Painters and politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979 9780520079816

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PAINTERS AND POLITICS IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

OF CHINA, 1949-1979

PAINTERS AND POLITICS IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC

OF CHINA, 1949-1979

JULIA F. ANDREWS

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Published in cooperation with the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan

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University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 1994 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Andrews, Julia Frances.

Painters and politics in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1979 Julia F. Andrews

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-07981-7 (alk. paper)

1. Socialist realism in art—China. 2. Painting, Chinese—zoth

century. J. Title. ND1045.A53 1994

759.95 1'09'045—dc20 93-38071 CIP

Printed in the United States of America

9 8 76 § 43 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library

Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

PIME

8534593 FINE 1-16-75

For Han Xin

Give Your Heart to the Party, Your Art to the People... MEISHU, 1958

380 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

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Peng Bin and Jin Shangyi, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, 1977, oil on canvas, 226 cm X 270 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery.

by seeking advice from older professional artists. Declared a black painter in 1974 for his overly avant-garde artistic interests, particularly his enthusiasm for impressionism, he was assigned to work at a munitions plant in Anhui. He refused to accept the punitive position, however, and remained unemployed, living on his parents’ meager funds and ration coupons for the next several years. Later befriended by several official artists in the painting institute, he was hired on a temporary basis by the institute from late 1976 to late 1978 to assist older artists with specific projects.

Contents

Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations XV

Introduction I

I. Revolutionaries and Academics: Art of the Republican Period II

2. The Reform of Chinese Art, 1949-1952 34 3. From Popularization to Specialization IIO

4. The Politicization of Guohua 176 5. The Great Leap Forward and Its Aftermath:

“More, Faster, Better, Cheaper” 201

6. The Cultural Revolution 314 7, The Transition to “Artistic Democracy,” 1976-1979 377 Appendixes

rt. National Arts Administrators, 1949 407 2. National Art Administrators, 1960 410 3. National Art Administrators, 1979 413

Notes 419 List of Illustrations 521 Index 531

4. Oil Painters in the Soviet Manner 416

List of Chinese Names and Terms 475

Selected Bibliography 497

Acknowledgments

Even more than may be evident in my references, this book has been shaped by the Chinese artists who generously shared their thoughts, memories, and hospitality with me during the years I worked on this book. Many of them do not appear in the book at all, for the inevitable choices a writer must make in theme and approach eliminate much interesting material. I would like to acknowledge these individuals, nevertheless; their viewpoints have inevitably colored mine. J have received crucial assistance for my research from foundations and in-

stitutions. In the early stages of this project I was assisted by the AmericanChinese Adventure Capital Fund of the Durfee Foundation (Santa Monica), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Ohio State University College of the Arts, the Ohio State University Office of Research and Graduate Studies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Travel to Collections and Summer Stipend programs. National Endowment for the Humanities funding allowed me to finish the project. I am particularly grateful to the Center for Chinese Studies of the University of Michigan and the American Council of Learned Societies for providing a quiet year in Ann Arbor during which I largely completed the manuscript. A Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China fellowship allowed me a much-needed opportunity to conduct follow-up interviews in 1990. This book began as a collaborative research project undertaken with Han Xin. I would not have begun the project without his help. Over the years he acquired for me many of the Chinese publications cited in the bibliography and assisted in photographing works of art. Most important, he arranged and participated in the interviews we conducted with Chinese artists and administrators. Although Xin has served as a sounding board for my ideas, responsibility

for them and for any errors remains my own. x!

Xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The form that the book has taken is, in part, a response to the writings and research of other scholars. Michael Sullivan’s ground-breaking Chinese Art in the Twentieth Century (1959) was for many years the only Englishlanguage study of modern Chinese art. Chu-tsing Li’s 1979 catalogue Trends in Modern Chinese Painting contains extensive biographical studies of many older guohua painters and provides a useful analysis of the history of guohua in the first half of the twentieth century. Arnold Chang’s small book Painting in the People’s Republic of China: The Politics of Style (1980) may have been the first American study of art in the PRC; its explication of the influence of Mao’s Yan’an Talks on the practice of Chinese painting and its periodization of guohua development between 1949 and 1980 remain useful today. Joan Lebold Cohen’s book The New Chinese Painting, 1949-1986 (1987) documents particularly well the art of the years immediately following China’s opening to the West. I was fortunate to hear a series of lectures given by Ellen Johnston Laing at Berkeley in 1983 that were later published as The Winking Owl: Art in the People’s Republic of China (1988). Her successful efforts to periodize the art of the PRC’s first three decades and to suggest theoretical reasons for shifts in painting styles are an invaluable foundation for further studies in the field. Cohen and Laing, particularly, have contributed to overcoming the prejudices of many historians of Chinese art against Chinese paintings in Western media.

I am indebted to many of these authors as supportive colleagues as well.

Joan Lebold Cohen’s enthusiasm for her own research on contemporary Chinese painting stimulated my interest in the subject a decade ago. By introducing me to Chinese artists in Beijing, most notably Han Xin, she lured me out of the Ming dynasty. Ellen Johnston Laing, Jerome Silbergeld, and John Clark have all shared their ideas and manuscripts with me. Michel Oksenberg, Harriet Mills, and Martin Powers have provided helpful ideas for my project. Valuable factual, bibliographic, and editorial suggestions have come from Wu Hung, Gao Minglu, Richard Kraus, Jerome Silbergeld, Zhou Yan, and James P. Andrews. Mao Junyan, Gerald Young, and Weng Rulan assisted in other essential ways. Myroslava Mudrak Ciszkewycz has identified Soviet artists mentioned in Chinese texts. Christine Verzar has provided encouragement throughout the writing process. Last but not least, my teacher, James Cahill, who has repeatedly proclaimed that he will write no more about modern Chinese painting, continues to publish lively opinions about contemporary guohua artists and to encourage the rest of us. The University of California editorial staff, especially Deborah Kirshman, Anne Canright, Barbara Ras, Betsey Scheiner, Jenny Tomlin, and Kim Darwin, has been extremely helpful and encouraging. At Ohio State Shen Kutyi has assisted indefatigably with the preparation and proofreading of the bibliography, notes, appendixes, and list of Chinese characters. Jan Glowski worked

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XII with me patiently to prepare the index. Suni Lee Boswell, who worked as my undergraduate intern in the Ohio State Summer Research Opportunities Prog-

ram in 1987, assisted in finding materials published in English-language periodicals.

I would especially like to thank friends in China who assisted Han Xin and me in making or obtaining research photographs. We are particularly grateful to Ai Zhongxin, Cheng Shifa, Han Ying, He Kongde, Jin Shangyi, Liao Jingwen, Lin Gang, Quan Shanshi, Shen Jiawei, Sun Jingbo, Tang Muli, Wang Guanqing, Wang Keping, Zhang Ding, Zhu Naizheng, and the staffs of the Chinese National Art Gallery, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Chinese Artists Association, the Shanghai People’s Art Press, and the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting. The current and previous staff of the History of Art Slide Library at Ohio State University, including Shelly Grunder, Jean Ippolito, Gu Xiaomin, Lora Chen, and John Taormina have assisted in preparing research and publication photographs. I would also like to thank the faculty and staff of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, for their help over the years. Acknowledgment must also be made of the involuntary participation of Teddy, Alexander, and Andrew Han in this project. I would especially like to thank their four grandparents, who have made our field trips possible.

Abbreviations

AWA All-China Art Workers Association CAA Chinese Artists Association CAAC Central Academy of Arts and Crafts CAFA Central Academy of Fine Arts

CCP Chinese Communist party CNRP China News Reported in the Press CRSG Cultural Revolution Small Group FLAC All-China Federation of Literary and Arts Circles GPCR Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution JFMSL] Jiang Feng meishu lunji (Jiang Feng’s Writings on Art)

JFNB “Jiang Feng nianbiao” (A Chronology of Jiang Feng) Liushinian Liushinian wenyi dashiji, 1919-1979 (Sixty-year Record of

Major Events in Literature and Art) |

MS Meishu (Art)

OPSS Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio

PLA People’s Liberation Army PRC People’s Republic of China RMMS Renmin meishu (People’s Art) RMRB Renmin ribao (People’s Daily)

UAC United Action Committee

ZAFA Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts xv

Introduction

In 1979, the Chinese government formalized a new policy of openness to the West. For the first time in many years, Chinese artists could study the art of Europe and North America. Meanwhile, Western art historians began looking curiously into the art world of contemporary China. The lack of comprehension was mutual and almost total. Chinese art administrators, including Jiang Feng, an important figure in our study, traveled to France hoping to find the glorious source of China’s revolutionary oil painting. They found it, of course, in the museums of Paris, but were appalled that its practice was largely defunct.

Western enthusiasts of Chinese landscape painting, the author among them, flocked to Beijing in search of the inheritors of China’s great artistic tradition. Although we saw many artists and exhibitions, the painting we had come to find was hung in China’s museums, not practiced in her studios. The art exhibited in Beijing in 1980 was very different from traditional Chinese painting; it also differed from contemporary Western art in many significant ways. To a Westerner, modern Chinese art was either bad or, more charitably, incomprehensible. The Chinese art world judged most contemporary Western art in the same terms.! In the years between 1949 and 1979, the Chinese Communist party (CCP) succeeded in eradicating most of the artistic styles and techniques of which it disapproved. By the end of that period, most practitioners of unapproved styles had died or were very old and had no followers; only the most elderly of living artists had ever personally experienced the making of serious nonpolitical art,

either in its traditional Chinese form or in Western form. Traditional landscape painting and modern international art had been replaced by styles that

had never before existed in China. By 1979, the art of the People’s Republic of I

2. INTRODUCTION China was strikingly different in style and subject matter both from contemporary Western art and from the art practiced in other Chinese areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The purpose of this book is to describe what happened in the world of Chinese pictorial art between 1949 and 1979 to leave such a large cultural gap. Among the most important changes was the elevation of realistic painting, which was practiced in all media but most commonly in oils and gouache, to a prestigious position. This change is remarkable, for although Western styles of art were employed by some earlier artists, they had largely failed to take root before 1949.* Moreover, the complete integration of selected Western media and styles into all levels of the Chinese art educational system served, I believe, to sever Chinese art from much of its past. Although artists have continued to paint in ink and color on Chinese paper and to mount some of their pictures in the traditional hanging scroll format, officially mandated changes in brushwork, theme, and style have been so great as to alter irrevocably the practice of Chinese painting. In particular, the subtle and culturally charged brush conventions that were practiced by masters of \ China’s past have been eradicated from contemporary practice. With them has passed from existence a crucial element in the visual and intellectual pleasure that traditional Chinese viewers experienced in their art. The changes accomplished during the three decades of our study have continued to drive the Chinese art world since 1979 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Laments for a lost past, however, may be both purposes less and premature.’ The proscription of many conventions of previous art has opened the door to innovation, to a potential cosmopolitanism, and to inevitable reevaluations and revivals of the very traditions that have been suppressed. While we cannot predict the future of Chinese art, it is clear that, in its various forms, it is emerging as a legacy of, as a development of, or as a rejection of the artistic programs in effect during the formative Maoist period. We will explore, by means of a chronologically organized narrative, the nature of those programs and their practical effects. Our text will discuss the means by which cultural controls were asserted over art, the ways in which artists responded to the new system, and the works of art that they produced as a result. The first chapter is a brief introduction to key personalities and to salient organizational features of the pre-1949 Chinese art world. Chapter 2, on the reform of Chinese art between 1949 and 1952, describes the reorganization of the art education system; the fate of self-employed artists; the establishment of a new Communist art bureaucracy; the rather limited stylistic, thematic, and technical changes that bureaucracy promoted; and the ideological ramifications of certain styles and techniques. A prominent theme of the book as a whole—the problem of how artists coped with arbitrarily shifting political requirements—appears, already, in this early period.

INTRODUCTION 3 The third chapter, which covers the period 1953—1957, explores the influence that the Soviet Union had on Chinese art and the consequent problems for the practice of traditional painting. An important result of the centralized cultural policies of the period was a new emphasis on technical facility and ideological uniformity, standards that have persisted in the art and criticism of subsequent decades. Chapter 4 continues to describe the manner in which the disagreements between pro-Soviet and traditionalist artists, aggravated by conflicting factional alignments, were brought to the surface by the Hundred Flowers liberalization of 1956. Strangely, the issue formed the basis for political condemnations during the Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, with support for traditional painting coming to be viewed as a test of party loyalty. Chapter 5 describes the complicated developments that took place between 1957 and 1965. Regional groups of printmakers and painters in the traditional media emerged in such places as Sichuan, Heilongjiang, Xi’an, and Nanjing. The artistic diversification that accompanied the administrative decentralization of the period yielded some of the most original developments in China’s new att. The effects on the Chinese art world of the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976, are described in chapter 6. Our narrative discusses the mobilization of student artists to create the pictorial iconography of the Cultural Revolution, the destruction of the art bureaucracy, and finally the reestablishment of a streamlined and quasi-military arts administration. The radical homogenization of stylistic and thematic approach that was a primary characteristic of official art in the early 1970s had a profound impact on many painters active in the period. Our study concludes with an outline of some preliminary attempts to overturn socialist realism in the post-Mao era. A note about research methodology may be appropriate at this point. My primary sources have been publications of various kinds from China, works of art viewed in Chinese and Western collections, and interviews with artists and administrators conducted between 1986 and 1990. The personal contact with artists has been particularly valuable because it gave me a hint of how the Chinese art world looked from the inside. Interviews, of course, present some hazards as documentation. Of greatest importance, the political climate in China at any given time will affect what people feel comfortable discussing. I was fortunate to conduct my research during a period when China enjoyed a comparatively great degree of openness. Nevertheless, some inhibitions remained. The agendas people bring to their interviews necessarily influence the way they present their experiences. In some cases, an individual may think certain aspects of his biography more important

than the interviewer does and, at the same time, prefer not to discuss the events a Westerner might find of real interest. More rarely, artists presented their careers as they wished they had been rather than as they were. In matters

4 INTRODUCTION of simple fact, some very helpful people turned out to have inaccurate memories for dates and chronological sequences.

People will, of course, remember the same events very differently. More difficult than conflicting accounts, though, are those that conform in all details. There are a few events, such as the Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957 and 1958, that many people of the same age remember in exactly the same terms, using phrases that turn out to be word-for-word quotations from propaganda magazines. Political indoctrination, in other words, seems to have blended with personal experience in their memories. In spite of these limitations, however, the opinions of the artists about their own work and about the work of their colleagues has provided some of my most valuable insights. Whenever possible, I have compared interview information with published material. In such cases, I cite the published source. Yet publications present their own difficulties. Most written statements were subject to party censorship at the time of publication; some articles are so strongly colored by the party line of the period that they reveal little about the ostensible subject. Even those that seem objective will still bear the imprint of contemporary politics. Reminiscences published in the 1980s have been most useful for me, but they are subject to some of the same variables as the interview. At this point, my subjectivity as a historian came into play; I have tried to select those strands of the story that seem to me most accurate, most compelling, and most fully imbued with the atmosphere of the time.

Y Rather than being organized around individual artists, the men and women who formed the Chinese art world, the book focuses primarily on the bureaucratic context from which art emerged. It explores, therefore, some of the administrative structures that were used by the Communist party to pro-

mote and control new painting. The first of these organizations is the art

, academy system, best exemplified by the art academies in Beijing and Hangzhou. The second is the Chinese Artists Association (CAA), the national professional organization that implemented party policy in the visual arts. The

third is the art publishing system, which supported hundreds of artists in “creation studios.” The bureaucratic forces we describe interacted to affect the lives of artists in complex ways, ways that changed over time and that differed according to the circumstances of each individual. This study is not intended as a definitive analysis of bureaucratic structures; indeed, it remains quite preliminary in this regard. Documents necessary to chart the precise evolution of some important

parts of the bureaucracy remain sealed in party archives. Even when one approaches such questions from the bottom up, through interviews with Chinese administrators, self-censorship limits discussion of the party’s inner workings by those who know it best. Nevertheless, the information that may be gleaned from available sources brings into focus the outlines and many of the details of this extraordinary world.

INTRODUCTION 5 It will be helpful, here, to provide a quick sketch of how the bureaucracy worked. The Chinese administration has two parallel and intersecting structures, that of the Chinese Communist party and that of the civil government.° The party structure descends from the Central Committee of the CCP, through the Propaganda Department, to the Chinese Artists Association, and through it to the art world. The civil structure descends from the State Council, through the Ministry of Culture, to specific art institutions. Chart 1 lists the most important parts of the bureaucracy during the period 1949-1979. Some intermediate levels of authority have been omitted; moreover, our diagram may not be accurate in all details for all periods. Nevertheless, it orients us to some key features of the division of responsibility at the national level. One striking feature of the Chinese system is the arbitrariness with which power is held and exercised within the bureaucracy. A person’s job title is no guarantee that he or she exerts a specific kind of authority in a given period,

nor does lack of title necessarily mean that power cannot be exercised. This arbitrariness, despite a seemingly systematized bureaucracy, will remain a prominent theme in our narrative. The bureaucracy was not a machine that operated predictably; nor could the authority of a powerful individual always be relied upon. The uncertain and unsettled relation between bureaucratic authority and extrabureaucratic power was perhaps the most difficult problem

confronted by any artist of the period. : The Communist party transmitted directives in both formal and informal

ways. Policies were conveyed directly to officials in appropriate parts of the civil government, who in turn based their administrative decisions and specific orders on their understanding of party policy. Thus, while civil administrators gave public face to most policies, they voiced decisions made within the party bureaucracy. Key administrators held joint appointments in both bureaucracies, thus assuring conformity of the civil administration to party decisions. At the lowest level, periodic meetings were held in all work units at which recent party documents would be read and discussed, thereby informing citizens of the party’s expectations of them. Most of the artists and theorists we will discuss were employees of one of the national art academies or one of the major publishing houses, work units that answered ultimately to the civil administration. Usually, work units were responsible not only for assigning job duties and paying salaries, but also for issuing art supplies, assigning studio space and housing, issuing ration tickets for food, approving applications for marriage, and, in the 1980s, granting permission for the birth of a child. Employees often lived together in the same apartment building or, for older housing, in the same courtyard. The power of | the work unit to affect both the daily private life and the creative life of the individual artist effectively prevented extreme forms of professional or social behavior, including open political dissent. In essence, the work unit policed the attitudes and daily behavior of its employees and punished those who com-

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FIGURE 1 )

Jiang Feng, Kill the Resisters, 1931, woodblock print, 14 cm X 17.7 cm.

dication that Jiang Feng was personally close to the older man, Jiang’s subsequent writings indicate that he considered Lu Xun to be a role model. Among the thirteen students were several who subsequently became influential revolutionary artists, including Jiang Feng and Chen Tiegeng. Jiang’s surviving student prints, like those of other participants, emulate European expressionist styles, and there is every reason to believe that the young artists saw themselves as part of an international leftist art community.*3 The leftists soon had an opportunity to apply their skills to the national good. Among Jiang Feng’s antigovernment broadsheets is Kill the Resisters (fig. 1) of late 1931, which depicts demonstrators fleeing as they are gunned down by Nationalist troops. This print at once supported resistance against

Japanese territorial claims in China and attacked the Nationalist government’s inappropriate response to public opinion. Late in the next year, Hu Yichuan, a Communist former student at the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, carved his more technically refined call to arms, To the Front (fig. 2).

REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 1§

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Hu Yichuan, one of the leftist students expelled from the academy earlier in 1932,24 was clearly better trained than the autodidact Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng joined the Chinese Communist party in March 1932 and the next month began what was to be a fifty-year career in arts administration. He was elected an executive of the League of Left-Wing Artists and a member of its CCP and Youth League branch committees.25 That May, the Eighteen Art

Society, which had been openly affiliated with the Communist-sponsored League of Left-Wing Artists, reorganized under a less notorious name, Spring

Earth Painting Club (Chundi huabut). The new name was chosen by At Qing,26 a member who had recently returned from Europe.2” Ai Qing is known today as a poet rather than as a painter,*® but as we shall see in chapter 3, he remained active as an administrator and art critic. Spring Earth held an exhibition at the YMCA in late June in conjunction with a display of Lu Xun’s personal print collection. Lu Xun reportedly purchased ten Spring Earth prints, including one by Jiang.2? On July 13, as the Spring Earth Club conducted its Esperanto class, Nationalist and foreign police burst in and arrested eleven members, including Jiang Feng, Ai Qing, and the

16 REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS

instructor.2° Jiang Feng and the others served two years in prison, during which time they continued their studies of art and literature. A letter sent by Jiang Feng and Ai Qing to Lu Xun late in 1932 reported that they had transformed the prison into a school, every day following a set schedule for reading, painting, writing poetry, and discussion.3! They also practiced their organizational skills by mounting three hunger strikes over food, bathing, and medical care.>4

Jiang Feng was rearrested in 1933, only two months after his July release from jail, and served two more years. Lu Xun continued to give his protégé psychological support, sending him a copy of his privately published album of prints by Kathe Kollwitz. By the end of this second prison term the artist had lost his association with the CCP.33 His biographers do not give a reason, but communication with the organization was undoubtedly difficult, if not impossible, for party members who were incarcerated.

