objected to this. He wrote to the authorities, saying that he had planned to use models since the beginning of the founding of the Fine Arts Institute, but "the world did not pay attention, and his eyes were for great rebellion, ridicule and scolding, and hundreds of mouths crowded together. For the sake of academic dignity, I do not hesitate to burn my lips and rot my tongue, and I defend myself four times. I know a gentleman and am happy to gain something. It can be said that there are rights and wrongs in the world. I am very happy."I didn't expect that the authorities would also have such a motion to ban investigations today, which puzzled him. Liu Haisu pointed out at the end of the letter: "I am the first to advocate models and be aboveboard, but ordinary scoundrels and philistines use their good name to benefit the dealers. If the photos of naked prostitutes and bad pickets found in Shanghai today are really bad apples, they should be strictly prohibited and there is no need to forgive them. Now, the gentleman carefully thinks about the meaning of discernment. Please understand his words, revise the previous suggestions, and spread them to the world." Liu Haisu is the pioneer of nude painting in China. Liu Haisu's oil painting work was published in the "Current Affairs News" and immediately attracted attention from all walks of life. Opponents said,"Liu Haisu advocates models, which is enough to lose the shame of nature and arouse the impulse of carnal lust";"Sir, with the power of money, forces women who are forced to make a living to present their bodies during the day without hanging a single piece of silk, and allows the monarch to copy. This is to make women in the world have a shameless status, but animals are no better than animals." Wei Daofeng, governor of Shanghai County, said: "Models are girls with bare butts." Liu Haisu used models to defraud money."If you get carried away like this, what kind of decency is it? What world? What kind of human?" Liu Haisu refuted the argument based on reason. He first stated that "the dignity of art is very different from the profit-making of the bourgeoisie" and that "the model of art is completely different from the etiquette of China." He then pointed out that many people have no ink-in-the-chest and sit on the sky. They pretend to be Taoist priests and talk nonsense, but in fact they are full of male thieves and female prostitutes; and then proposed that people like Wei Daofeng are not worthy of being a government official and should be dismissed. Wei Daofeng claimed to go to court on the grounds that Liu Haisu insulted his personality. This photo was taken in Shanghai in 1935. The people in the photo looked relaxed and dressed in style, but the woman standing in the third row behind was completely naked, forming a sharp contrast with the others. This is a photo taken in class by teachers, students and models of the controversial Shanghai Fine Arts College in the 1920s and 1930s.