or Liu Shao-ch'i born Nov. 24, 1898, Ningxiang district, Hunan province, China died Nov. 12, 1969, Kaifeng, Henan province Chairman of the People's Republic of China (1959-68) and chief theoretician of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). An activist communist background from the 1920s helped Liu's rise within the CCP in the 1930s and '40s, while his excellent education and studies in the Soviet Union made him an effective spokesman for the new government in China. When Mao resigned as chairman after the failure of his Great Leap Forward, Liu assumed the title. His policies for revitalizing agriculture by permitting peasants to cultivate private plots and giving them monetary incentives were ones to which Mao later strongly objected. In 1968 Liu was purged from power for being a "capitalist roader" and Lin Biao was appointed Mao's successor. Not until 1974 was Liu's death in 1969 made public
or Liu Sung-nien born 1174 died 1224, Qiantang, Zhejiang province, China Chinese figure and landscape painter. Liu entered the Southern Song Painting Academy as a student in the Chunxi period (1174-89) and went on to become a daizhao ("painter-in-attendance") in the Shaoxi period (1190-94). During the reign of the emperor Ningzong (1195-1224) he was awarded the prestigious Golden Belt. Liu followed the tradition of Li Tang. Typically his works featured relatively large figures executed in a detailed manner and placed close to the spectator in the picture plane. The facial expressions of his figures are vivid, and the patterns in which their clothing drapes are very intricate. His most important landscape paintings depict a human in harmony with nature. Liu paved the way for an academic style that would be further developed by his contemporaries Ma Yuan and Xia Gui