Moreover, Jiang emerged from prison into an atmosphere of growing antagonism between Lu Xun’s two confidants, Feng Xuefeng and Hu Feng, and Zhou Yang, a leading party theorist in the League of Left-Wing Writers. Differences in literary approach were the chief issues openly debated, but a struggle for leadership of leftist literary circles was an important foundation for the dispute.3+ In the summer of 1935, shortly before Jiang Feng’s release from prison, Zhou Yang, unable to defeat the Lu Xun faction in reasoned debate, accused Hu Feng of collaboration with the Guomindang. This apparently unfounded charge led to a bitter split between Zhou Yang and Lu Xun that was publicly played out in left-wing literary journals. Jiang Feng’s chief contact in the CCP, Feng Xuefeng, withdrew from the party in 1936, and Hu Feng left Shanghai the following year. Lu Xun died in late 1936.7° Regardless of events in the CCP and literary world, Jiang Feng remained very active in leftist art between his October 1935 release from jail and his September 1937 departure from Japanese-occupied Shanghai.7° Among other things, Jiang was involved with a pictorial called Iron Horse Prints (Tiema

banhua), in which he, as an artist, ventured for the first time into a slightly avant-garde, if grim, style (fig. 3).3”7 Soviet constructivist prints reproduced in Lu Xun’s 1930 publication Xin’e huaxuan (Selected Pictures from New Russia) are a likely source for Jiang’s experiments.?8 During the period of Jiang Feng’s radical activities in the city of Shanghai,

eight soviets had been established by the Red Army in rural China. Under pressure of extermination campaigns by Nationalist troops, the Communist army in the south began a retreat to northwestern China in the fall of 1934, a journey now known as the Long March. Slightly more than a year later, after an arduous trek over six thousand miles of dangerous territory, the surviving members of the Red Army regrouped in northern Shaanxi. After the Japanese attacked Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai in the summer of 1937, many leftists

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_ > and in 1945 organized a symposium on the subject.°* After the Japanese surrender in September 1945, propaganda activity concentrated on the War of Liberation, as the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists was later known. Artists began leaving Yan’an and the Lu Xun Academy to consolidate Communist control in other areas. One group, which included a number of future administrators, including Jiang’s Shanghai friend Wo Zha, his student Gu Yuan, and the Manchurian natives Zhang Ding, Yang Jiao, and Zhang Xiaofei, was sent in October to China’s

northeast, about eight hundred miles away—a dangerous journey across Nationalist territory that took thirty-six days by foot and boat.>° The Northeast Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts (Dongbei Lu Xun wenyi xueyuan) was established in Shenyang three years later, in October 1948.°° Another large group of Communist cultural workers was organized as the North China Literature and Arts Work Team (Huabei wenyi gongzuotuan), with the poet Ai Qing and Jiang Feng as leaders. Between mid-September and November 1945 the group walked from Yan’an to Zhangjiakou, in northern Hebei, a distance of some 420 miles. In their new location, about one hundred miles northwest of Beijing, they founded a Literature and Arts College at the Jin-Cha-Ji (Shanxi, Chahar, Hebei) North China United Revolutionary University (Huabei lianda). Jiang Feng became art department head and vicesecretary of the party committee in the new college, which opened in January 1946. He served under the supervision of his old friend Ai Qing, who was vice-

REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 23 director of the college. Artists from the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border District Literature and Arts Union joined the Yan’an group. Some who worked with Jiang Feng in the new college, including Wang Zhaowen, Hu Yichuan, Mo Pu, and Yan Han, became important figures in the post-1949 art bureaucracy. In February 1946, Jiang Feng published an article entitled “The Problem of Using Old Forms in Painting” that outlined his fundamental views on pictorial art.°” Although the civil war delayed widespread implementation of his ideas,

and he was later forced to modify parts of his program, his subsequent administrative record provides evidence of an uncompromising idealism in his approach to art. His basic assumption was that Western realism was scientific and, therefore, the only appropriate means of reflecting the life and ideals of modern people. His essay contrasts “new forms,” which appear to be the conventions of late-nineteenth-century Western oil painting, with “old forms,” which are those of traditional Chinese painting and new year’s pictures. Jiang cites two frequently argued justifications for a progressive Chinese artist to paint in old ways: the first was that traditional forms were easier for

the common folk to accept, thus rendering propaganda more effective; the second was that patriotic artists sought by their very convictions to create “national forms” of painting. After analyzing both arguments, Jiang concluded that neither was adequate to justify the continuation of traditional art practices.

The utilitarian approach, he charged, did not hold up to scrutiny because the common people would accept Western conventions of chiaroscuro and perspective if the subject matter of the painting related to their own lives. Moreover, often the traditional mode was simply inappropriate for the task at hand. People might enjoy depictions of guerrilla warfare rendered against traditional landscape backgrounds, or images of soldiers outlined in the strokes previously used for painting delicate female beauties, but such representations failed to convey the proper atmosphere and thus were unsuitable as propaganda. The issue of “national forms,” the second commonly cited justification for promoting indigenous art, requires some explanation. The concept, developed by literary theorists in the 1930s, was strongly supported by Mao Zedong and appealed to many patriots because of its anti-imperialist flavor. Zhou Yang,

who served for much of his career as Mao Zedong’s spokesman on culture, was the foremost proponent of national forms in literature—“indigenous,

semiliterary folk styles...enjoyed by ordinary Chinese for hundreds of years,” in the words of Merle Goldman.°*? In art, as Jiang defined the problem,

national forms were associated with traditional ink painting and folk new year’s prints. Significantly for later cultural developments, Zhou Yang’s theories met, in the 1930s and 1940s, with heated opposition from Lu Xun’s literary disciples,

24 REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS

Feng Xuefeng and Hu Feng. They urged as an alternative the adoption of Western-oriented realist forms of writing and the internationalization of Chinese culture.5? Jiang Feng’s article revealed his strong personal sympathy for the internationalist view, while nevertheless adhering to the party-approved language of Zhou Yang’s policies. Because the manner in which Jiang Feng articulated the debate remained important in subsequent decades, it is worth looking at his arguments in some detail. Jiang defined the question of national forms in art in terms of the tension between old and new. While he acknowledged the immediate efficacy of

adopting old forms for propaganda in wartime, Jiang rejected the idea as a long-term program for the new art. People, he maintained, accept art that they are accustomed to seeing, and, he argued, such customs can be changed. As evidence he cited the popularity in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the areas closest to Shanghai, of yuefenpai images of beautiful girls. The heavily shaded, Westerninfluenced yuefenpai mode of drawing was introduced by tobacco companies to decorate calendars.®° Jiang pointed out that it soon became common in the

region to commission ancestor portraits in a similar rubbed-charcoal style, thus making the traditional painted figure, which relied primarily on outline, obsolete. If tobacco company advertisements could change folk taste in such a conservative domain of representation, he implied, Communist artists should be able to do the same. While Jiang conceded that the ink tones and brushwork of literati painting and the outlines and colors of folk painting each had their own merit, neither form alone, he argued, was entirely suitable for rendering the complexities of modern life. Rather than bringing realistic elements into traditional painting, therefore, Jiang advocated basing all art on Western techniques. Absorption of traditional elements should be a secondary concern. He particularly attacked “reformed Chinese painting,” which synthesized Chinese and Western methods, as serving no function but to extend the life of old forms. In a small leap of logic, Jiang concluded that because realistic techniques were most appropriate for reflecting the lives and ideals of the nation, realistic forms were best for creating a national form in art. The incongruity of adopting Western conventions of painting as the basis for Chinese “national forms” of art is successfully obfuscated by Jiang’s impassioned defense of realism.

Jiang’s promotion of national forms was not, as the term might seem to imply, a rejection of Western art forms. On the contrary, in his view the promotion of national forms required further development of new—that is to say, Western—styles and genres. Not all new forms were suitable to this end, however. Presumably influenced by Stalinist doctrines, Jiang wrote that it was necessary to cleanse new forms of the poisons of European modernism. Jiang’s opposition to most schools of modern Western art (which presumably de-

REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 25

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veloped only after his own youthful experiments in modernist graphic design were concluded), indeed, was to have profound influence on the development of Chinese art in the 1950s. Nevertheless, at this early stage, his equation of new forms with Western techniques set China’s art world on an international- __,’ ist course. gcA®

As Jiang Feng defined them, national forms of painting would be realistic and would employ Western academic principles of perspective, anatomy, composition, and color. They would not be based on traditional literati painting or on traditional folk styles, though they might be enriched by extracting apt elements from old art. This new realism would eradicate the gap between the people and “high-class art.”

Jiang’s intense opposition to both traditional painting and modernist Western styles set him at odds with many painters in the Nationalist-controlled territories. Self-employed professional artists often worked in traditional styles, and the ranks of China’s art professors included both traditionalists and those

who worked in modernist European styles. His criticism did not even spare

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REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 27

progressive professors of painting who promoted new styles that would bring Western concepts into traditional Chinese painting, for he required that West- ./ ern forms provide the very foundations of art. Although Jiang Feng’s internationalist ideas differed from the vision of Mao Zedong and Zhou Yang, he was nevertheless charged with reforming the Chinese art world under the new Communist government. In this role, he would have a profound effect on the development of art in China.

In 1948, the propaganda school moved south to Zhengding in central Hebei, where it merged with and took the name of North China University, previously based in Xingtai. The artists Luo Gongliu, Wang Shikuo,’ and Jin Lang joined Jiang Feng’s team;®! thereafter the art department was referred to as the third section of the North China University.62 Academic activity during the years in Hebei included research on local nianhua conventions® and training of art propaganda workers.®* Propaganda pictures made at North China University, including Wang Shikuo’s woodcut Reform the Hooligans (fig. 6) and Hong Bo’s nianhua Joining the Army (fig. 7), set the artistic standard for the early years of the new People’s Republic of China. Jiang Feng and his fellow veterans of the civil war became key figures in the Chinese art world after the Communist victory.

National Art Academies Before 1949: Lin Fengmian and Xu Beihong Professors at China’s pre-1949 art academies were a second important force in

the postliberation period. Two private schools, the Suzhou Art Academy (Suzhou meizhuan) and the Shanghai Art Academy (Shanghai meizhuan), trained many important artists, but they left a meager institutional legacy after they were disbanded in 1952.6 Instead two public academies, transformed by an infusion of Maoist and Stalinist art policies, provided the foundation for the Communist art academy system. The most prestigious art institute in China from 1928, when the school was founded, until the Communist victory in 1949 was the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, established with the sponsorship of Cai Yuanpei. Cai, a central figure in early-twentieth-century efforts to modernize the Chinese educational system, was a strong advocate of the arts as a necessary component of a sound education. During his brief tenure as minister of education in 1912, only a year after the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, he had prepared a proposal for a five-part modern curriculum. The new humanistic program consisted of universal military education, utilitarian education, moral education, world-outlook education, and aesthetic education (meiyu). The first two were oriented, respectively, to physical and intellectual development. The last two

28 REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS

aimed at expanding Chinese education to incorporate a concern for the transcendental as well as the material, and thus raised art to an extremely high position. Although Cai resigned from the government when internationalist and egalitarian parts of his program were rejected, his proposals had a profound effect on the development of Chinese education.®”

Five years later, while serving as chancellor of Peking University, he delivered an important speech entitled “On Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Education,” in which he explicated his belief that aesthetic education was more suitable for purposes of cultivating the human spirit than any form of organized religion might be.®8 Possibly in response to Cai’s ideas, an art academy was established in Beiping (as Beijing was then known) in 1918, but political circumstances of the period prevented immediate realization of his idealistic art education program. In 1927, Cai was appointed chancellor of the national university system, and once again he brought up the idea of establishing a national art college. His goal was to make aesthetic education the spiritual backbone of modern

education: the institutional cultivation of the creation, appreciation, and knowledge of beauty would, he hoped, popularize aesthetic ideals throughout society and thereby eliminate greed and selfishness. The next year, at last, he witnessed the founding in Hangzhou of the new state-sponsored art college,

the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, sometimes called the West Lake Academy of Arts (Xihu yizhuan). The director was Lin Fengmian, a young modernist oil painter who had studied in France and who wished to help young artists work together to realize the ideal of making society artistic.®? The goals of the school program were to: introduce Western art, reorganize Chinese art, synthesize Chinese and Western art, and create an art for the present epoch.”° Lin Fengmian had become extremely interested in the modernist painting

of the Fauves during his study in Europe. (He is said by former students to have believed that modernism began with Cézanne and to have encouraged students to begin their studies by analyzing his work.) Throughout his tenure as director, which ended soon after the 1937 Japanese invasion,’! he steered the academy to be both modern and Chinese, exposing students to up-to-date Western concepts and traditional Chinese painting alike, a task that was taken up again by him and his colleagues after the war. Many of the best Communist artists, including Yan Han, Hu Yichuan, and Luo Gongliu, received their training at the prewar academy in Hangzhou, though political circumstances prevented most from graduating. Following the 1949 liberation, Lin Fengmian, whose views of art do not appear to have changed, was largely excluded from participation in the Chinese art world.’

After 1949, when the capital was moved from Nanjing to Beijing, the academy in Hangzhou, like its former director, lost much of its national im-

REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 2.9

portance. The institution that replaced it under the Communists was the National Beiping Arts College (Guoli Beiping yishu zhuanke xuexiao), directed from 1946 to 1953 by the European-trained painter Xu Beithong. Xu’s legacy

in Chinese art education was indeed great:73 as Chu-tsing Li has observed, Chinese socialist realism may be seen largely as a continuation of Xu Beihong’s / ideas and theories.”4

Xu studied in Europe between 1919 and 1927 with the support of a government scholarship. During his stay in France and Germany, Xu rejected the modernism that then flourished all over Europe. Instead he concentrated on mastering the ideals and techniques of nineteenth-century romanticism and academicism. Upon his return to China, Xu assumed teaching and administrative posts in the newly founded art department at National Central University

in the capital of Nanjing. Xu’s unwavering support for his own students yielded a mutual loyalty that progressively increased his effectiveness as an arts administrator. He worked hard to obtain fellowships for his favorite students to study in Europe and helped them obtain employment after their arrival back home.7°

Xu spent the years from 1938 to 1941 in India, then returned to China, where he lived mainly in Chongqing. At the conclusion of the war, he was appointed director of the National Beiping Arts College. Although the assignment kept him away from Shanghai and Nanjing, the cultural and political centers of postwar China, he attacked the job with great vigor, assembling a teaching staff that could train students according to his artistic view. For in his staffing decisions, while political and personal loyalties clearly played a part, artistic criteria were primary. In 1929, Xu Beihong had published an article in which he attacked Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse, instead advocating realism as true art.’”® At the college, therefore, he promoted a classical, academic form

of art education that involved rigorous training in charcoal drawing. His strong preference for realistic Western art over more modern styles became an important educational principle and distinguished his teaching program from that of Lin Fengmian at Hangzhou. Xu’s own painting emphasized a synthesis between Chinese tradition and classical Western art. Drawings he made during his stay in Europe reveal great technical facility and a penchant for highly detailed realistic rendering (fig. 8).

And his oil portraits from that time, characterized by mysterious wooded backgrounds, softly illuminated faces, and homely details such as rustic flutes, are heavily imbued with nineteenth-century romanticism (fig. 9).

When Xu arrived back in China from Europe, he was inspired— apparently by those European academic artists of the late 1800s who rendered themes from Greek and Roman mythology and ancient history—to paint allegorical themes from Chinese history in a monumental, Western format. One such work that survives from this period is Tian Heng and His Five Hundred

30 REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS

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Retainers (fig. 10), painted between 1928 and 1930, of an uncompromising local leader of the Western Han period.”” A further step in his synthesis of Eastern and Western art was to render monumental history paintings in the Chinese style, as in The Old Man Who Moved the Mountain of 1940 (fig. 11). Although Xu himself was better suited to romantic portraits of people he could see than to ambitious compositions drawn from his imagination, the conceptual importance of such works, which attempt to combine Chinese and Western moralistic ideas, was great, far outweighing their aesthetic value.’”*

During the war Xu, like many intellectuals, became critical of right-wing Nationalist administrative policies and of the social problems he saw around

REVOLUTIONARIES AND ACADEMICS 31

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him. Although he was not a Communist, he was close to Tian Han, an important Communist art administrator,’? and knew Zhou Enlai. In letters probably

written in 1946, he stated that he intended to operate the newly reopened National Beiping Arts College as a leftist school.8° Faculty member Jiang Zhaohe, who had made his name with a monumental ink-and-color painting called Refugees (fig. 12), was indeed an outspoken critic of contemporary society.*! Other new faculty, including academic dean Wu Zuoren, were trusted former students.®* Xu’s final split with the Nationalists probably came

in 1947, when he was attacked by the Nationalist authorities for the academy’s alleged inadequacies in teaching Chinese painting.®4

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National Arts Academy in Hangzhou was placed under direct administration of CAFA and renamed the East China campus of CAFA.*°

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, the National Arts Academy had been reestablished in Hangzhou with the Chinese painter Pan Tianshou as director. The Western painting department was divided into several studios, most of which practiced modern, semiabstract styles. A former student who now lives in the United States describes the atmosphere as being very similar to an American art college in its freedom of expression.*” After the second year of

their five-year program, students chose a studio in which to continue their studies. Lin Fengmian advocated a synthesis of Chinese and modern Western

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THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 47

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art. Although he taught oil painting, most of his work of this period was painted on Chinese paper, a practice he continued until his death (fig. 15).48 In his method of instruction, students were urged to paint according to their initial feeling toward the subject.4? Moreover, he insisted that students not emulate his work but develop their own styles. Among the other professors, Guan Liang taught a style derived from the Fauves (fig. 16); Wu Dayu taught

late impressionist and cubist styles; and Fang Ganmin was influenced by cubism (fig. 17).5° Although the students were strictly trained in academic drawing, they were encouraged to be free and creative.°! According to a current school official, Jiang Feng’s new art education pol-

48 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART

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icy, based on his Yan’an experience, combined theory and practice. His goal was to develop the middle- and high-level artistic talent needed to construct the new society—referred to, in the parlance of the time, as the “new democracy.” Such artists would have revolutionary philosophies of life and art and would have mastered their specialties. To implement this policy, the school required students and faculty to study Marxism and Mao Zedong thought; to participate in the lives of workers, peasants, and soldiers; and to change their world views and artistic views. At the same time, Jiang Feng promoted creative work that reflected actual life, he reformed the academic curriculum, and he cultivated student capability in the realm of popular art.°? Thought reform of the modernist artists does not seem to have been particularly successful. It is hard to see how relations between victorious revolutionary artists and the explicit targets of their early enmity could have developed

THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 49 completely harmoniously. The academic artists were, according to one critic of Jiang Feng, condemned and then made to study academic drawing in classes taught by Communist artists of inferior technical skill.

It appears that many of the senior faculty, particularly practitioners of modern Western art, failed to understand or refused to accept the ideological principles of the indoctrination classes. Former administrators, most notably Lin Fengmian and Pan Tianshou, as well as senior professors were unlikely to abandon the artistic principles on which their life’s work was based. Many, including Lin Fengmian, Guan Liang, Fang Ganmin, and Wu Dayu, gradually drifted back to Shanghai.o+ Others, including the traditionalist Pan Tianshou, were reassigned to minor administrative positions but not permitted to teach. Lin Fengmian applied for permission to leave China but was refused. The State Council later paid his salary, presumably because his artistic ideas made him unemployable.>> Other artists continued to collect their salaries,°® but some lived on family funds. The vacant teaching positions were soon filled with recent graduates who had successfully mastered revolutionary styles and principles. Some students were as discouraged by thought reform as the older faculty and dropped out of school.”

