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- the greatest influence upon 20th century Chinese art. Once the Japanese were defeated in 1945 and once the Nationalists were pushed off the mainland and the People�s Republic founded in 1949, the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art became the model for the development of the revolutionary culture of the nation. Mao�s speech advocating �popular�ization and raising of standards� was to provide the basic principles for painting in the People�s Republic. Traditional Chinese painting came to be rejected as �feudal� and Western art as bourgeois.� Mao was keenly aware that image-making wields an extraordi�nary power in that it could confirm a certain vision of the world.
Chinese Painting During
the Fir.ft Half of the Peopled Republic 1949- 76
Between 1949 and 1956, a poster-style propaganda art developed in China using Soviet socialist realism as its main artistic model. This poster style of socialist realism would remain popular until the late 1970s. The term �socialist realism� was invented by a group of Soviet writers led by Maxim Gorky in the spring of 1932, although it was later attributed to Stalin. It signified an art form which was figurative and easily understood, and was connected explicitly with socio-political matters. It served as a major tool in re-educating, re-orientating and realigning the public in Communist countries. Socialist realism came to be associated with nationalism.
In 1957 Mao emphasized the policy known as �letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend.� Many artists took these statements literally, instigat�ing a sudden surge in artistic freedom. However, within a short period of time, Mao repudiated the movement and the artists taking part in it were branded �rightists� and �poisonous weeds.� For the next two decades, these artists were somewhat afraid to create works of their own choosing.
Between 1958 and 1965 traditional painters were urged to widen their subject matter to include new symbols that were representative of the socialist revolution. To make their works socially viable and politically acceptable in the depiction of new China, some traditional artists tried a variety of approaches. These experiments actually produced some very fine works of art. However, as time went on many artists paid less and less attention to displaying revolutionary content, which a number of them would live to regret. Some of the leading artists who were very capable of using traditional painting techniques to depict daily life of the masses in villages and cities as well as the ethic minorities include Li Keran (1907-1989) [38], Qian Songyan (1897-1985) [50], Jiang Zhaohe (1904-1986) SongWenzhi (b. 1919) [60], Huang Zhou (1925-1997) and YeQianyu (1907-1995). Other artists recognized for their skills in the early 1960s include Fu Baoshi (1905-1965) [16], Wu Zuoren (1908-1997), Lu Yanshao (1909-1993) [back cover], Chen Zizhuang (1913-1976) [9], and Shi Lu (1919-1982) [57], and they succeeded in establishing a new traditional style which greatly influenced younger artists. Cheng Shifa (b. 1921) [6] and Fan Zeng (b. 1939) [12] were highly regarded for their life-drawing painting style of figures and picture stories.
In the summer of 1966 Chairman Mao�s Cultural Revolution, which was designed to discredit all �revisionists,� burst on the scene. The movement drastically affected the art world in China. Art schools were closed and the teachers and students were sent down to the countryside to work as common labourers. Here they were to undergo re-education and ideological remoulding. Virtually every artist in China was either severely criticized or adversely affected by the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, a time artists came to refer to as the �Black Decade.� Many of their works of art were destroyed in the chaos.
The centre of artistic activity was shifted from the colleges in the cities to small art workshops in factories and rural communes. Gong Nong Bing (workers, peasants and soldiers) were encouraged to take up painting as amateurs. They developed new styles, bright in colour, which were used for propaganda purposes. Any painting done during this time had to express the right political thoughts in order to meet with Communist Party
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