The “popular” art that Jiang worked so hard to promote consisted of nianhua, lianhuanhua (comic books and illustrated story books), and propaganda paintings. The first two of these categories had been encouraged by Lu Xun as fertile areas for revolutionary development and were, as we have seen, specifically promoted by the Chinese government in 1949.°8 In these popular forms, Jiang, as the party spokesman, advocated use of an outline and unmod-

ulated color technique derived from traditional Chinese painting. It was claimed that the masses appreciated works painted in this style. Hu Feng reported a slightly different, private, Jiang Feng who disagreed

with the idea that the Chinese outline and flat-color technique was the only correct way of painting. This view corresponds with Jiang Feng’s 1946 article

in which he advocated new art based on techniques of Western realism. According to Hu, Jiang organized the translation of essays about classical European art for the students to read because he believed that foreign oil painting was valuable. Moreover, he invited Hu, a strident Westernizer, to speak at the academies in Hangzhou and Beijing in order to broaden the world view of the students.>? Jiang’s most controversial stance was his position on traditional painting. Zhou Enlai, as we have seen, advocated in 1949 “uniting with all the tradi-

tional artists... who are willing to remold themselves.”®° The problem for traditional artists, of course, would be how the art world might define “remold.” Jiang Feng strongly disapproved of the traditional ink painting associated with the Chinese upper classes but found value in other sorts of traditional pictures, such as religious murals and folk prints. Jiang’s opinion in 1949 was

59 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART that traditional Chinese painting (zbongguohua), especially ink painting, had no further potential. The only exception he made, perhaps unenthusiastically, was in the case of the party-approved single-outline and flat-color mode of figure painting. Although he acknowledged that the works of the venerable traditionalist Qi Baishi, who had admirers in high party circles, were good, he believed that Qi had come to a dead end. Jiang maintained that Chinese painting lacked any cosmopolitan quality and would become extinct in the future. “Oil painting has a future; Chinese painting has no developmental future.”®! NATIONAL PAINTING (GUOHUA) AND COLOR-AND-INK PAINTING (CAIMOHUA)

A note on terminology is required at this point. The Chinese term xihua or | xtyanghua, Western painting, has been used to refer both to paintings by Westerners and to paintings in Western media by Chinese artists. The difference between the two usages is usually clear from context, but, following Mayching Kao, we will use the term “Western art” to refer to work made by Western artists and “Western-style art” to refer to that made by Chinese.§2 The most commonly used Chinese term to describe paintings using the

: traditional Chinese media is guohua. The dictionary definition of guohua is “traditional Chinese painting,”®3 though translated literally it means “national painting.” In some contexts guohua may be an abbreviation for zhongguohua, Chinese painting, or, less often, for guocuihua, painting of national essence.®4 Guocuibua has had negative connotations since 1949 because of its origins in the National Essence Movement, a nativist cultural trend of the early republican period that became extremely conservative, both politically and socially.® In the People’s Republic of China, guohua and zhongguohua commonly refer to works painted with traditional Chinese pigments on a ground of traditional paper or silk. The terms thus describe the medium and ground of the painting rather than the style.° In practice, of course, a range of possible meanings for the term exists, which makes it difficult to translate accurately. Some painters use traditional materials to paint untraditional subjects or employ their materials in untraditional ways, combining Chinese paper with European pigments, for example, or, in recent years, making ink rubbings of paving stones or manhole covers.®” Socialist realist guohua painting, which we will discuss in later sections, is the hest example of painting that is nontraditional in style but traditional in materials (figs. 49-53). Following common Chinese practice we will call most works executed on Chinese paper or silk with predominantly Chinese pigments guohua. Some Chinese paintings depict traditional subjects with traditional materials and in traditional styles (fig. 18). To the extent possible, we will reserve the more narrow English rendering “traditional Chinese painting” for such genuinely traditional work.

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Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, revised ca. 1955.

Dong’s politically based alteration of the painting presented compositional difficulties. In the original painting Mao had been encapsulated in a space bor-

dered on the left by Gao Gang and on the right by two microphone stands. The artist replaced Gao Gang by enlarging a pink chrysanthemum and completing the partially visible palace gate behind him (fig. 30). Unfortunately, this

change opens up the space to the sky, unbalances the composition, and destroys the centrality of Chairman Mao. Dong found a solution to the compositional imbalance by adding two more microphones to the right. Thus, the broad expanse of space to Mao’s left is countered by an impressive array of technological equipment to his right. The result is not completely satisfactory, for the microphones dominate the center of the picture in an awkward, empty way, and the expanded space around Mao reduces his stature. This version of the painting was the one exhibited in Moscow in 1958 on the occasion of the first joint exhibition of art from twelve socialist countries.!©? It is the version most commonly reproduced today, though the painting no longer exists in this form.

84 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART We will jump ahead in our narrative to follow the painting’s buffeting by subsequent political winds. During the early years of the Cultural Revolution Dong Xiwen was, like most professors, harassed by the Red Guard and representatives of the Cultural Revolution administration. He was first ordered to replace Mao’s disgraced heir Liu Shaogi, the tall figure to the left of Madame Song, with his new protégé, Lin Biao. While Dong had earlier complied with the political need to remove a person from his composition, he was unwilling to add a person in a historically inaccurate position. Of course, during the Cultural Revolution he would not have been able to refuse such a request directly; but the final assignment he accepted was to remove Liu Shaoqi without adding another figure. This was no easy task, however, since Liu Shaogi was one of the most prominent figures in the painting. In a tricky reformulation of the center of the composition, Liu Shaoqi’s head was reduced in size and transformed into that of Dong Biwu, who originally stood beside Zhou Enlai. The torso was modified slightly so that the figure now stood behind Song Qingling, rather than in front. The legs were shortened, as necessary to push the figure into the second row. Finally, the gap left by Liu’s missing feet was repainted to match the carpet pattern. Though this solution was ingenious, the result is odd. The new Dong Biwu does not recede into the second row as intended. Instead, he appears as a leering, glowing figure, a strangely malevolent character in the midst of an otherwise stately group (plate 1). Dong’s last revision was a failure. It is difficult to know whether the outcome was unintentional, to be attributed to the excessive psychological stress of the Cultural Revolution, or whether Dong Xiwen was passively resisting the political pressure by rendering the painting unexhibitable. For both aesthetic and political reasons, it cannot be rehung in the museum in its present state. !63 The saga did not end with the artist’s terminal illness. In 1972, as order was restored to the art world following the chaotic first phase of the Cultural Revolution, it was decided to refurbish the Museum of Revolutionary History. The authorities mandated that Lin Boqu, the white-haired gentleman at the far left, must be removed from the composition before The Founding of the Nation could be hung. Dong, too ill to paint, refused to allow anyone else to touch his work. As a result, two artists from CAFA, Zhao Yu and Jin Shangyi, were enlisted to make an exact copy of Dong’s painting that incorporated the iconographic changes. !4 By the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1976, Dong Xiwen had died of cancer. With the accession of Deng Xiaoping in 1979, the museum display was again reorganized to restore historical accuracy and to recognize the political rehabilitation of Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping, and other targets of the Maoists.

Dong’s painting, now lacking Liu Shaogi, was once again politically inappropriate. The government respected the wishes of the artist’s family, who

THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 85

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Copy by Zhao Yu and Jin Shangyi after Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, 1972, with revisions ca. 1980, oil on canvas, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History.

insisted that Dong’s own work must not be repainted by another artist. Artists were therefore hired to revise the Zhao Yu—Jin Shangyi copy. The Founding of the Nation that now hangs in the Museum of Revolutionary History is the transmuted replacement, largely painted by Zhao and Jin (fig. 31). It no longer resembles any of Dong’s original versions: Liu Shaogqi and Lin Boqu have reappeared; a previously unidentifiable figure in the back row now looks vaguely like the young Deng Xiaoping; a dark-haired man with glasses occupies Gao Gang’s spot; and four microphones flank Mao Zedong. Even so, the painting remains the most famous example of Dong Xiwen’s art and is still widely reproduced. The Founding of the Nation was technically and stylistically an appropriate monument of its time. Its most prominent stylistic qualities, including garish color and crisply outlined figures, were those of the new popular art. Jiang

Feng praised it in 1954 for being rich with the distinguishing features and breadth of spirit of national painting.'©5 At the same time, it made effective use

86 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART of Western conventions of perspective and figural organization, which linked it to the art of the Soviet Union. It sums up the years of popularization, yet foreshadows the technical specialization of the subsequent era. Jiang Feng reported in 1954 that it had been reproduced fifty-six thousand times in a three-month

period. Its continuing popularity may be partial validation of Jiang Feng’s theory that the people will adjust their taste to whatever they are accustomed to seeing.

Artists Serve the People In general, Chinese intellectuals welcomed the fall of the Nationalist govern-

ment, which was corrupt and ineffective. Nevertheless, some artists were afraid, owing to both pre-1949 propaganda and accurate reports that people labeled as Jandlords were treated very harshly by Communist land reform teams. The traditional painter Qi Baishi (1863-1957), who held a largely honorific faculty post at the National Beiping Arts College, told Xu Beihong that he expected the Communists to kill him if he did not flee.!®° The poet Ai Qing, along with Jiang Feng and Wang Zhaowen, paid a visit to the aged Qi Baishi in 1949.'®7 Although Ai Qing later described the encounter as though it were a

pleasant social event, the three men had been instructed by the military to direct administrative transfer of the National Beiping Arts College to Communist authorities.!68 They wore military uniforms, and they probably had at least a pretext of official business in their call on an artist none had previously met. The three Communist administrators were accompanied to Qi Baishi’s home by Li Keran, Qi’s friend and student; even so, the artist was extremely frightened to see three soldiers at his gate. In introducing themselves, however,

Ai Qing, who was a great enthusiast of Qi’s work, told the old artist how much he had admired a Qi Baishi painting that hung in the classroom where he studied art. Moreover, both Wang Zhaowen and Ai Qing had studied under Lin Fengmian at Hangzhou; as they discussed their common interest in Lin Fengmian’s work, the old artist gradually overcame his misgivings. Once he realized that these Communist soldiers were art lovers, he quickly painted gifts for each of them. Ai Qing was particularly pleased with his picture, which may have been a 1949 painting dedicated to him that was published several years later; if not the same, it was at least very similar.!°? Jiang Feng liked his painting, too, but was never as enthusiastic about Qi Baishi’s work as was the poet. In keeping with the military discipline of the time, they later paid the artist for his work. Mao Zedong was similarly inundated with paintings and calligraphy by guohua artists, whose motives ranged from patriotism to panic. Through the efforts of Xu Bethong, Ai Qing, and others, Qi Baishi received

THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 87 the protection of the Communist authorities, even if he were too old (or disinclined) to reform his world view. He was not required to learn the new art and continued painting in the traditional manner. Indeed, his enduring health and productivity became an important part of the Communist party’s public relations program over the next eight years. Mao Zedong, who was otherwise relatively uninterested in pictorial art, became an enthusiast of Qi Baishi’s paintings and acquired at least five works by this fellow Hunanese in the early years of the PRC.!7° Other artists, more optimistic about the new government, willingly bent their artistic activities to its needs in the first years after the founding of the People’s Republic. Preceding sections have discussed officially approved paintings from the early 1950s. The styles and subjects of the official art were, as we have seen, extremely limited. This uniformity in artistic expression is all the more striking when one considers the extremely varied backgrounds of the artists who made the pictures. This phenomenon raises questions about the responses of individual artists to political demands upon their art. To what degree and for how long were artists willing to submit to official requirements? If willing, to what extent did they possess the technical versatility and intellectual detachment needed to succeed? At what point might unreconcilable conflicts between the demands of party discipline and individual expression arise? Of many possible examples, we will briefly introduce five artists, Hou Yimin, Dong Xiwen, Li Keran, Yan

Han, and Shi Lu, whose careers we will follow in subsequent periods as well. During the early 1950s, their work briefly converged in a single partysponsored propaganda style. In later decades, they developed their artistic talents in different media and different expressive modes. We will not discuss the generation of Xu Beihong (1895-1953), Liu Haisu (b. 1896), Lin Fengmian (1900-1991), and Yan Wenliang (1893—1988) in de-

tail, for they were largely uninvolved with the new art. Xu Beihong, the artist best suited temperamentally and stylistically to the Communist artistic order, fell ill in 1951 and died two years later.'7! Yan Wenliang was valued as a technician and taught color and perspective theory at Hangzhou until the Cultural Revolution. He published a book on perspective in 1957.'72 The effects his apolitical landscape paintings (fig. 20) may have had on students were largely counteracted by classes in creation, which were taught by faculty who better understood the new political order. One surprising aspect of Yan’s influence was the development of an underground landscape painting movement in Shanghai during the early 1970s, at the height of the Cultural Revolution’s promotion of progovernment figure painting. With art schools closed since 1966, young artists had no choice but to teach themselves.'73 Most began with pamphlets on how to paint portraits of Chairman Mao, but some moved on to copying prohibited reproductions of

88 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART

European painting and to plein air sketching. Yan Wenliang was liberated from the investigatory incarceration of the Cultural Revolution authorities in 1969 and spent time in subsequent years painting by himself.!74 He attracted many young followers when it was discovered that he painted in the park and that he sometimes gave technical pointers to young artists who worked nearby. Thereafter, he quietly welcomed enthusiastic teenage artists to his apartment, where he showed them the landscapes he had painted in France and Italy fortyfive years before. The odd result of his kindness was that romantic and impressionist styles of early-twentieth-century France became synthesized into a new regional Shanghai style. It was practiced by Yan himself, a few of his elderly students from the Suzhou Art Academy, and many self-taught artists of the “lost generation,” those born in the 1950s who had been denied formal

schooling by the Cultural Revolution (fig. 32). Yan Wenliang was made a director of the national CAA in 1981, at the age of eighty-eight.!75

Liu Haisu and Lin Fengmian, whose artistic principles were the explicit targets of Communist art policies, left China after the Cultural Revolution. Although they were given honorific titles in the mid-1950s, the art they might have produced during the three decades with which we are concerned, 1949 to 1979, was exhibited infrequently and with little fanfare. Much of it was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Thus, all were best known for their early work, transformed into historical figures while still in their fifties. The new art was the art of younger men. HOU YIMIN

We first mention the youngest of our five artists, Hou Yimin (b. 1930), only to emphasize the great importance accorded very young painters by the Com-

munist regime. Hou, a native of Gaoyang county in Hebei, enrolled in the newly reestablished National Beiping Arts College in 1946, at the age of sixteen. He joined the underground Communist party cell at the school and in 1949 became its secretary. His family background was sufficiently prosperous that it marred his later party career with the label “bad class background,” in spite of his early political activism. In December 1948, when it became clear that Beiping would soon fall to the Communists, the eighteen-year-old artist set about organizing academy students and faculty, including Dong Xiwen, Zhou Lingzhao, and the printmaker

Li Hua, to make pro-Communist handbills. The propaganda pictures were secretly printed at Xinminbao (New People’s Gazette) and distributed after the Nationalist surrender.!”6 Hou remained at the academy to participate in the

art cadre classes, and then became an instructor. During this period he produced several model nianbua. The ambitious Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the CCP (fig. 21), as we have seen, was painted in collaboration

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Anonymous, Door Guardian, Hebei province, one of a pair, polychromatic woodblock print, new year’s picture, Bo Songnian collection.

TRE RErOKM Or CHINESE ART 99

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Yan Han, Protect Our Homes, 19391940, pair of woodblock prints, published by Lu [Xun Literature and] Arts Woodcut Team, Chinese Historical Museum.

considered necessary to modify the European-oriented styles practiced by most woodcut artists accordingly. Yan Han, Luo Gongliu, Hu Yichuan, and others who made revolutionary new year’s pictures had already adapted folk styles to the new Communist iconography. Door guardians might then convey not the protective power of the gods but the importance of the anti-Japanese war. In

the post-1942 period, artists such as Gu Yuan and Luo Gongliu went on to create narrative prints in a new style that was more in tune with peasant tastes. German expressionist styles of the early 1930s were rejected, but Soviet realist

art was modified as well. Rather than making heavily shaded, often rather somber prints, Gu Yuan carved away most of his block in the traditional Chinese manner, leaving behind only outlines set against a flat ground (fig. 40).!99 Jiang Feng, as we have seen, had ventured into this style by 1942 (fig. 5). Yan Han carved a new version of his PLA door guardians in 1944 that is much more closely related to folk styles than are his earlier images (fig. 41).!7! After the Japanese surrender, Yan went south with his comrades to Zhang-

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LHE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 103

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Yan Han, 1944, polychromatic woodblock prints, pair of new year’s prints. Above, left: Win the War of Resistance, Chinese National Art Gallery. Above, right: Army and People Cooperate, Colgate University, Picker Art Gallery.

propaganda work, he marched into Beiping with the People’s Liberation Army. He participated in the National Congress of Literary and Arts Workers in July 1949, and was elected a member of the FLAC. In the fall of 1949, when Jiang Feng went to Hangzhou to reorganize Yan’s alma mater, Yan Han accompa-

nied him as part of the new administrative team. Rather than remaining in Hangzhou, as many of the Communist administrators did, Yan Han returned to Beijing in the summer of 1950 to accompany an art exhibit to the USSR. Soon after he returned he was assigned to lecture at CAFA. His responsibilities included teaching the principles of Mao’s Yan’an Talks on Literature and Arts and “creation” classes in which the students applied such ideas to their finished art.174

Yan Han’s best woodcut from the 1949 national exhibition is based on his

IO4 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART

land reform activity in Hebei. Down with Feudalism possesses a pictorial beauty that belies its didactic intent (fig. 14). Rather than working in the sim- | plified style of the liberated zones, Yan Han returns to a classical European mode of composing a print. A fortresslike north Chinese architectural compound dominates the picture, its monolithic strength softened by complex effects of light and shade on its masonry and roof tiles. The variegated tones of the deep sky against which it is placed further strengthen the effect. Only after this aesthetic impression has been absorbed do we concentrate on the more intellectual activity of reading the picture’s story. As one peasant seals the doors of the castle in preparation for future redistribution of the wealth within, the landlord and his family are led away by the peasants who previously worked his land. Onlookers wave red banners—“Down with Feudalism,” “Land to the Cultivators.” The insubstantial yet brightly colored revolutionary banners are well balanced against the solid architectural structure erected under the old

society, thus making not only a pleasing composition but also a statement about the difficulties overcome by the revolution against the established order. Yan Han’s works, while faithfully following the party art policies of each succeeding period, consistently rank among the most pictorially satisfying of

those produced by artists of the old liberated zones. Moreover, from his earliest works he displays extraordinary technical facility and a broad range of stylistic capabilities. Artists such as Dong Xiwen and Li Keran initially contributed to the post-

liberation art academies by instructing students in technique. Communist veterans such as Yan Han, however, taught a second and equally important component: ideology. The “creation” classes for which he was responsible correspond most closely to the thesis projects or graduation exercises in an American art school, where the student is expected to demonstrate the technical and

conceptual maturity developed through academic study by independently creating a body of art. The similarities end here, however, for in China “creation” was not merely an artistic statement but a political one, and the emphasis was not on individuality but on contribution to the common good. Yan Han’s

job, therefore, would have included advice on compositional and technical matters, as well as on choice of a suitable topic and style. The choice of subject, particularly the effectiveness and political correctness of its didactic message, was the most important element in determining

whether a work would gain acceptance in the art world of the time and whether it would be awarded a passing mark by the academy. In the early PRC

years, for example, a revolutionary artist steeped in the principles of Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talks would be expected to promulgate those ideas, which were perceived as having overwhelming political significance. Only slightly less important was appropriate choice of style. If the party administration had declared that popularization of art was its goal, as it did in the early PRC period,

THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART Ios the creation teacher would stress that popularization meant adopting specified artistic forms—such as new year’s pictures, propaganda pictures, and comic books. Yan Han exemplified the new policies in his own work as well. As part of the new year’s print movement of the early fifties he produced a prize-winning piece of propaganda for women’s rights entitled The Bride Speaks (fig. 23). Rather than undergoing an arranged marriage, the subject of Yan Han’s painting has presumably chosen her own spouse. In the old marriage customs, when dowry and other gifts were often specified by contracts between parents, the bride’s face was covered and she was an anonymous and sometimes unhappy participant in what amounted to an economic exchange between two clans. Yan’s bride and groom, by contrast, take their vows according to the new marriage law beneath a portrait of Chairman Mao. Yan’s didactic image, which was probably aimed at peasants, is painted in the party-mandated outline and bright-color style, with only slight touches of Western realism. SHI LU

We have thus far paid slight attention to the contributions of artists outside the main urban areas of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. However, as distant parts of China came under control of the People’s Liberation Army, art propaganda workers found themselves demobilized in various provincial cities. The printmaker and Chinese painter Shi Lu is typical of the many young artists who joined the Communist revolution and then played an important role in implementing the new policies in China’s smaller cities. Born in 1919 of a landholding family in Renshou county, Sichuan, Shi Lu (né Feng Yaheng) studied guohua in Chengdu between 1934 and 1936 at the Oriental Art Academy (Dongfang meishu zhuanke xuexiao), a school run by his older brother.!?? After his graduation he worked as an elementary school art teacher. In 1938 he enrolled in West China Union University to study history and sociology. He

left home permanently in January 1939 and made his way to the liberated zone. After training, he worked with a drama troupe doing propaganda. In 1940 he became leader of the art group of the Northwest China Cultural Work Team. His duties included painting, theatrical backdrops, propaganda, and cartoons. In 1943 he participated in rectification at the Central Party School’s Third Section, after which he worked for two years making popular art in the Culture Association of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. He joined the party in 1946, participated in land reform in 1947, and became an editor of the Masses Pictorial in 1948. For a time he headed the art group of Yan’an University’s arts and literature department. He attended the 1949 Congress of Literary and Art Workers in Beijing.!9* By 1950 he had moved to Xi’an, where he was responsible for the Art Work Committee of the Shaanxi-

106 THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Culture Association, worked as director of the Northwest Pictorial Press, and succeeded in bringing his efforts to organize new year’s picture production to the attention of national authorities.!?> He was selected vice-chairman of the Northwest Artists Association in 1950 and

became one of the two most important art leaders in this western Chinese city.196

Although his early artistic training was in Chinese painting, he learned to make woodblock prints in the liberated zones. He exhibited both landscape

and figurative subjects in the First National Exhibition. His Down with Feudalism (fig. 42) is similar in subject and composition to Yan Han’s work of the same title (see fig. 14). If anything, Shi Lu’s picture is constructed more as a Chinese painting might be, with architectural elements ascending vertically, like mountain peaks, to the very top of the composition. His attempts to convey three-dimensionality are not always successful, as in the terraced entrance on the lower left side of the picture, but such minor defects are rendered inconspicuous by his attention to masonry, which covers most of the picture’s surface with pleasing linear rhythms. Although the peasant horde sweeping up the steps is essential to the picture’s intelligibility, the work succeeds because of its abstract juxtapositions of textures, tones, and angles.

Shi Lu’s Mao Zedong at the Heroes Reception, an interior scene with figures, was more typical of art displayed at the First Exhibition (fig. 43). The

subject of Mao Zedong expressing his appreciation to his supporters was painted by many artists in the early 1950s, as Lin Gang’s nianhua illustrates (see fig. 25). Shi Lu’s ambitious print possesses a certain awkward, primitive charm, but in this work he is unable to compensate for his lack of facility in rendering figures by supplying interesting surface textures. He set for himself daunting problems in perspective. Dozens of figures sit at tables in a long, narrow room. The receding wall on the left is hung with four pictures, one after the other; at right a row of windows has been pulled open, creating a potential chaos of lines receding at different angles. The technical difficulty is increased because the figures are carefully shaded with fine lines. The artist has observed and attempted to reproduce the cheerful grimace into which the faces of some old Chinese peasants settle in repose. This homely descriptive touch, seen at both left and right, is so obvious as to give the composition an almost comical aspect. Chairman Mao, just barely recognizable, exposes his teeth in a slightly less ludicrous fashion as he listens to an excited old peasant describe his good deeds. The point of view the artist adopts is both original and effective, emphasizing the closeness between Chairman Mao and the old soldiers, but the artist lacked the technical skills to execute his conception. Hindsight informs us that socialist realism was not a style with which Shi Lu ever became entirely comfortable. Although he had quite a bit of critical success in the 1950s with pictures as awkward as this, it was not until he returned to traditional painting

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Shi Lu, Mao Zedong at the Heroes Reception, 1946, woodblock print.

in 1959 that he found his own voice. Unfortunately, such pictures as this, in which landscapists strove somewhat unsuccessfully to paint monumental figures, made up a large part of the First National Exhibition.!?7 Shi Lu’s career as a regional arts administrator typifies an important way in which revolutionary artists were supported after 1949. It provided a living wage, in return for which the artist organized and participated in official art activities, such as exhibitions, publications, and propaganda work. Such artists also served as role models and educators on the local level, promoting a unified national art that ultimately superseded any preexisting regional artistic traditions. For example, Shi Lu himself painted a well-received nianhua during the popularization movement of the early 1950s (see chart 4). Administrators in Shi Lu’s position also supervised local submissions to national exhibitions, thus ensuring that the artists whose works were seen nationally were those who upheld the unified party standards. The assignment of revolutionary art workers to provincial centers presented them with both opportunities and disadvantages. Because the official art

THE REFORM OF CHINESE ART 1Og9

journals, first Renmin meishu and later Meishu, and the party newspaper, Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), were published in Beijing, the activities of artists who worked in Beijing were often reported with great detail in the national press, whereas comparatively little was heard from the provinces. As one result, the faculty and students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts were inordinately important in defining the national standards for the new art between 1949 and 1957. Artists in the provinces, by the same token, were often in the position of reacting to new art rather than defining it. Nevertheless, the party directive to learn from actual life led artists in the provinces to develop, over time, a sensitivity to the geography and local color of their new homes that unavoidably flavored their art. In a later chapter we will investigate Shi Lu’s

blossoming as the leader of a new regional school and then as an eccentric individualist. Painters who supported the Communist cause were extremely varied in so-

cial background and artistic approach. They ranged from children of wealthy landlords to offspring of the poor. They were oil painters, guohua artists, and printmakers. Some joined the Communists early on and others not until 1949. After liberation they became publishers, administrators, and art professors. Yet for a brief time immediately following the Communist victory, they worked in common styles for a common purpose.

THREE © FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

In China as a whole, 1953 was marked by preparation for the first five-year economic development plan, with a focus on industrialization and technological improvement.! In September, the Soviets agreed to provide a broad range of technical assistance to China. The conclusion of the Korean War in the same

year eliminated the perceived need for artists to make military propaganda, thus pointing to a shift from the wartime foundations of the new Chinese art. Renewed concern with the technical quality of art, moreover, seems to have accompanied the nationwide interest in Soviet technology. The year 1953, therefore, marked an important transition from a rigid emphasis on popularized subjects and forms to the administration of art as a professional, specialized undertaking. Both the art academies and art associations were reorganized to implement

the shift in policy. The two most important practical results of this change were promotion of Soviet-style oil painting and the revival of guohua. Indeed, a somewhat simplistic but largely valid generalization about painting in the period 1953-1957 is that young artists learned oi] painting while old artists revived guohua. More broadly, as will be seen, all aspects of the Chinese art world, from educational institutions to the exhibition structure, were systematized during the period. This chapter will discuss the most important theoretical issues of this half-decade and their implementation in several of China’s major art institutions. While traditional art most often appeared in activities sponsored by the Chinese Artists Association, the strength of the new Soviet-inspired art was based in the academies. These institutions, which were small, exclusive, and

carefully supervised, developed the most systematic approach to art, one 110 strongly influenced by Soviet prototypes. All art was to be reformed. Oil paint-

FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION III

ing was to be equated with Soviet socialist realism or with a new national form of realism. Modern styles—which, according to Soviet dogma, were incapable of reflecting the lives of the people—were theoretically indefensible and thus absent from the curriculum.* Chinese painting was to be improved by replacing most traditional subjects and styles with modern figurative scenes executed in a realistic mode.

, In the art world outside the academies, where artists were less tightly controlled, the issues were far more complex. Although many young artists emulated the well-publicized academic models, older artists did not always under-

stand or agree with the canons of new reformed art. Some enthusiasts of twentieth-century European or Sino-Western art harbored private doubts about the Soviet program from its earliest implementation. Outbreaks of pre-1949 modernist styles occurred among elderly artists in the early 1960s and again in the mid-1980s, indicating that they had not been completely reformed. At the other extreme, some traditional Chinese painters hoped to be exempted from the canons of revolutionary art based on their contributions to the national heritage. Debates over theoretical differences and personal rivalries led to lively critical contests during the 1950s. Unfortunately, whatever constructive tensions existed between the art of international communism and Chinese national art were ripped apart by the polarization of the Hundred Flowers campaign of 1956 and 1957, when contradictions between Western and traditional Chinese styles became the basis for factional attacks. The period came to a close with the Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, during which artistic opinions came to be labeled as political crimes and the most opinionated advocates of both styles were purged.

Ai Qing on the Reform of Chinese Painting In spite of his appreciation for Qi Baishi’s painting, the poet Ai Qing was an important spokesman for the view that Chinese painting should be thoroughly reformed through synthesis with Western art. He conducted a session of the Shanghai Art Workers Political Study Group on March 27, 1953, that gives a lively sense of the controversies regarding administration of traditional art. In his role as political instructor, Ai Qing castigated much of traditional Chinese

painting and, by extension, most Shanghai guohua artists. The text of his speech, published by Wenyibao in August,* acknowledges the mandate to perpetuate the nation’s cultural legacy, a mandate that dominated post-1952 art theory. Yet as Ai describes the aspects of Chinese painting to be retained and those to be eradicated, it becomes clear that he believed that most traditional

Chinese art belonged in China’s museums rather than in her studios. His

TI2 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

speech, an eloquent defense of the need for thorough reform of Chinese painting, is a key document in the subsequent intraparty battle about the future of guohua. Ai Oing’s “On Chinese Painting” There are people who ask, “Since we esteem ancient cultural relics, why must we reform guohua?” First we will discuss the question of our attitude toward the national cultural legacy. Our national history is very long and has an extraordinarily rich legacy, including its cultural legacy. These national legacies are our nation’s wealth because they are expressions of our historical ancestors’ abilities and wisdom, reflecting our ancestors’ lives and struggles and the customs and habits of people of past ages, and so forth. In order to protect ancient cultural relics, our government has expended great effort and has done much collecting and research work. From the ancient cultural relics displayed in museums we can clearly see the process of our national development. At the same time, we can receive inspiration from these legacies to create even more, even better things. The preservation of cultural relics and how one should look at these | cultural relics are two different things. Ancient cultural relics are those created by people of antiquity. If a piece is destroyed, we have lost a piece, for we cannot summon the ancient person up from his grave to make another one. Thus, we must preserve it. As to how to evaluate the things left from ancient times, this is yet another matter. Such evaluation originates in our needs and our viewpoints. That is to say, we decide which things to study and which things not to study on the basis of today’s needs. some people think that if we value the national heritage, all things that are ancient Chinese, regardless of what, are good. “If they are Chinese, they are good.” This is really the “national essence” school of thought, in which ancient cultural relics are approached with a narrow, nationalistic spirit, and is something that we have opposed for a long time. Such people do not know that many of our cultural relics were suited to the needs of life and struggles in their time, but if we mechanically copy them now, the [results] are backward. Should guohua reform? Here we must also clarify several problems. Socalled guohua, in general, are paintings painted with Chinese brush, Chinese ink, and Chinese pigments on Chinese paper or silk. A more appropriate term would be national painting [minzu huihua); it uses our own tools and methods and it adopts forms developed by our nation over a long period of time to manufacture paintings. Naturally, no one would misunderstand this and think that remolding guohua is like the revolution in dramatic arts,4 in which the works left by ancient people are revised. Doing that [to old paintings], needless to say, would be criminal. So the terminology “remolding guohua” has inherent contradictions.

FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION 113

What we should discuss are these two questions: (1) How does our painting accept the legacy of national painting? (2) How do we use the tools we originally had (Chinese brush, ink, color, paper, and silk) to paint new things? This is the problem of how people living now can make socalled guohua. Paintings by ancient people were painted according to the demands of their own times. Because they, to a greater or lesser degree, satisfied the demands of their own era, their works were valued and preserved. We are now working for living people. Exhibitions are held for viewing by the living, not for viewing by the dead. Printed matter is the same; our work must satisfy the demands of living people. The ancients will not make any demands of us. But many people who make paintings seem to be laboring to satisfy the demands of ancient people and do not consider the opinions of living people. Our artists always hope people will say that our paintings are good; even if we hope that people will point out shortcomings, our goal is still to paint better the second time. There certainly won’t be anyone who publishes work in the hope that people will castigate it. If we cannot create art suitable to this era, then our era will have no art. Because of copying [linmo], today’s so-called guohua is almost indistinguishable from that of Ming and Qing times. Many paintings leave the viewer unable to tell whether they were painted by a person of today or by a Ming- or Qingdynasty person. The times have changed, the people’s lives have changed, but the so-called guohua has not changed; it seems that guohua is an art that tells lies. Therefore, no one believes guohua anymore. Once an artist lies, the people have the right to disbelieve. The people believe artists because they tell the truth. If, in our painting, one cannot see that the subject differs from those of ancient paintings and cannot see that the expressive method differs from those of ancient paintings, then we should simply publish old paintings. Why ask lots of people to paint pictures? He paints plum blossoms; you also paint plum blossoms. He paints orchids; you also paint orchids. Your painting and his painting—if it weren’t for different signatures, one could not tell who actually painted it. What literature and art fear most is repetition. No matter how good something is, a duplicate of it does not have much significance. Paintings are painted by people. If the painting is bad, a person must take responsibility. If you say that the guohua needs remolding, the painters must first be remolded. What is wrong with the painters? Is it that they do not understand the demands of the people, they cannot see that times have changed, and they are unsuitable to this era? The unsuitable must be altered, altered until it is suitable. If clothes don’t fit because they are too big or too small, they must be altered so that they fit when you try them on. If the road is too narrow, it must be altered so that it is convenient for transportation. Change is a good thing. If something is unsuitable and is not changed, we should abandon it. That we still want to change it

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means we don’t want to throw it out. Now all of China is undertaking reforms, reforming so that it is suitable for the development of socialism. | have heard that some people dislike the word “remolding” [ gaizao]. They prefer instead to be perpetually imprisoned by the bonds of plagiarism and imitation. They are unwilling to liberate themselves into the boundless expanses of the great creative universe. This means that they are unwilling for society to make any demands of them. Some people think, “Workers, peasants, and soldiers don’t love our paintings, and whose fault is it? The workers, peasants, and soldiers are to blame, because they are uncultured and don’t understand. After eight or ten years, when they are more cultured, they will understand by themselves.”

This is a way of thinking that shirks responsibility. Times have changed, and the people who look at paintings have changed. In the past, it was bureaucrats and landlords who looked at paintings; now it is the working people who look at paintings. Naturally their demands of painting will not be the same. The people who paint Chinese paintings are faced with this problem. What should they do? Perhaps some will sigh, feeling that their art has lost its cognoscenti. Thus, they can only “appreciate its fragrance in solitude.” In this case, there is no need to reform. But if a painter still has any breath of life, he will know that now is the time that his art can truly attain liberation. In

. the past, he served a small number of idle people, but now he serves the billions who are creating a new world. In the past, because we wished to satisfy the tastes of those half-dead people, our painting became half-dead. Now we must satisfy the demands of the billions of people bursting with energy. Our painting must be filled with vigor, its vitality extraordinarily exuberant, a thing that excites those who see it. Some people say, “The government commemorates Qi Baishi’s birthday, so the crabs and shrimp that he paints are progressive.” Their meaning is that because Qi Baishi is valued, their paintings should be valued too; if Qi Baishi does not need to reform, why must they reform? The government’s commemoration of Qi Baishi’s birthday and rewards for Qi Baishi, I believe, come not only because he excels at continuing our nation’s painting tradition but also because he excels at expressing the things that he wants to express; and he has created many good paintings. He is not an ordinary conventional painter; he is a painter who is very courageous in creating. The subjects of his paintings are very broad, the methods he uses are greatly varied. He is a painter with rich imagination. Naturally, he has suffered from some limitations of his time, and he has not reflected the life of the people. But he still deserves to be called a great Chinese painter of today. He can observe his subject deeply and then express the subject by means of his own creative methods. He does not paint things he has never seen. Once someone asked him to paint a landscape and he said, “I have not seen a landscape for a long time, so I can’t paint

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one.” He refused. But his paintings often adopt an original approach. In March of this year he painted a frog. One back leg was caught in water weeds, it was floating in the water, and in front of it were three little tadpoles swimming freely. When he had finished he was very happy and said that no one had ever painted this. [For a similar work, painted two years earlier, see fig. 44.] Recently he painted a lotus with a reflection in the

water. He said that this was something he had never painted before. The | government rewards Qi Baishi for precisely this sort of creative labor. His great achievements in art require diligent and systematic research in the future. We hope that many artists of rich creativity like Qi Baishi will oppose blindly imitating and plagiarizing. The awards for Qi Baishi are not in the hope that everyone will paint just like Qi Baishi. There can be only one Qi Baishi; if everyone imitates him, painting crabs and prawns—that is, painting exactly the same as Qi Baishi—what significance can it have? People ask, “What is new guohua?” For the moment we will not discuss the appropriateness of xin guohua as a name. So-called new guohua means, J think, new Chinese painting [xin de zhongguohua}. Some painters wish to begin a new phase in the art of Chinese painting, with some new creation. Originally Chinese paintings, with the exception of a few artists’ works, all played the same old tunes and followed the same stereotypes. This situation could not continue, and so some people wished to do new things. This, naturally, is a good thing. Where is the mew in new guohua? | think we need (1) new contents and (2) new forms. If contents are new but forms are not new, then [the work] is only half new; if forms are new but contents not new, (similarly, the work] is only half new. But if the contents and forms are both new, won’t it become a Western painting? This raises the question of how to continue our heritage. Only if we continue the most precious part of our national painting heritage and then create things with new contents and new forms can we call this completely new Chinese painting. In Chinese painting, the most acute problem is figure painting. In the past we had a good tradition of figure painting, but recent figure painting is appallingly decadent. The figures painted by many people now don’t

have a shred of the feeling of a real person. Many figures have no body | under their clothing. After viewing many figure paintings, you have no way of telling what dynasty the figures come from. Regardless of their clothing, gesture, face, or background, they haven’t an iota of the appearance of a real person in society. Some people paint beauties in great quantity, but their so-called beauties cannot be seen in the park or on the street. Nor do their own family members look like that. It is obvious that they are lying. The second problem is landscape painting. Is it permissible to paint landscapes? I believe it is. China is so large and has good mountains and good rivers everywhere. If you paint well, you will produce in people an intense love for their own land. But what of the landscape paintings we

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Qi Baishi, Frogs, 1951, ink on paper, 103.5 cm X 34.4 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery.

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see? These landscape paintings mostly come from books of ancient models [huaben], and are concocted without basis in fact after an extended period of copying. The unconvincing piecing together and piling up [of such elements] has become the fashion. “A” paints five mountain peaks, “B” then paints six, “C” paints seven, and so on, until we have dozens of peaks. It doesn’t matter if [the mountains are] painted to look like they will collapse; still a little building made of matchsticks must be erected on the highest mountain peak. The artist’s idea is that the viewers of the painting can climb up to enjoy themselves. As for himself, he actually strolls on the asphalt streets of Shanghai. This [approach] is also a lie. There are some people who paint one thing for their entire lives. Some specialize in bamboo painting, some in plum painting, and others in orchid painting, as though they had seen only one thing in their whole lives. Or perhaps it is that they have loved only one thing in life. But what they paint, too, are only imitations from the old versions. No matter what, this sort of person is pathetic. Guohua, guohua—it has no variety. It has some variety, but not much. The people who paint guohua today need a little revolutionary spirit. This revolutionary spirit is not something that can be produced from nothing; it requires technical skill and guts. Having only skill or only guts won’t do. Skill is your ability to observe and express the things you want to paint. Guts is that you break the bonds of your small circles—the courage to create by yourself. In painting people one must paint living people. In painting landscapes one must paint real mountains and rivers. You must paint what you have seen, not what people have already painted many times. Paint what no one has yet painted. To sum up in one sentence, you must paint your own paintings. China is so large, its people are so numerous, its scenery is so beautiful, and its life is so rich; how can there be nothing to paint? Why must you plagiarize someone else’s things? Why must you paint people who are dead? When I travel from Beijing to Shanghai, through southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu, I see many farmers with their long gowns rolled up, shouldering carrying poles, driving carts, or tilling the fields. Their gestures are quite beautiful, but why has no one painted them? Why must one always paint an old man with a walking stick followed by a zither-carrying servant boy? Can you say that they are truly beautiful? Can you say that our country has not a single solidly built house? Why do our paintings always have houses made of matchsticks? To paint new paintings you must have new feelings, you must have feelings toward living, laboring, struggling people. Even if painting scenery, you have feelings toward nature, which has close relationships to people and society. To be a great painter, you must have thought and at least a clear awareness of your own work. What am I giving to the people? What do I wish to say to the people? Under current conditions, thoughtful painters are too few. Chinese painting, if it cannot escape the so-called

118 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION . “relax the feelings and cultivate the character” flavor of the literati class, will never have a future. I think that we must substitute depiction of real objects for copying [old paintings] as the fundamental curriculum for the study of Chinese painting. To paint figure paintings, you must learn to paint the nude human body and to sketch. To paint landscapes [fengjing],° you must go to the wilds to sketch from life. In painting flowers-and-birds or insectsand-fish, you mustalso sketch from life. One must make profound observations of people and nature. One must conduct research on old painting with new eyes. We need scientific realism as our standard in criticizing and evaluating our art. The excellence or poorness of a painting must be seen first in whether it accords with social reality and natural reality. Chinese painting is our national painting; it has a long and glorious tradition, and its legacy is limitlessly rich. Our people love their national art. We are the descendants of a great nation; our painters must cleverly continue their precious inheritance, enthusiastically creating paintings that describe the new life. Chinese painting has a bright future.

Ai Qing’s colorfully expressed formulations for the reform of guohua may seem extreme, in that they would require both new forms and new contents. In fact, though, his views were rather similar to those of Jiang Feng and many other cultural leaders. According to Jiang Feng, Lu Xun believed that wen-

renhua (literati painting)—which he equated, not entirely accurately, with xieyi (“idea writing,” a loosely brushed style of painting)—might be useful only if merged with new work.® Ai Qing exhibits knowledge of the basics of Chinese painting and theory in his many criticisms of traditional practice. He rejects the traditional means of learning guohua, which was to copy old paintings, and instead proposes a method already in effect in China’s academies: drawing from life, which included the use of nude models. An important theoretical basis for the Confucian custom of copying old paintings—the belief that one could enter a state of spiritual communion or artistic dialogue with ancient masters’—is implicitly ridiculed as satisfying the demands of the dead rather than the living.

One of the many contradictions between personal taste and theoretical stance that one finds in the debates of the 1950s is that Ai Qing liked Chinese paintings by traditionalists such as Qi Baishi. In his speech Ai Qing explicitly defends the government’s double standard in lionizing the octogenarian painter even though his work was neither socialist nor realist. Ai Qing’s defense goes well beyond orthodox party dogma in its claim that creativity, originality, and quality deserve recognition. The message he reads into the veneration of Qi Baishi is that political standards may be waived for the great but not for artists of lesser talents.®

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Zhou Yang on the National Heritage The 1953 changes made in art policy to encourage socialist realism, guohua, and specialization were mandated from above. The Second Congress of Literary and Arts Workers opened on September 23, 1953. Addresses by Zhou Enlai and Zhou Yang outlined new goals of raising the level of artistic training and improving the quality of art. Each constituent group, including the Art Workers Association, held separate meetings at which they reorganized in accordance with the directives calling for new, higher professional standards in art. The AWA was renamed the Chinese Artists Association. The most important statement of the new policies may be found in Zhou Yang’s speech of September 24, 1953, which was approved by a resolution of the congress on October 6.? In his lengthy text Zhou mentions visual art infre-

quently, but the references are important. Filled with quotes from Mao Zedong, the speech in its general tone implies that Zhou Yang did not speak for himself alone: “The principle of Comrade Mao Zedong’s directive on dramatic activities, ‘Let one hundred flowers bloom,’ should become the policy for development of all literary and arts professions. If we need figure painting, we also need landscape [fengjing] painting. ... If we need comparatively highclass, complex artistic forms, we also need large quantities of comparatively simple and easy artistic forms.”!°

Although his invoking of the hundred flowers might seem to loosen the screws On some artists, the new freedom was to be highly qualified. “We take socialist realist methods as the highest creative and critical standard for all our

literature and arts.”!1 Socialist realism, a term attributed to Stalin and first mentioned in print in 1932, may be defined as a “means of reflecting life in art

peculiar to socialist society. It demands the true portrayal of reality in its revolutionary development.” !

Zhou Yang’s commitment to promoting the national heritage was far stronger than that of Jiang Feng or Ai Qing. His views had profound effects on the Chinese art world,!3 both because of his high position in the party propaganda organ and, most important, because it was assumed that he spoke for Mao Zedong. “We request that the contents of literary and art works express the people and thoughts of the new age, and the forms express the style and

vigor [gipai] of the nation.... All writers and artists should diligently study their own national literary and artistic legacy and take continuation and

development of the national heritage’s excellent tradition as their own mission.” !4

Zhou Yang’s dictate that artists should use new contents but national forms explicitly contradicts Ai Qing’s view that both contents and forms should be new. Jiang Feng’s article of 1946, which defined national forms as “new forms,” seems equally irreconcilable with the new principle. In fact, the

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origins of Zhou’s theory may be found in Leninist-Stalinist art doctrines rather than in the theories of Lu Xun. In 1930, a Soviet conference adopted Stalin’s

dictum that proletarian art must be “national in form and socialist in content.” !>

Zhou Yang’s enthusiasm for China’s heritage was coupled with carefully formulated criticism of theorists with other ideas. Comrade Mao Zedong has given a very high evaluation to the achievements of the new literature and art movement that began on May Fourth [x919], of which Lu Xun is representative. ... But the May Fourth Move-

ment has not correctly resolved the duty of continuing the national literary and artistic heritage. At the time, there were people who had a completely negative and erroneous attitude toward the national heritage. This kind of attitude, when joined with a blind reverence for culture of the Western capitalist class, was a harmful influence on the subsequent development of new literature and art.... Many writers and artists often see only the feudal and backward side of the national heritage and have not recognized that the legacies are the treasury of our great national spirit... . Their understanding of the legacies’ value is often narrow and one-sided. For example... [the idea that] painting is only “single-line and flat-color.”!®

The references to national painting might be interpreted as a call for the revival

of traditional forms of landscape painting and of traditional techniques of brush and ink. Again, the liberal language is qualified by further explanation: Organizing and researching the national artistic legacies should become focal points for the teaching and research of arts schools... . First we must take the democratic and progressive aspects of our heritage and distinguish them from the feudal and backward parts, take the realistic parts and distinguish them from the antirealistic parts. .. . In national painting, for example, that which does not stress description of real life, that which does not stress artistic creation, such as making a specialty of purely imitating the brush and ink of the ancients ... , must be opposed.!7

According to Zhou’s mandate, old artistic forms were to be adopted if they were democratic, progressive, realistic, and not imitative. Although application of his directive involved expanding painting beyond the single-outline and flatcolor mode of previous years, its implementation was otherwise vague.

According to C. Vaughn James, the Leninist line on past art was that an entirely new “proletarian” art was unrealizable in the turmoil of revolution. In-

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stead, artists were directed to bring the best of classical traditions home to the people, not for purposes of slavish imitation, but for conscious assimilation and reworking.!8 Zhou Yang’s references to Leninist doctrine are clear, but he gives little concrete advice as to how it might be applied in the Chinese

context. ,

One important purpose of the 1953 congress was to reorganize the various associations administered by the Federation of Literary and Arts Circles. Zhou Yang explained that they would now be voluntary organizations for professional writers and artists, which is to say that they are not groups for ordinary literature and art lovers. The important duty of the associations is to organize writers’ and artists’ creative work and study... . After reorganizing, the associations should absorb classical literature researchers, national dramatists, national artists, and national musicians as members and as participants in the governing structure... . Leading popular work in literature and art and training young writers and artists are among the important duties of the associations. !?

The membership in any association under the wing of the FLAC was explicitly expanded beyond the limits set at the first congress in 1949. Those who would decide how to apply Zhou Yang’s theoretical directives, then, would include both the Communist revolutionaries who dominated the association in its early years and “national artists,” the latter presumably well-known professional painters of guohua, nianbua, and other indigenous forms. Zhou Yang issued several other administrative directives. He required that

provincial and municipal branches of the FLAC should become voluntary groups of writers, musicians, dramatists, and artists with definite admissions standards. It would therefore be unnecessary for each locality to establish its own branches of the national professional associations, such as, in the case of art, the CAA. The duty of a local FLAC branch, rather, was to encourage individual literary or artistic creation, to organize artistic activities, and to promote local amateur art. “Creation” groups, involving mature creative people, were acceptable during the transitional period provided they helped with other

activities.2°

In art, the policy of developing local FLAC branches rather than branches of the Chinese Artists Association had several results. One was that, in many areas, the local FLAC group became the functional equivalent of the CAA— that is, it came to serve as the primary organ of arts administration. Another

was that all local control of the arts became concentrated in the hands of a small group of FLAC officials, who might or might not be art lovers. The fu-

122 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION ture development of all aspects of creativity in local areas thus depended very heavily on the interests and tastes of FLAC officials. The new Chinese Artists Association thus brought together Communists and professionals to implement an ill-defined aesthetic doctrine. The debates over the proper course of artistic development enriched the Chinese art world but simultaneously set the stage for bitter conflicts. Zhou Yang’s advocacy of national forms contained an implicit criticism of the literary theories of many followers of Lu Xun, including Hu Feng and Feng Xuefeng.?! Zhou was undoubtedly familiar with the text of Ai Qing’s speech on guohua, which was published in Wenyibao about a month before his own oration. It is thus en-

tirely possible that his support for Chinese painting was intended also as a criticism of Ai Qing’s more negative view.

As we have seen, Jiang Feng was personally associated with Lu Xun and Feng Xuefeng during his formative years as a revolutionary artist. And he and Ai Qing were close friends; they had served a prison term together in the early 19308, jointly led the march from Yan’an to Zhangjiakou in 1945, and were administrative colleagues in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Those who attacked Jiang Feng and Ai Qing in 1957 claimed that the two had similar views on guohua, a suggestion that, whatever its motivation, appears to have been accurate.* No evidence has yet appeared to indicate that Jiang Feng was personally involved in the conflicts between Zhou Yang and his rivals or that he openly opposed the new doctrines. Nevertheless, Zhou Yang’s references to national painting should, logically, have been interpreted as mandating a substantial change in Jiang Feng’s administrative practices. Not only was the general meaning of Zhou’s speech—that native Chinese art was to be promoted rather than Western art—not Jiang Feng’s view, but the proposed changes would have undone much of the thought reform and reorganization work that had taken place during the preceding four years. Fortunately for Jiang Feng, at least in the short run, the vagueness of Zhou Yang’s policy statement allowed him to agree publicly with its language while continuing in practice to follow a somewhat different course.

Zhou’s directive that artists present new contents using national forms made theoretical justifications for oil painting problematic. Jiang Feng’s efforts to obtain Mao’s blessing of The Founding of the Nation, which was published in People’s Daily three days after Zhou Yang’s speech, could well have been

intended to counteract the pro-guohua view of national forms. The fundamental conflicts between traditional guohua and socialist realism, particularly in the context of increasing professionalization of the arts, were accentuated by Zhou Yang’s unresolved juxtaposition of the two approaches. The resulting tension contributed to a flowering of artistic activity between 1954 and 1957,

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but it was also one cause of the art world’s cataclysmic reaction to the AntiRightist campaign of 1957.

Jiang Feng and the 1953 Reorganization of the Chinese Artists Association The day after Zhou Yang’s presentation, Jiang Feng gave his speech on the situation of art work during the first four years of the PRC and on the mission of the newly founded Chinese Artists Association.23 Much of the text is as turgid as his 1949 oration, but it is a crucial guidepost to the development of the Chinese art world between 1953 and 1957. Filled with concrete details (unlike Zhou Yang’s more abstract speech of the preceding day), the report began by

discussing the accomplishments of Chinese artists. It stated, first, that the Chinese art world had established a strong popular base of support. Over 180 million nianhua, lianhuanbua, and propaganda pictures were published during the four-year period 1949-1953 (including, according to incomplete statistics, 6,800 different paintings and 6,490 stories in serial illustration form), in addition to pictorial magazines (huabao), of which thirty-six titles were in print in 19§2.

According to Jiang, guohua, oil painting, and sculpture production had increased. Art progressed and became useful as it began to have a closer relationship with the lives of the people, to inspire enthusiasm for labor, and to work in concert with every organized movement to reform society. Jiang stated that the quality of art had improved, with creativity in form and style demonstrated by particular artists and works (see chart 4). Jiang Feng’s lists of models generally have a personal twist. Three of the guohua he praised in his report

had been published prominently in People’s Daily several days earlier: Hu Ruosi’s The People of Xinjiang Donating a Horse to Marshall Zhu De; Li Xiongceai’s Forest; and Jiang Yan’s Examining Mama.** Forest was a good example of a guohua that incorporates Western effects of light and shading; the other two pictures were outline-and-color figure paintings executed in styles approved for new nianhua. Jiang did not mention, however, the more traditional paintings reproduced on the same page of People’s Daily, most notably two bird-and-flower pictures and a fairly traditional landscape composition by Liu Zijiu (Liu Guangcheng). The decision to publish the traditional pictures in People’s Daily would prob-

ably have been made by Hua Junwu, then the newspaper’s art director and head of its literature and arts section, on the basis of propaganda department policies. Wang Zhaowen, who wrote the exhibition review that accompanied the pictures, termed Shao Yiping’s flower painting “lovely” (Reai).2° Jiang

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Feng calls Ye Qianyu’s May All the Nationalities Unite (see fig. 26) a guohua,

even though it had won a nianhua prize in 1952 and was not included in the 1953 national exhibition of guohua. Out of thirty-nine prize-winning nianhua on Ministry of Culture lists he mentions only five, but adds ones by Shi Lu and Zhang Leping to the ministry’s sanctioned works. As party spokesman, Jiang Feng’s list became the definitive word on the new monuments of official art.

Beyond its usefulness to China, Jiang praised recent art for its contributions to the international peace and friendship movement. Via exhibitions, exchanges, and other foreign contacts, people of the socialist countries and of the capitalist countries could now gain knowledge of the lives of Chinese people.

Chinese art was exhibited in thirty-five nations, and such art books as Gu Yuan’s prints and political cartoon anthologies were reprinted in many socialist countries. Amateur artists in factories and elsewhere were encouraged to create art, and many professional artists, such as those at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, spent time working in factories. Thought reform was deemed to have succeeded, especially by means of the “Three Antis” Movement and the arts and literature rectification campaign. The former, directed against corruption, waste, and bureaucratism, targeted officials.2© The latter was part of a nationwide campaign to remold the thought of China’s intellectuals based, according to Jiang Feng, on Mao’s principle of serving the peasants, workers, and soldiers.2” The art world thoroughly criti-

cized the tendency toward nonpolitical art and the phenomenon of art as a commercial object. Furthermore, the long-standing concern with artistic genealogies and the split between the new and the old art were gradually being

dealt with, in order to develop an attitude of mutual study and mutual aid. The number of practicing artists increased, both because new artists were being trained, in academies and on the job, and because many old guobua, lianhuanhua, and calendar (yuefenpai) painters underwent thought reform and so began making works with new contents. The second section of Jiang’s report detailed remaining inadequacies in art. These included a continued deficiency in the quality as well as the quantity of work produced, a failure to correct conservative ideas that had hindered the improvement of guohua, and artists’ resistance to the study of political treatises. We will return to his criticisms of guohua shortly.

The last part of the report outlined the planned reorganization of the artists association, henceforth to be known as the Chinese Artists Association,

as an effort to solve such problems. The most important administrative changes were aimed at raising standards through increased specialization. Jiang announced that the new national organization would consist of five sections. The first was the creation committee, which encouraged and oversaw the making of art. This committee was divided into six subcommittees by specialty: painting, national painting, printmaking, cartoons, sculpture, and applied

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arts. The CAA’s other four sections were the national arts research committee, the popularization work section, the editorial section, and the exhibition section.

The new charter of the CAA was published in early 1954. Like many CCP statements, beginning with Mao’s Yan’an Talks, it incorporated seemingly incompatible goals. It stipulated that the association would uphold the MarxistLeninist literary and artistic principles of the Chinese Communist party and would adopt socialist realist creative methods. In contradiction to this socialist realist mandate, one of its lesser duties was to promote study of the heritage of visual art (meishu) so as to develop China’s excellent national artistic (yishu) tradition.2® Just as the incongruity between popularization and the raising of standards in the Yan’an Talks was resolved by giving primacy to first one then the other in each succeeding period,?? the CAA charter provides for the possibility of the alternation of socialist realism and traditional art. Nevertheless, it was clear until 1956 that the party art bureaucracy intended socialist realism to be primary. Less than a day after Jiang Feng’s speech, the chairman of the Chinese

Artists Association and director of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Xu Beihong, died of a stroke. His obituary in People’s Daily emphasized his opposition to formalism, his commitment to realism, and his creation of an individual style based on the absorption of Western progressive art and the inheritance of China’s excellent national painting tradition.2° In December, he was lauded by the party’s cultural leader, Zhou Yang, in terms that made him a model of the new policies. His work was said to combine high-level technique with deep national characteristics, to perpetuate the realistic tradition of Chinese national painting, and to absorb the realistic creative methods and techniques of Western classical painting.>! With Xu’s decease, the aged Chinese painter Qi Baishi became the figure-

head chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, thus adding a “national artist” in a prominent place on the roster. The vice-chairmen were augmented from two to five. Jiang Feng remained first vice-chairman, but to the figure painter Ye Qianyu were added Liu Kaiqu, director of the academy in Hangzhou; the Belgian-trained oil painter Wu Zuoren, who was Xu Beihong’s most prominent disciple; and Cai Ruohong, a revolutionary printmaker and Yan’anera rival of Jiang Feng. The association offices were located in a building immediately adjacent to the Central Academy (since converted into the school art gallery).

Differentiation in function between the academic institutions and those associated with the CAA ultimately led to greater variety in the kinds of art being practiced and to competing centers of bureaucratic power. Although Jiang Feng, the top leader in this new structure, remained the primary figure in art education, some projects promoted by the CAA seem well beyond the

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scope of his interests, if not outright antithetical to his principles. The association’s national painting creation subcommittee, for example, was apparently created in response to new policies advocated by Zhou: Yang, not because Jiang Feng saw such a need. Similarly, the joint mandate of the CAA’s national arts research committee to study both classical Chinese painting and folk art? would seem to be a compromise between Jiang Feng’s interests and those mandated from above. Jiang Feng was in 1953 the administrator with the greatest personal influence on Chinese art policy and its implementation. The work to strengthen and expand the CAA through reorganization, however, created a need not for a single leader’s authority, but for consensus among all art leaders. Diversity of opinion became, as art developed between 1953 and 1957, factionalism. Jiang Feng immediately began to feel pressure from his old competitor and newly elected fellow CAA vice-chairman, Cai Ruohong. Jiang’s policy-setting speech of 1953 was widely disseminated, appearing first in Wenyibao and then, early the next year, in the first issue of the official journal of the CAA, Meishu. This issue also presented an article by Cai Ruohong that attacked many earlier policles, urging the revival of landscape painting, still-life painting, and portrait painting using Western media as well as supporting a broader definition of Chinese ink painting.3? The extent to which Jiang Feng was personally iden-

tified with earlier policies made the criticisms, at least in part, an implicit attack on his leadership. Jiang Feng dutifully adhered to the language of the party line as articulated in Zhou Yang’s September 24 speech, but his ideas for implementation of that line were undoubtedly narrower than many traditional painters liked. Jiang’s 1953 analysis of the status of guohua was largely negative, in keeping with the policy shift then under way. He wrote of areas that would be improved by the new policies:

After liberation, it was pointed out that guohua should be improved by beginning with practical things and requiring the description of real people and events. Under this directive the Beijing and Shanghai guohua research associations were established. From the works of some artists, it has been proven possible to use guohua’s expressive techniques and tools to describe real life. A fault in the improvement of guohua, first, is that those guohua artists who are enthusiastic about depicting new subject matter but who lack creative experience or descriptive ability are rarely given concrete help or needed encouragement, which adversely affects their enthusiasm for their work. Second, we have failed to offer timely correction to those guohua artists who, in the process of reforming guohua, have an impatience that [leads them to] overlook actual conditions. Third, we have failed to criticize the conservative artistic ideas [that Chinese painting cannot

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reflect the new reality]. As a result, many guohua artists have simply stopped painting, or else they use the “paint-by-number” mode to paint so-called new national paintings in which the forms and contents are out of harmony. The die-hard guohua artists who advocate the conservative point of view criticize Chinese paintings that depict new contents, using their failings as an excuse to reject the reform of Chinese painting.34

A year later, Jiang issued a much more optimistic report based on progress made during the first year of the new policy.*> He expressed particular pride that under Communist rule artists had worked hard to popularize their art so that they would be useful members of society. In particular, they produced socially useful and beautiful nianhua, lianhuanhua, and propaganda posters. Of guohua he wrote: Most guohua [production], which has long been limited to copying the works of the ancients and has lacked the breath of life, has also made progress. Many guohua artists, to escape this bad habit of copying... diligently study modern methods of drawing from life. Especially gratifying is that some old painters have... made paintings from actual observation, so that works which depict new people, things, and events are more numerous. These works forcefully overthrow the conservative idea that “Chinese painting is unsuited to describing contemporary things” and make a good starting point for inheriting the realistic tradition of our nation’s classical painting.3®

As was customary for such reports, Jiang Feng listed artists who had been particularly successful in fulfilling party requirements. Works by the figure painters Ye Qianyu, Jiang Zhaohe, and Huang Zhou, he reported, were praised by

the masses. All three of these artists painted works in the traditional media that had strong Western technical or compositional aspects; two of the three taught at CAFA. Jiang lavished particular praise on landscape sketches in ink by CAFA professors Li Keran and Zhang Ding as examples of the reform of guohua. According to Jiang, Li and Zhang used traditional techniques but drew from life in a scientific manner. The two paintings he singled out were, in fact, much more successful as works of art than many other nominally realistic

guohua landscapes of the period. They represented, however, not traditional technique, but a very Western use of the traditional media (fig. 45), as we will discuss in a later section.3” Jiang, by encouraging innovations in landscape painting, certainly broadened the permissible subject matter; notably, though, he praised no artists who worked in truly traditional styles. Other guohua artists worthy of Jiang’s mention were, as in his 1953 speech, the Lingnan

128 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

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artist Li Xiongcai and two illustrators, Hu Ruosi and Yin Shoushi. Jiang encouraged Chinese painting, in adherence to party policy, but his definition of the genre, as we have come to expect, included only new Chinese painting.

Art in the Publishing Houses The year 1953 marked a change in approach for the art publishing houses, just as it did for the rest of the art world, even though the publishers were administratively separate from professional arts organizations. In Shanghai, the art presses were directed by the publishing bureau of the municipal government. The CAA did not directly affect their activities, except as general national policles were concerned.*® In the fall, given new orders that standards be raised as art assumed peacetime functions, the presses were criticized for not changing with the times and for retaining a wartime mentality. Periodicals whose poor

circulation indicated that they had outlived their function, such as Worker,

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Peasant, Soldier Pictorial, published by the government-run East China People’s Art Press, ceased publication. Later in the year, a party leader urged that serial picture stories be given a less overtly propagandistic direction by relating them to the national heritage or by basing them on great works of ancient or modern literature.>?

Lianhuanhua creation groups were criticized for not writing their own stories but instead abridging and illustrating works by screenwriters and novel-

ists. Although such comments were intended to raise the standards of lianhuanhua, the suggestion that groups of artists come up with their own material was rejected by Shanghai arts administrators, who remained cautious

following attacks in 1951 on the contents of some Shanghai serial picture books.?° The Beijing People’s Art Press established a lianhuanhua captions research group in 1953 or 1954.7! The texts of the new lianhuanhua thereafter usually followed the story line of approved works of literature or cinema— whose political messages were thereby publicized to a wider public—and were prepared by professional text editors. To minimize conflicts between editors and artists, between 1954 and 1957 artists in Shanghai served in six-month rotations as art editors.* In about 1954, efforts were made to diversify subject matter. A People’s Daily editorial reportedly published in the summer of 1954 urged cadres to improve their cultural knowledge and continue China’s cultural tradition.*4 Lianhuanhua publishers responded with large numbers of historical narratives, stories taken from classical Chinese literature, myths, and folktales. Because older artists were often more proficient at illustrating these genres, the ranks of successful lianhbuanhua artists were expanded to include them. The staff at New Art Press in Shanghai, to cite one example, was reorganized into four specialized work groups: realistic subjects, children’s literature, translated literature, and stories requiring antique costumes. Sales of the latter were particularly good. Monkey Makes Havoc in Heaven, taken from the Ming novel Journey to the West, sold over a million copies. Greater efforts were made during this period to reorganize private publishers as well. They were gradually incorporated into New Art Press. By 1955, New Art employed 126 artists and text editors and published an average of ten new lianhuanhua per week. On December 31, 1955, New Art and Shanghai People’s Art Publishing House were combined. The private publishers ceased to exist.44

In the fall of 1955 People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the CCP, printed an editorial urging greater publishing freedom.*> The Shanghai municipal publishing system responded to this good news as bureaucracies are prone to do: it raised the number of lianhbuanhua the publishers were required to produce. The People’s Daily editorial may have heralded the conclusion to a yearlong investigation by the Publishing General Bureau (Chuban zongshu) of the

130 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

Ministry of Culture into “pornographic” literature. Efforts to expand the campaign to other genres were blocked by Liu Shaoqi.*® As is often the case in China, the published call for relaxation served not as a prologue but as an epilogue. A four-year period of relative tranquillity for artists had followed the 1951 literary and arts rectification campaign. In 1955 and 1956, however,

: attacks were launched on Jianhuanhua publishers for printing too many stories featuring antique costumes, demons, and ghosts. Li Lu, then an administrator at New Art, believes that such criticisms were unjustified; in his estimate,

antique-costume stories made up only about ro percent of his publication list.4”7 Rather, he attributes the movement against traditional-style lianhuanhua to the October 1955 meeting of the Sixth Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee, which criticized rightist tendencies.*8 In any event, 1955 saw several serious political campaigns, including the posthumous castigation of State Planning Commission chairman Gao Gang, who reportedly died by his own hand after being purged from government. A campaign against the writer Hu Feng, who was stripped of all his official positions in May, followed. The political

movement expanded far beyond Hu Feng and his complaints about Marxist control of culture, ultimately putting pressure on all intellectuals and artists.4? The cultural climate improved somewhat in 1956, with the announcement

of the Hundred Flowers Movement. By that time, all Shanghai lianhuanhua artists and text editors were concentrated at a single press, Shanghai People’s Art Publishing. Zhao Hongben and Gu Bingxin directed the drafting studio (called the “serial picture creation room”); Li Lu directed the text editing section. Some artists remember that the atmosphere was extremely lively, with old scholars working side by side with younger artists. Fees for completed works

were raised, and even old guohua artists from outside the firm, such as Liu Haisu, Wu Hufan, and He Tianjian, were commissioned to make traditional paintings and calligraphy for lianhuanhua covers.°° The biggest project of 1956 was a multivolume edition of Tales of the Three Kingdoms, a novel of the Ming dynasty that had been popular in lianhuanhua form in the preliberation period.

The first national lianbuanhua exhibition was not held until 1963, when prizes were awarded by the Ministry of Culture for works produced since 1949. Cheng Shifa of the Shanghai People’s Art Press won a second prize for his 1956 guohua illustrations to Lu Xun’s short story “Kong Yiji” (fig. 46). His work is characteristic of the new Shanghai guohua figure painting, with Western conventions of depicting spatial recession, gesture, and the human form

being combined with sophisticated Chinese effects of line and wash. The psychological state of the characters is explored in an almost cinematic way. Cheng Shifa was strongly influenced by his study of the figure painters Ren Yi, of the late nineteenth century, and Chen Hongshou, of the seventeenth century. Though stylistically quite different, both earlier artists made individualistic and

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132 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

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tions for Railroad Guerrillas, 19561958, vol. 4, lianhuanbua, ink on paper, 16.5 cm X 21.§ cm.

expressive use of outlines. The richness of Cheng Shifa’s ink-and-color variations is characteristic of preliberation Shanghai guohua and the tradition of Ren Yi; his outline technique, influenced by but not derived from that of Chen

Hongshou, is an innovation that shaped his exuberant personal style. He strongly influenced younger figure painters and illustrators in Shanghai. The lianhuanhua of greatest aesthetic interest and, according to Li Lu, of

greatest appeal to readers were those executed with ink outlines. Most such works were produced with Chinese brush and ink on sturdy Western-style drawing paper. Visually they shared aesthetic qualities with traditional Chinese

woodcut illustrations and figure paintings; as a result, they were easily accepted by readers. The outline technique had practical advantages as well. Because most lianhuanhua were printed very cheaply and very poorly, the sub-

tleties of pencil drawing were completely lost in the production process, whereas black ink lines retained much of their effectiveness.>!

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FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION 133

ee TS) | A. . = j . . 4 wd Neg Fn Ne yp ES 7 A ‘WY | i, f ( both of whom became quite prominent during the 1960s and 1970s.

Although Fang Zengxian admits to having studied paintings by Jiang Zhaohe in his efforts to create a new figure style, he feels that the absence of influential figure painters in Hangzhou gave him and his colleagues a creative freedom most artists of the 1950s lacked. The famous bird-and-flower painter Pan Tianshou freely expressed his largely negative opinions of their project. In his view, the new figure paintings were not guohua, and he rejected the heavy use of shading to create effects of volume and chiaroscuro. Perhaps in response to his criticism, the Hangzhou artists moved toward a simplified compositional mode in which expressive lines were emphasized and shading was reduced. For the most part, however, the young artists were unrestrained by older teachers

as they worked to develop the new Zhejiang painting style. Antipathy to socialist realism on the part of respected senior professors such as Pan Tianshou segregated the new from the old and gave those who practiced the new art a sense of creative freedom the traditional master-pupil relationship might have hindered.

According to Fang Zengxian, who taught at Hangzhou from 1953 until the Cultural Revolution, the method he and his young colleagues developed to teach Hangzhou students consisted of several elements. First, students were

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144 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

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Zhou Changgu, Two Lambs, 1954, ink and color on paper, 79.3 cm X 39.3 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery.

trained in the structure of the human form through drawing. That is, the overall configuration of the subject was emphasized, rather than effects of light and shade, texture, or volume. A second crucial skill to be practiced was sketching from memory, for ink, unlike charcoal or pencil, could not be removed if a stroke was incorrectly placed. Third, mastery of the ink line was necessary.

Fang believes that reduction of chiaroscuro to a bare minimum was the strength of the Hangzhou figure painting style, as best exemplified in the work of Zhou Changgu (fig. 52).7° The new figure painters studied anatomy, perspective, and other representational principles common to all realist or socialist realist artists. At the same

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time, their medium, ink on absorbent Chinese paper, presented technical challenges not encountered in most Western media. Guohua figure painters in the new style thus borrowed useful techniques from the Chinese tradition. Most contemporary Chinese figure painters assert that the new guohua has a strong traditional basis, but it is clear that their art synthesizes Soviet and Chinese techniques. One’s evaluation of the relationship between this new art and traditional painting depends on one’s starting point. In comparison to Dong Xiwen’s oil painting The Founding of the Nation (fig. 29), for example, Zhou Changgu’s Two Lambs of 1954 (fig. 52) is extremely Chinese in feeling. The vertical format, the flat white background, the moist strokes of ink, and even the sweetness of the Tibetan girl are all qualities that may be found in Chinese painting of earlier eras. However, the pensive, portraitlike rendering of the face, the

suggestion of spatial recession, and the new theme of contented national minorities are all very much in tune with contemporary official art.

Later criticisms of the pre-1953 art academy curriculum indicate that guohua instruction was limited to the rather mechanical techniques of outline and opaque-color painting. Expansion of the technical vocabulary to include the more spontaneous ink effects associated with xieyi painting, such as that

practiced by Qi Baishi, was an important step toward reviving traditional painting. Yet artists with a traditional point of view would agree with Pan Tianshou that the Hangzhou figure painting did not look like guohua. Not only was its imagery new, but the young artists often lacked subtlety in their handling of ink and color. The emphasis on new figure painting continued at CAFA until 1957. Yao Youxin, trained as a teenager in Shanghai to draw comic books, began his undergraduate course at the East China campus of CAFA in 1954. His drawing skills were particularly highly developed as a result of his work for the Shanghai publishing industry. Much to his distress, however, he was assigned in his sophomore year to the caimohua department rather than to the oil painting department, a decision he blamed, at the time, on Jiang Feng and his policies of remolding guohua.’’ The change in Chinese brushwork as a result of the guohua reforms of the 1950s is of fundamental importance to the history of Chinese art. Not only in figure painting, but also in landscape painting, emphasis on studying nature rather than the old masters led to the elimination of all traditional techniques not immediately useful for naturalistic description. Energetic young artists such as Zhou and Fang, who did not undergo the long apprenticeship considered a critical part of the guohua tradition, became the most influential guohua instructors in the academy. As a result, many traditional techniques were not taught, and gradually, over the course of succeeding generations, they have passed out of the living vocabulary of Chinese painting.

146 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

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creation of mianhua and of national paintings.!?! The Guangzhou CAA branch was established in March 1954.!32 By 1956, a preparatory committee for the CAA’s Jiangsu branch had been formed, with Fu Baoshi, Liu Haisu, and the young military painter Ya Ming in charge. A sharp change in the CAA’s emphasis became evident in 1956, when revival of the national heritage was labeled a key element of the art world’s con-

tribution to the Hundred Flowers campaign. Traditionalism appeared with particular strength in 1956 at the Third Exhibition of the Beijing Chinese Painting Research Association (which was not limited to Beijing artists). Academic bird-and-flower or animal paintings by Xie Zhiliu and Yu Feian

166 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

largely lack innovation; and Pan Tianshou’s flower-and-rock painting, one of the most beautiful of the published works from the show, displays only the subtlest, if any, influences of his involuntary study of Western drawing (fig. 62). Bird-and-flower paintings by Wang Xuetao, Chen Banding, and Wang Geyi seem unaffected by the new painting.!33 Of great importance is the reappearance at this time of traditional landscape painting in critical literature. Wu Hufan’s conservative blue-green—style landscape, for example, which was reproduced in Meishu, possesses only the barest hint of modernity in its slight cropping of the foreground and its photographic scale relations between foreground, middle ground, and distant landscape elements (fig. 63). The painting, which was subsequently displayed in the Second National Guohua Exhibition, relates closely to works the artist painted as early as 1937.!34 The Second National Guohua Exhibition, organized by the CAA and the Ministry of Culture, was held in Beijing and Shanghai between July and October 1956 and later was represented in Meishu by some modern works, including a number by the Shanghai illustrators. Lu Yanshao demonstrated his mastery of Western-style perspective in a picture of a child teaching her mother to read.135 Lu pushed his less successful figures into the painting’s middle ground,

perhaps to minimize the flaws in his figure drawing. Fang Zengxian’s Every Grain Is Hard Work (fig. 51) is typical of the new guohua of the younger generation at the Hangzhou academy. The exhibition, with 944 works, was much larger and more varied than earlier guohua exhibitions. For the first time, moreover, the artists were organized by province, an indication of greater concern for local developments. 136

Art criticism underwent a similar shift in 1956 as writers became more sympathetic to traditional guohua. The official spokesmen for the Second National Guohua Exhibition included, as Ellen Laing points out, some relatively conservative artists.!3” The academic bird-and-flower painter Yu Feian, for example, while expressing satisfaction at the progress of the older artists, specifically criticized that of the younger painters. He singled out figure paint-

ing as being the weakest aspect of contemporary guohua, noting that fewer figures than landscapes or bird-and-flower paintings were on display in the exhibition. His point of view was clearly that of a traditional artist responding to the new painting. One wonders if the emphasis on bird-and-flower and landscape themes in the exhibition itself is not the result of a similar concern on the part of the jury for old-fashioned aesthetic virtues as opposed to innovation or revolutionary subject matter. Hu Peiheng expressed his views even more frankly as he divided the work into four categories: (1) great masters, such as Li Xiongcai, whose works he considered profound in thought and execution; (2) traditionalists whose works had not improved since liberation and whose works lacked adequate content;

(3) works based on Western techniques that entirely lacked the qualities of

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Wu Hufan, Mountain Peaks in Mist, 1956, ink and color on paper.

168 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

Chinese painting and could be judged only on the basis of content, not on ex-

ecution; and (4) works inadequate on both counts.!38 We assume that he would have placed the best of Jiang Feng’s protégés in the third rank. As the exhibition neared its close in the fall of 1956, the propaganda arm of the Communist party, which also controlled the Chinese Artists Association, outlined a shift in party art policy. An editorial in People’s Daily entitled “Develop the Art of Guohua” described a new, nationalistic support for traditional

forms of art. “Guohua is part of the precious heritage of our country’s national arts; it has a long history and rich tradition. Over time, painters have... expressed the magnificence of the rivers and mountains of our motherland and the appearance of the people’s life in each period.” The editorial goes beyond simple praise for guohua, proceeding to criticize those who would undervalue it:

But we cannot deny that in a previous time the cultural sector offered inadequate leadership to the guohua world. At the same time, certain comrades in the art world adopted an incorrect attitude of slighting and discriminating against the national heritage and guohua artists. In this way they caused the guohua world to lack the value and support it should have had in society. In the past, when guohua artists were selected to participate in the Chinese Artists Association, the leadership structure was not wideranging enough. In certain art academies, some guohua teachers did not hold classes for long periods. They felt deeply that they had been stifled and excluded and were considered unscientific and backward in teaching. The works and theoretical writings of guohua painters have had very few opportunities for publication in publishing organizations, newspapers, and periodicals. ... The party and government have chosen a policy of actively fostering and promoting national arts imbued with the excellent tradition. Guohua, like other national forms, is the cultural product created from the life and labor of our nation’s people over a long period. It established, over a long period, an intimate relationship with the thought and feeling of our nation’s people and has an important function in the spiritual life of the people, so is loved by the masses. 13?

It was later revealed that “certain comrades” meant Jiang Feng and Mo Pu, while “certain art academies” referred to the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The party was changing course. Guo/ua artists undoubtedly found the new line cause for celebration. Some CCP art administrators, however, most notably Jiang Feng, proved unable to reorient themselves. From this point a schism developed between the CAA, which followed the new line, and the art academy system, where Jiang Feng’s supporters maintained a staunch resistance to it. What neither Jiang Feng nor most guohua painters knew, when

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reading the People’s Daily editorial, was that Mao Zedong himself had heard

the painters’ complaints. Jiang Feng’s days as an art administrator were numbered.

Guohua Artists, 1953-1957 THE REFORMERS: GUOHUA LANDSCAPES FROM LIFE

The art academy system had, since its establishment in 1950, mandated that all artists master life drawing, a subject usually interpreted as figure drawing. This requirement made the talents of many old guohua artists obsolete. Following Zhou Yang’s 1953 speech on developing the national tradition, three faculty members at CAFA, Li Keran, Zhang Ding, and Luo Ming, conceived the idea of reforming Chinese painting by drawing landscapes from life. Their plan met

with the initial skepticism of administrators such as Ye Qianyu, newly appointed head of the caimohua department, and Jiang Feng, who felt that success in reforming traditional landscape painting was unlikely in any event. Oil painters, for their part, were dubious that traditional media could be employed successfully for representational purposes. And traditional painters in Beijing opposed the plan because they were against any reform of guohua that might damage its long-established techniques and, by extension, its essential character, !4°

Nevertheless, the academy granted approval and funding for the artists to travel in southern China for five months in the first half of 1954 and try out their scheme.!4! The three men spent a month at the art academy in Hang-

zhou, hiking around West Lake and the surrounding hills. Each carried a homemade sketching kit so that he could draw with ink and Chinese brush. Every night they met to discuss their results. Other places they visited, either as a group or individually, included Wuxi, Suzhou, Shanghai, the Fuchun River, Huang Shan, and Shaoxing. Zhang Ding, who had spent many years producing cartoons and woodcuts for the anti-Japanese resistance, confesses that he struggled in his sketches with a conflict between the Western viewpoint, which he defines as objective, and the traditionalist goals of their project. After three months of work, however, he had a breakthrough: he discovered how to express a Chinese point of view,

but one that combined the objective and subjective responses to a scene.!4 The journey was even more important for Li Keran, for it was to be the first stage in his ultimately successful quest to establish a new Chinese landscape painting.

Upon their return to Beijing, the artists’ ink sketches were admired by

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academy skeptics Ye Qianyu and Jiang Feng, as by the traditionalist Hu Peiheng. At Ye Qianyu’s insistence, an exhibition was arranged by the CAA for late September 1954. The accompanying brochure, the title of which was inscribed by Li Keran’s mentor Qi Baishi, then in his nineties, stated their goals in unassuming but appealing terms: In the first half of this year, we had the opportunity to go to the Jiangnan area for an ink painting sketch-from-life trip. Using the expressive techniques of traditional ink painting to describe true scenes and objects was a new attempt, so our goals and requirements were relatively simple; they were: to paint some landscape paintings that have the style of traditional Chinese paintings, but are not the same old thing, and that have a touching authenticity.

The artists further recounted that they had seen many travelers and realized how much “the liberated people love the beautiful rivers and mountains of their motherland” and how fortunate the Chinese people are to live in “an environment that is like a painting.” The artists briefly described the technical choices they had encountered. Their formulation appears to be a sincere attempt to make practical sense of the latest party pronouncements. Using phrases taken from speeches by Zhou Yang and Jiang Feng they asked important questions: Among [our] most important [problems] were how to use traditional techniques and how to develop them further. If the question was whether we simply reject traditional techniques, thus using Chinese tools and foreign techniques to do ink sketches, or whether we use completely traditional techniques, thus making conventionalized descriptions of modern scenes and things, it would be simple. But it is not so simple if we intend to develop further the excellent parts of [our] tradition, to make them suitable for reflecting recent reality, and to blend modern foreign techniques into traditional styles, so as to enrich their expressive power. The difficulty really is not whether [we] have attained theoretical clarity; it is that we must attain a concrete resolution in practice.!44

In short, they rejected the uncritical continuation of traditional techniques and aimed to improve Chinese landscape painting by synthesizing Western techniques with native ones. Their ultimate goal was to reflect modern reality in the traditional medium. Li Keran, as the brochure claimed, avoided using conventionalized brush strokes for trees or mountains (fig. 45), and his landscape recessions were often very Western in feeling. Nevertheless, his sensitivity to

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174 FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION

tional and modern elements was justified by the theoretical stance taken by Zhou Yang in 1953. The further linking of Chinese landscape painting to patriotism, as was done by Li Keran and his colleagues in the preface to their exhibition brochure, significantly broadened the permissible range of Chinese artistic expression. The landscape-drawing-from-life movement was one of the most significant events in the development of guohua, as we will see in later chapters. THE TRADITIONALISTS

The Shanghai guohua artists, in 1953 still impoverished, finally obtained fund-

ing from the CAA and the municipal cultural bureau to run a production cooperative. The cooperative obtained fans from a government export corporation, decorated them, and then sent them to be sold in the Soviet Union. Once an artist’s pattern was approved, which had to be done in advance, he normally painted the same design for a year or two. An artist would receive between twenty and ninety Chinese cents per fan. If the fan was ruined by the artist or rejected by the export corporation for poor-quality work or deviation from the approved pattern, the cooperative owed $2.20 renminbi (RMB, people’s dollars) per fan, an amount that was divided among the members. Lai Chusheng, Zhang Dazhuang, and Jiang Handing are reported to have produced the largest proportion of rejected fans because of the strength of their personal styles. Later the product line expanded to include lanterns. Extremely well known artists, such as Wu Hufan, Wang Geyi, Tang Yun, and He Tianjian, were among the participants in the cooperative.!*4 Beijing artists complained of the same inadequate employment. In the fall of 1956, People’s Daily published an article by Yu Feian entitled “How Much Money Is a Guohua Painter’s Labor Worth?”!54 He condemned the poor pay

artists received for decorating crafts objects: decorating a piece of handpainted stationery yielded an average of seven cents; decorating Sichuan bamboo blinds paid better, between $1.00 and $1.20 RMB each, but there was not enough work to go around. In some cases, finished work would be rejected as insufficiently “national” in style, thus leaving the artists with no recompense. This complaint was followed by the official change in policy toward guohua

artists. In October 1956, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De, and President Sukarno of Indonesia were photographed viewing a guohua exhibition.!5> Within the month, People’s Daily editorials had blamed administrative sectors for ignoring the aesthetic quality of the guohua artists’ decorations and for viewing

them only from an economic point of view. The party admitted that most guohua artists could not support themselves working for the co-ops.15®

The cooperative as a solution to the guohua problem was hardly the answer. In September 1956, as part of the Hundred Flowers campaign, the

FROM POPULARIZATION TO SPECIALIZATION I7§

State Council publicized plans for improving the artists’ lot.157 A Chinese Painting Institute was established in Shanghai to employ famous artists from all over eastern China, including Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. Former mayor Chen Yi, who had been promoted to foreign minister by this time, personally inscribed the sign for the front door.!58 Plans were made for a similar institute 1n Beijing, and one under local auspices in Nanjing.!>°?

Summary

The period 1953-1957 was critical for the development of Chinese art. A standardized national art academy system based on Soviet models was fully implemented, with Soviet socialist realism approved as the official academic style. Guohua artists such as Fang Zengxian in Hangzhou and Jiang Zhaohe in Beijing developed new socialist realist guohua styles. And rigorous technical refinement became a mandatory part of the artists’ glorification of socialism. While encouraging greater professionalism, the Communist party maintained firm control of the activities of professional artists by systematizing the activities of the Chinese Artists Association. Once artistic standards were centralized, mastery of Soviet socialist realism and, within limits, development of new forms of Chinese socialist realism could be, and were, encouraged. With increased specialization, however, fundamental conceptual differences reemerged. The position of traditional artists was improved, a policy justified by Zhou Yang’s calls to carry on the national tradition. Zhou issued renewed directives on this score in May 1955 at the second CAA directors’ meeting.!69 Opposing both “nihilistic”! and conservative views of guohua, he announced that the tradition of Chinese painting was not only its brush and ink but also its realism. At the same meeting Konstantin Maksimov, the Soviet oil painting expert, spoke.!®* Each speaker found receptive listeners. Tensions between internationalist Communist bureaucrats around Jiang Feng and older

guohua artists mounted. The battle that resulted is the subject of our next chapter.

FOUR *« THE POLITICIZATION OF GUORUA

Political campaigns were a constant aspect of life for artists during the first decade of the new Communist government. Their primary effects on art—the reform or suppression of styles and subjects that contradicted Communist Party policies—were described in chapter 1. Political campaigns might also be used by CCP officials to criticize colleagues for questionable administrative decisions, professional activities, or even personal behavior. A phenomenon that

became more prevalent as time passed was the attack on colleagues against whom one held a personal grudge or with whom one was in competition for administrative power. This could be accomplished obliquely as well. The 1955 attacks on Li Keran and Zhang Ding during the Anti-Hu Feng campaign, for

example, were probably directed at higher authorities, men like Jiang Feng who had encouraged their activity. As we saw earlier, Jiang Feng’s 1952 report on thought reform at CAFA

identified many errors in the administration of the academy. He singled out particularly the academy’s failure to root out the educational thought of the capitalist class. While a collective “we” is blamed for these mistakes, Jiang himself was not in Beijing during most of the period he discussed in his article; thus, he was probably targeting someone who was. Jiang criticized old cadres who, upon entering the city, were influenced by capitalist thought. They lost interest in their administrative duties, teaching, popular work, thought reform, and political activities and became specialists, blindly working on their artistic skills in order to attain individual fame. Their goal in teaching at the academy

was not to reform old education, but to use the good conditions at the academy to improve their technique. Particular ills of the academy, in Jiang’s view, were individualism, ambition for fame, interest in “high-class art,” and

176 the goal of creating great works for posterity. One of his conclusions was that

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 177

the cadres from the old liberated areas must take responsibility for the damage incurred by the relaxation of the political struggle over the preceding two years.! Jiang’s article positioned him on the extreme left of the political spectrum. Jiang’s targets were not identified, but it is certain that one was the CAFA

party secretary Hu Yichuan, who had painted several monumental history paintings in oil since his arrival in Beijing and whom Jiang Feng had edged out of his position upon his return to Beijing. Hu Yichuan ended up as director of a regional art academy and continued to paint.

Jiang Feng’s own policies were probably the implicit targets of Cai Ruohong’s more moderate articles of 1954, as we have seen. Ironically, in early 1955 Jiang Feng was attacked by name for having praised Li Keran’s nonpolitical paintings, such as West Lake, Hangzhou (fig. 45).* It is not clear whether the attack was intended to link Jiang Feng with the writer Hu Feng, soon to be purged from the literary sphere, or even who was behind these criticisms, which came from Guangzhou. In any case, the decision to publish the attacks must have been made by a CAA leader in Beijing. While relatively inconsequential, they mark the beginning of a difficult period for Jiang Feng that culminated in his expulsion from the Communist party in 1957. Attacks on named or unnamed individuals often defined how party policy would be interpreted, much as court decisions refine the implementation of American laws. Innocuous personal opinions were sometimes published in the same journals as politically charged diatribes, however. In the final analysis, then, the process by which a minor complaint might spawn a nationwide campaign remains rather mysterious. If an individual had been targeted for a campaign, his activities would be castigated in meetings and in the press. The public was thereby warned to avoid doing anything similar to what he or she had done. In some cases, the object of the campaign remains obscure to Western readers. Jiang Feng’s student Cai Liang, for example, was viciously attacked by members of the armed services for using a classroom model rather than a real military man for his published drawing of a military subject. The larger meaning of this anti-academic criticism, if any, is enigmatic at best.> In other cases, the ideological thrust of the campaign was made explicit by local administrators, who identified and censured people who engaged in activities related to

the errors of the condemned person. Attacks, in short, were important for all citizens, not just the victims. One reason it is difficult for the historian to assess the significance of published criticisms of individual artists and administrators is that evidence of per-

sonal opinion or even opportunism is always mixed with direct recitation of the party line. Attempting to separate genuine commitment, be it principled or opportunistic, from rote recitation can be important, however, since such elements affected the enthusiasm with which any party policy was pursued.

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A political movement conducted in 1955 against Lu Xun’s disciple Hu Feng has been analyzed both for its policy implications and for its roots in personal rivalries.4 The art world responded with apparent enthusiasm for the campaign against this writer, though it is not immediately apparent why the attack was relevant to art at all. Hu was in sharp personal conflict with China’s ideological leaders, especially Zhou Yang, and apparently had administrative ambitions of his own. He maintained a stubborn individualism in his interpretation of literary standards, which differed from that of Chairman Mao.° Most serious, he failed to recognize the error of his ways. In 1954 he

attacked associates of Zhou Yang for their narrow literary views and their ignorance of Western literature. In early 1955 he attacked Zhou Yang himself. The result was a drastic national campaign against Hu, during which the old charges of spying for the Nationalists were resurrected (see chapter 1). His associates were purged, but any intellectual was liable to attack for adhering to Hu Fengist views. Cartoonists such as Hua Junwu and Mi Gu had a field day

with the revelation of this alleged spy within the ranks of the Communist party.”

A key issue of Communist discipline once the Hu Feng campaign expanded beyond literature was a criticism of excessive professionalism and indi-

vidualism at the expense of politics.8 For example, the art historian Wen Zhaotong was condemned as a Hu Fengist for, among other errors, failing to make clear the difference between old realism and new realism.? An equally

important aspect of Hu Fengism was Hu’s alleged rejection of “national forms” in literature. The correct resolution of Hu’s literary conflict with Zhou Yang and Mao Zedong was extrapolated into pictorial art. A concrete manifestation of Hu Fengism, as described by Mi Gu, was lack of sympathy for the practice of national painting (minzu huibhua).!° This relatively minor aspect of the Hu Feng campaign as a whole would become a profoundly important issue In 1957.

One of Hu Feng’s associates, Peng Boshan, had risen to the posts of deputy-director of the East China Cultural Department and chief of the Shanghai Propaganda Bureau.!! In June 1955, the cartoonist-administrator Mi Gu attacked Peng in Meishu for offenses against the visual arts: it was claimed, specifically, that Peng had denigrated the attainments of artists who worked in the traditional media. Mi Gu described the caimohua exhibitions held in

Shanghai between 1952 and 1955: “The people of Shanghai and party political leaders of Shanghai were very satisfied with these exhibitions and believed that the efforts of the caimohua artists had produced results and that the future of caimohua was bright. But Peng Boshan expressed reproach from his first step into the exhibition hall...and said [of the art], ‘There’s been no progress’ and [it is] ‘feudal and backward.’” Peng was further accused of

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refusing to buy a painting at the 1953 exhibition, although many other party leaders had purchased works in order to encourage the artists. }2

Zhang Ding’s review of the Second National Art Exhibition followed a similar vein. Zhang believed that the key problems in dealing with the national artistic tradition were conservatism and “nihilism.” Zhang’s own work, like Li Keran’s, had been attacked from both sides. Conservatives, in his view, were upholders of the “national essence” or “revive the ancients” school of thought. The nihilists were people who blindly loved the West and who lacked national self-confidence. Nihilism, he warned, could develop into cosmopolitanism or

Hu Feng thought. The idea of forcing guohua artists to replace traditional Chinese methods with Western ones was, he asserted, parallel to Hu Feng’s nihilistic ideas. !3

Most viewers would agree that traditional guohua paintings are more appealing as works of art than Soviet-style socialist realist oil paintings. On this basis, it is natural to conclude that the Chinese government was correct to promote guohua and to discipline officials who tried to suppress it. Unfortunately, the guohua question was not merely a matter of artistic standards; it became, in the end, a test of loyalty to the party leadership. Moreover, like all political movements in China, it also served as a vehicle for opportunistic personal attacks. As the complex problem of adapting old Chinese art to the new society became increasingly charged politically, many principled administrators found themselves boxed in by the potentially conflicting calls for art that could express the accomplishments of the new society and at the same time “perpetuate the national tradition.” The long-term implications of the Hu Feng campaign were undoubtedly overshadowed by immediate problems. A letter of May 23,

1955, advocating Hu Feng’s expulsion from the FLAC was published in Meishu, probably on orders from higher authorities.14 The arts leaders who signed it—in so doing distancing themselves from Hu Fengism and demonstrating their party loyalty—zincluded Jiang Feng, Liu Kaiqu, Ye Qianyu, Wu Zuoren, Cai Ruohong, Wang Zhaowen, Hua Junwu, Shao Yu, Gu Yuan, Yan Han, and Hu Man. Many prominent art figures, but not Jiang Feng, published articles attacking Hu Feng.

The Hundred Flowers Campaign Following the success of the CCP’s rural collectivization drive in 1955, Mao Zedong began planning for rapid economic development. It was apparent that utilization of the managerial and technical talent of educated Chinese would

180 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA

be necessary to attain this goal. Bureaucrats were therefore urged to relax controls over nonparty intellectuals, a policy reinforced by the “thaw” in the Soviet Union following Stalin’s death.

In mid-January 1956, Zhou Enlai’s report to the Central Committee endorsed the policy of using the intellectuals in a more rational manner.}> Inves-

tigations into the situation of intellectuals in early 1956 led to the discovery that guohua artists were very dissatisfied. On March 8, Liu Shaoqi issued a directive about drama that included a passage straightforwardly supporting traditional guohua painters and their work: Everybody likes Chinese paintings. However, some Chinese painters are not properly settled... . Our policy is to let one hundred flowers bloom, to develop something new from the old. We cannot afford to erase certain things because they are old.1¢

Zhou Yang, vice-minister of culture, took up the issue within a few days, urging: “If we want to let a hundred flowers bloom, the first essential is to preserve and uncover the national heritage.” !7 On May 2, 1956, Mao Zedong enunciated a slogan for the new policy: “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” The campaign thus came to be known in China as the Double Hundred policy, and in the West as the Hundred Flowers Movement. Mao’s view was, in Merle Goldman’s words, that “a genuine exchange of ideas and the criticism of repressive officials would ultimately lead to ideological unity.”!® Jiang Feng did not, apparently, fully understand the political significance of Mao’s statements, which differ little from platitudes of previous years. By the conclusion of the Anti-Rightist campaign, however, it became clear that guohua had been designated an area for high-level political experimentation; in 1956, as a result, the domain was effectively removed from his jurisdiction, THE IMPRESSIONISM DEBATE

The art world under Jiang Feng took the Hundred Flowers campaign at face value, as an intellectual exercise. One important activity was a widespread academic debate about impressionism. As we saw in chapter 1, Western-style artists in the pre-1949 period worked in a wide variety of artistic styles. Many had learned oil painting in Japan, where impressionism was widely practiced

well into the twentieth century. Those who studied in Europe were often steeped in similar late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century styles. One practical reason for this phenomenon is that the more modern artists we normally consider the most influential, men such as Picasso and Braque, did not teach

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 181i

students.!? Rather, it was the more conservative painters, those who worked in slightly old-fashioned styles, who staffed the studios where many of the Chinese and Japanese students enrolled. Although little research has yet been conducted on this period, the available evidence suggests that Chinese students

for the most part did not rebel against their teachers to take up avant-garde art. Possibly language barriers or racism led to isolation from contemporary circles. Perhaps traditional respect for the teacher prevented the iconoclasm more typical of ambitious Western art students.

A second factor in the widespread adoption of impressionist landscape styles in China was its conceptual appeal. The European optical experiments with color and light undoubtedly seemed scientific and modern to young Chinese intellectuals.2° At the same time, impressionism shared fundamental aesthetic inclinations with traditional Chinese painting, including the predominance of landscape subject matter, apparent spontaneity of execution, rejection of academic subjects and standards of refinement, emphasis on artistic individuality, and absence of overt psychological and political statements. It was a combination of this innate aesthetic affinity and practical academic opportunities that led so many artists who studied in Europe and Japan during the 1920s and 1930s to bring impressionist styles back to China. In some cities, such as Shanghai, impressionism became so potent that it was widely practiced by young artists as late as 1980. During the latter part of 1956 and the first part of 1957, Chinese art histo-

rians and oil painters devoted themselves to answering the question “Is impressionism a form of realism?” The editors of Meishu introduced the debate in fairly mild terms, stressing that the problem of defining the terms “impressionism” and “realism” was in itself extremely complicated. They asserted that China must not reject impressionism outright even though it differed from socialist realism; at the same time, impressionism should not be affirmed in totality simply because it had useful elements. Meishu directed that it was necessary to steer a middle course between a rightist (pro-impressionist) and leftist (anti-impressionist) position.*!

The Russian articles chosen for publication as part of the debate were largely negative. A late-nineteenth-century Russian writer, V. V. Stasov (1824—1906), criticized the impressionists because of their lack of subject matter and their “art for art’s sake” attitude. He was particularly contemptuous of anyone

who might rank Manet as high as Courbet. He acknowledged some value in works by painters who depicted urban life, such as Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley, but on the whole found that those who believed the impressionists constituted an important artistic movement were mistaken.

The orthodox Soviet stance of the mid-1950s was conveyed to Chinese readers in translations from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: “Impressionism is a result of the beginning of capitalism’s decline. It is divorced from progressive

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national art. Its proponents bring forth a thoughtless, antipeople, ‘art for art’s sake’ program. They oppose objective realism and advocate only subjective [impressions].... They reject the idea that they are a part of the social struggle.... [Impressionism] is the last stand of formalism.”23 The editors of the encyclopedia considered it proper that some of the impressionists’ techniques be incorporated into Soviet art but warned that Soviet artists must struggle against the revival of impressionism. Despite the enthusiasm of many Chinese oil painters for impressionism,

the campaign produced a fairly well unified official view: that the antiacademic beginnings of the impressionist movement were praiseworthy but that in its maturity it became an art of the capitalist class. Jiang Feng himself may have directed the debate, for he found the impressionism question so interesting that he later wrote a book-length manuscript about it.24 THE GUOHUA DEBATE

The second major debate in the art world, about whether guohua should be reformed by requiring a basis in Western drawing, was fueled by high-ranking officials outside the world of art and quickly escaped Jiang Feng’s control. Unlike the impressionism question, which had a preexisting answer defined by Soviet scholarship, the party arts leadership had profoundly conflicting views about guohua. When such a sharply divided art world was faced with the goal of producing a unified policy, clearly the views of one leadership faction would have to be affirmed at the expense of the other. For Jiang Feng, the debate was a clear attack on his intellectual principles and administrative position. Once party leaders such as Liu Shaoqi and Zhou Yang reiterated their support for guohua in early 1956, most CAA administrators fell in step with the new policy. Jiang Feng, however, was committed to the reform of guohua and refused to waver. Following Xu Beihong’s program of the early 1950s, he had required drawing as a basis for guohua instruction. This policy continued with the incorporation of the Chistiakov drawing system into the academic curriculum in 1955. Jiang Feng was understandably reluctant to see his newly sys-

tematized art education structure dismantled when party policy shifted. He apparently did not believe that the leadership wished the art world to change direction drastically, despite what Zhou Yang and Liu Shaogi had said. The chronology of Jiang Feng’s difficulties in 1955 and 1956 has not been published, though some details are said to have been leaked a decade later in Red Guard wall posters. In 1955, Zhou Yang discussed guohua problems at

the national CAA directors meeting.25 Soon thereafter, according to oral accounts, Quan Junrul, vice-minister of culture and a man in close contact with officials in the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee,2® conducted an investigation of intellectuals in Hangzhou. Old guohua painters at the East China cam-

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOAHUA 183

pus of CAFA, like those elsewhere, complained about their treatment at the hands of Communist art leaders, particularly Jiang Feng.2”7 Whether Quan had gone to Hangzhou seeking information about Jiang Feng’s “nihilism” or whether Jiang’s distance from the scene made him a good target for locally orchestrated criticism is not known.

The administrative structure of the East China campus had been reorganized about a year after Jiang Feng’s departure. The Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee took control of the school, appointing new members to the campus party committee in 1953.28 With this expansion the Yan’an team put in place by Jiang Feng apparently found itself outnumbered by local Communist bureaucrats. Prominent school administrators—including Mo Pu, who remained on the party committee, Zhu Jinlou, and Jin Lang—were in agreement with Jiang Feng’s policies and continued to follow his lead.2? Problems about the school’s relocation to Shanghai were only some of the frictions that resulted from this new administrative arrangement. Many of the problems about which the old artists complained still existed

in 1956, but there would have been every reason for the provincial bureaucracy to blame them all on the school’s postliberation founder rather than to take responsibility themselves. Qian Junrui accepted their point of view. Even worse for Jiang Feng, he immediately reported his views to Mao Zedong, who was in Hangzhou at the time. The report apparently accused Jiang Feng of violating the party policy of uniting Communist and non-Communist intellectuals. Mao is said to have responded by asking, “Is Jiang Feng a Communist or a Nationalist?”3°

If this account is true—and subsequent events indicate that it likely is— Qian Junrui and his confidants believed that Mao supported criticism of Jiang Feng’s policies on guohua. What little is known about Jiang Feng’s activities suggests that he himself probably did not know of Mao’s opinion until much later. Jiang Feng’s supporters, similarly in the dark, claimed in 1957 that criticism of Jiang by Qian Junrui was provoked by Cai Ruohong and other rivals; Qian, after all, knew very little about art. This view may have been partly correct, since Cai Ruohong did emerge as a supporter of traditional training for young guohua artists during the Anti-Hu Feng campaign.?! There is no evidence, however, that Jiang’s supporters knew of Mao’s personal support for the Cai Ruohong—Qian Junrui approach to guohua. Probably at Qian Junrui’s suggestion, the Ministry of Culture and Zhejiang Provincial Committee investigated the East China campus in April 1956, an inquiry that resulted in severe criticism of Jiang Feng and Mo Pu by the

overarching party organization. Subsequently, Jiang Feng was ordered to Hangzhou for further investigation. He was also required to write a letter to the party central, presumably a self-criticism. He did not immediately comply because of pressing administrative duties and his belief that the problem was

184 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA insignificant and should be resolved in Beijing. In October, at the CAA directors meeting, Jiang Feng’s supporters accused the Ministry of Culture and the CAA party organizations of engaging in factionally motivated attacks on Jiang Feng. Jiang Feng requested that the proceedings of the meeting be published in Wenyibao.? During this period Jiang Feng was concerned with practical administrative matters that may have seemed more important than fending off unjustified and simple-minded attacks. In 1956, after an extended period of negotiation and preparation, the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts was established, its core

faculty and student body being drawn from the applied art department of CAFA. In the same year, most of the remaining private art colleges were inte-

grated into the national art academy system. The Beijing Arts College was closed and its art department divided between CAFA and CAAC. Perhaps for budgetary reasons, Jiang Feng spent part of 1956 engaged in an experimental program in free-lance art, recommending that some academy graduates support themselves entirely by selling their services to publishers and other work units on a short-term basis. He even advocated that students try to sell their

paintings in the park. The Hundred Flowers campaign, which undeniably contributed to the revival of traditional painting, was not simply a liberalization of artistic and verbal expression. The social, economic, and political dynamics of Chinese political movements made it impossible for artists or officials simply to relax. Moreover, they made idealistic or public-spirited behavior increasingly dangerous. Instead, the 1956 shift in policy led to a scramble for improved economic and social position, often at the expense of people already there. The guohua issue was paramount in the struggle, but it was used for different purposes by each layer of the art world’s social strata. At the top, CCP

officials sought to encourage intellectuals to help the state. At the bottom, guohua artists wanted more money and higher position. In between were the art bureaucrats, including Jiang Feng and Cai Ruohong, who evaluated the issue in terms of their professional goals. Jiang Feng viewed the leadership’s approach to guohua as wrong and as a threat to his system; Cai Ruohong, who readily accepted the new cultural trend, apparently saw it as an opportunity to attack Jiang’s bureaucratic position. The Hundred Flowers campaign presented Jiang Feng’s opponents with a conjunction of party policy and professional opportunity. The Ministry of Culture investigation into Jiang Feng’s “problem” with guohua was followed by public criticism. Jiang apparently resisted Qian Junrui’s suggestions for modifying guohua instruction at CAFA, for in October 1956 Qian held an open meeting for art students and faculty at the Capital Theater, not far from campus. At the gathering, Qian Junrui criticized the Central Academy of Fine Arts

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 185 and Jiang Feng for requiring the study of drawing in the caimohua department. He questioned the appropriateness of studying Western art, asking, “Do we have no national pride?” In conclusion, he urged those present to bring forth their opinions about the leadership of CAFA as part of the Hundred Flowers campaign. It was then that “certain art academies” were attacked by People’s Daily for their caimohua problems.*4 Zhou Enlai criticized Jiang Feng publicly at some point after the April 1956 Ministry of Culture meeting.*° While Jiang Feng seems to have maintained a tight hold on the academy in

spite of these attacks, his influence within the CAA was successfully challenged. Whereas the arts policy of the preceding years had been aimed at educating the youth of China to function as artists in the new state, the policies of

1956 and 1957 encouraged old artists to exhibit skills that were primarily attributable to their preliberation training. The major exhibitions held in 1956 were devoted to guohua. Publications of the same year reveal an unprecedented variety of styles being practiced in the traditional media. Although the pluralism of the Hundred Flowers slogan might seem to suggest a healthy climate in which artists could produce whatever they pleased, in fact art remained subject to party policies and politics. The Hundred Flowers produced less pluralism than factionalism. Those who emerged as spokesmen for the traditionalists took a pro—Cai Ruohong and anti—Jiang Feng political stance, regardless of their artistic intent. In response to the Eastern European uprisings of 1956 and the resistance of Chinese party administrators like Jiang Feng to the Hundred Flowers, Mao Zedong launched a party rectification campaign on April 30, 1957. For the first time, nonparty intellectuals were to participate in criticizing the errors of CCP leaders.3® Negative opinions about party personnel and policies in the art world rained in from all sides. Old guohua artists who were offended by the

emphasis on socialist realism complained about the art academy curricula. Those whose careers had suffered because of the party’s earlier antipathy to guohua criticized the party’s personnel policies. At the other extreme, the 1956 emphasis on guohua led young oil painters to express fear of unemployment. Thus the party leadership was criticized both by Soviet-oriented artists and by those one might call artistic nationalists. Published reports indicate that the rectification campaign turned into an

attempt by Cai Ruohong at the Ministry of Culture and Hua Junwu of the People’s Daily to unseat Jiang Feng from leadership of the art world. Support for Jiang Feng poured out from the academies and from groups of old cadres, including many in the Creation Studio of the People’s Art Press. Cai Ruohong’s support came mainly from within the national CAA administration and, unwittingly, from traditional painters. At a meeting held by the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Artists Asso-

186 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOAUA ciation on May 18, 1957, guohua artists were asked to make suggestions. The issues they raised ranged from the leadership’s undervaluation of guohua to specific financial concerns. One artist complained that some artists were reduced to decorating stationery for a living and that their handiwork sold for one-tenth the price of a mechanically printed reproduction. Others bemoaned the status of guohua at CAFA.

By May 22, Jiang Feng’s supporters had organized a counteroffensive against Cai Ruohong that culminated in a three-day meeting. Jiang Feng was later accused of assigning specific topics to twelve of the participants, a charge that his colleague Yan Han claims is false.3” Jiang’s supporters criticized Cai Ruohong for falsely blaming the Ministry of Culture’s failings in regard to guohua on Jiang Feng and for having misled Vice-Minister Qian Junrui on the guobua issue. Qian himself was condemned for his ignorance about painting and his unwillingness to solicit opinions from experts other than Cai. Dong Xiwen asserted that guohua artists in all parts of China suffered from the same

poor living conditions, work conditions, and teaching opportunities; Jiang Feng at the Central Academy of Fine Arts should not take sole blame for a national problem. The Ministry of Culture was faulted for hypocrisy: it had censured Jiang Feng for the neglect of guohua while taking no action itself to support it. Cai Ruohong, his allies, and Shao Yu of the People’s Art Press were criticized for being excessively sensitive to trends in opinion, particularly regarding guohua, which led to flip-flops in administrative procedure. A painting commission on which Dong Xiwen had expended considerable effort was suddenly canceled and the project turned over to a guohua artist. The thrust of the counterattack was that Jiang Feng had been the target of a smear campaign and that criticisms of him were completely out of propor-

tion to any problems that might in fact exist at the Central Academy. Published and unpublished criticisms were refuted point by point, with Yan Han, Wu Zuoren, Dong Xiwen, and Xu Beihong’s widow, Liao Jingwen, presenting

the most convincing arguments. In addition to the spirited defense of their director, the CAFA staff and students mounted an attack on officials of the Ministry of Culture. Dong Xiwen criticized ministry officials for suppressing oil painting in response to the new policy of supporting guohua. Others complained that the ministry was refusing to send oil painters abroad to study, that it had ignored Maksimov’s oil painting class, and that it refused to deal with the economic difficulties of oil painters. According to official accounts, almost two hundred students opposed to Qian Junrui and Cai Ruohong marched to the Ministry of Culture on May 25. Assuming the official account is reliable, this action demonstrates that Jiang Feng, the old urban organizer, had successfully aroused support at the popular

level. Yan Han, Mo Pu, Liu Kaiqu, and Pang Xungin were subsequently

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accused of orchestrating the event, which was deemed a victory even by its

opponents. According to Yan Han, however, the action was much more modest. A May 22 meeting had originally been organized by Maksimov’s oil painting stu-

dents and old cadres who worked in the Creation Studio of the People’s Art Press. The students, who formed the elite of their generation, were worried that the party’s turn toward guohua had gotten so extreme that it threatened their careers. The old cadres, many of whom had studied with Maksimov at their studio, were unhappy about their relationship with the administrators of the press. They took the opportunity to complain of bureaucratism, focusing particularly on the chief bureaucrat, Shao Yu. The concrete request developed by the assembled artists was that an oil painting creation studio be established to concentrate the talents of the artists trained by Maksimov. Such a plan was parallel to the structure established in the new Institutes of Chinese Painting and would raise the quality of oil painting. An unstated goal was to free the old cadres from administrators whom they disliked. A group assembled on the morning of the third day of rectification meetings to present their request to the Ministry of Culture. Originally Gu Yuan of the People’s Art Press had been asked to head the group, but for unknown reasons Yan Han ended up leading the protesters to the ministry. Each constituent group selected representatives to voice their opinions to the ministry. Maksimov’s class dispatched Qin Zheng, He Kongde, and Wang Liuqiu. Yan Han recalls that everyone was very excited and that they planned to arrive at the ministry before the ministers got to work. Rather than visit Minister of Culture Mao Dun, Jiang Feng’s enemy Qian Junrui, or Zhou Yang, the group decided to appeal to Vice-Minister Xia Yan. He had not yet arrived at his

office, and the protesters were told to go home rather than wait for him. Another Ministry of Culture meeting, they were informed, would soon be held at CAFA. Eventually a section head met with them and they presented their request to build a creation studio on Wangfujing near CAFA. They went on to discuss the Jiang Feng problem. Yan Han remembers that a friend warned him to stay out of the discussion because it was an internal party struggle. “They want to overthrow Jiang Feng; how can I keep quiet?” was his reply. Soon thereafter, a notice arrived from

the Ministry of Culture that a big meeting would be held. Qian Junrui was otherwise engaged, so Xia Yan represented the ministry. This may have been the meeting described in Meishu as occurring on June 4. The Ministry of Culture—sponsored meeting focused on guohua artists and appears to have been organized in response to the pro—Jiang Feng events of May 22~-25. In line with the opinions of Qian Junrui and Cai Ruohong, Jiang Feng was criticized repeatedly and specifically as the man responsible for the

188 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA party’s neglect of guohua. Because the rectification campaign was brought to a close three days later, on June 7, and the debate ceased, Cai Ruohong and Qian Junrui had the last word.

The Anti-Rightist Campaign Just as art students rallied to defend Jiang Feng, in the spring of 1957 college students at Beijing University demonstrated on behalf of Hu Feng, whom Mao had imprisoned two years earlier. Antiparty posters and demonstrations were widespread.3? The Hundred Flowers campaign turned against Mao himself by

the end of May. Either in alarm at the unexpected vehemence of the antiCommunist feeling remaining in China or as a cynical response to a well-laid trap, on June 8 Mao Zedong and the other party authorities moved to silence the critics they had flushed into the open. A nationwide purge of intellectuals and party officials began in the summer of 1957. Jiang Feng was named “number one rightist in the art world” and accused of leading an antiparty group. Yan Han was identified as “number two rightist.” Ministry of Culture officials took over the party administration of CAFA in order to supervise the political campaign. The academy became a national model for implementation of the

Anti-Rightist campaign in the art world. |

The case against Jiang Feng, who was stripped of his titles and expelled from the party in June, was set out in two meetings conducted on July 28 and 30, 1957, by the Ministry of Culture.4° The weeks between Jiang Feng’s purge and the formal statement of his crime were presumably devoted to convincing his colleagues that he really was a rightist and to soliciting their testimony. Even those who had reason to resent Jiang Feng, such as former CAFA party leader Hu Yichuan, found the charges of rightism incredible. When informed of Jiang’s demise by a reporter in Moscow during the summer of 1957, Hu voiced the indiscreet opinion that whatever one thought of Jiang Feng, one

could hardly call him a rightist.#! | It is probably safe to assume that no one of Jiang Feng’s rank in the party hierarchy could have predicted the devastating results of maintaining a principled stand on an artistic question. Moreover, most critics of the “rightists,” whatever their motives, could not have foreseen that their colleagues might be punished as harshly as they were. Some artists testified against so-called rightists for purely opportunistic reasons—to win favor with the leadership.

However, some of those who were reluctant to testify were threatened. A prominent administrator who had once shared an office with Jiang Feng was visited repeatedly by party authorities who sought information on the “Jiang Feng Antiparty Group.” When he failed to provide material, maintaining that

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no such group existed, he was given a final warning: if he did not testify, he would be identified as a rightist in the following day’s newspaper. He still had nothing to say and was consequently condemned as a member of the Jiang Feng Antiparty Group.*2 In a typical political campaign, well-organized speeches would be prepared under supervision of party authorities before the meetings. Party officials from

outside the academy were sent in to direct the campaign against CAFA administrators.+> The report of the July anti—Jiang Feng meetings, published two weeks later, describes erroneous opinions held by those who supported Jiang Feng. Some artists, including Jiang Feng himself, considered his so-called

antiparty actions and speech to be an academic matter, which would have made them exempt from interference by nonspecialists. Wang Xun, a leading art historian at CAFA, was criticized for a statement made at the May 25 rectification meeting that referred to Jiang Feng’s differences with other party leaders as being merely academic. Wang had reported, “We know that the opinions of several of the leaders of the CAA differ. The party meeting of the Democratic Alliance at CAFA considered inviting Jiang Feng, Cai Ruohong, and Shao Yu to meet to exchange some academic ideas. However, because this work later proved to be difficult to do, we gave up the idea.”44 Wang was declared to be a rightist. The very sensible opinions voiced by Wu Zuoren at the May 25 conference became evidence of Jiang’s pernicious influence. “We must acknowledge that

there are debates between the old and the new guohua principally over whether one wants a basis in drawing or rejects a basis in drawing. This is an issue that is scholarly and involves academic traditions. .. . It is not a ‘You die, I live’ situation.”4> The official report continues ominously to comment that since Jiang Feng’s problem was not academic but rather was antiparty, it was indeed cause for a “You die, I live” struggle. Xu Beihong’s protégé Wu Zuoren was protected by decision makers high in the party, and Jiang Feng, not the speaker himself, was blamed for Wu’s mistaken ideas. Xu’s widow, Liao Jingwen, was similarly forgiven her mistakes. On July 30, Zhang Ding, professor and party secretary in the color-andink department of CAFA and a practitioner of new guohua in his own painting, reported the following evidence against Jiang Feng: In 1954, when I first arrived in the color-and-ink painting department, the old guohua artists had not yet been assigned to teach; they were still studying drawing and undergoing reform. Studying drawing is fine, but Western-style artists were put in charge. The old guohua artists could not hold up their heads at the academy. Among the young artists, nihilism [indifference to Chinese culture] is serious; they suspect that the national painting legacy has nothing to inherit and they have no faith in the future

190 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUORUA development of guohua. Students chosen for the color-and-ink specialty try to get out of it. The color-and-ink curriculum cannot be established by [its instructors] but must be set up with that of the oil painting instructors. In that year, Jiang Feng supported Li Zongjin to hold a conference for painting department professors about guohua, and the meeting was really a siege against guohua. Jiang Feng and those who agree with him plan to “reform” guohua according to their own methods. Since that meeting, Western-style and Chinese-style artists are not united. Jiang Feng prohibits | the study of tradition. He is separated from the present situation of guohua and says simplistically that if one develops upon new year’s pictures, that is gvohua. Landscapes and birds-and-flowers are left out. The painting department teachers say that Chinese classical painting usually lacks anatomy, perspective, texture, weight, space, and so forth, and some of them laugh at the guohua teachers. ... One old painter said, “I would rather sell from a tarp on the street than teach guohua at the academy.”*¢

Zhang went on to testify that Jiang Feng had rejected both Zhou Yang’s ideas about guohua presented in the second CAA directors meeting, held in 1955, and Qian Junrui’s suggestions of October 1956 that the academy institute a two-track guohua program, one to teach traditional techniques and the other based on Western drawing. The article further accused Jiang Feng of believing

that the party’s policy of developing the national tradition was opposed to revolution and that Ministry of Culture support for guohua translated to a rejection of oil painting. Jiang Feng was accused in testimony by others of rejecting the party’s Hundred Flowers policy by undervaluing guohua and by calling it unscientific, unable to represent reality, and unable to serve politics. Hua Junwu reported that at the October 1956 meeting of the CAA Jiang Feng defended his previous _ policies regarding guohua. His alleged comments that guohua was useless during the Korean War insulted many old guohua artists such as Yu Feian.*7 According to the report, Jiang refused his chance to repent when he was criticized by the party organization in April 1956. Arguing that the new policy

advocated tradition, not revolution, he said to CAFA students: “Before, guohua artists were traitors and they oppressed us. Now the Ministry of Culture wants to let them continue to oppress us.” Comments made in front of foreign visitors included, “The Ministry of Culture is uncultured,” the Ministry of Culture officials “don’t understand art,” and the party officials of the ministry are “amateurs” who intend to “harm” him. Efforts to correct him were met with the rejoinder “Every sentence uttered by the premier [Zhou Enlai] is not necessarily correct.”48

Other alleged evidence of insubordination was that Jiang had failed to transmit party policy in support of the Hundred Flowers Movement to the

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA I9I CAFA party branch. The ideas in question were presented in a speech by Mao Zedong to national propaganda officials on March 12, 1957, and then passed down, presumably in written form, to high-ranking party functionaries. Instead of conveying Mao’s policy, Jiang discussed his own feelings, saying: “I previously agreed with Chen Qitong. Now, because my head is not a lantern, it cannot rotate with the wind.”4? Chen Qitong was an army propaganda official who had organized publication of an article that criticized the Hundred Flowers policy of liberalization in the January 7 People’s Daily. Chen’s group complained that some people were using liberalization to oppose the guideline of art and literature in service of politics and especially that some wished to revive old literature rather than create new socialist literature. Chen’s hard-line support of socialist realism, however, was a common one in the upper reaches of the party propaganda apparatus; indeed, it was not rebuffed by the People’s Daily until March, two months after the publication of Chen’s article. Mao’s other important speeches of February and March, for that matter, were not published by the official newspaper until April.>° Apparently, as Roderick MacFarquhar has described, the editorial staff of the People’s Daily, certain high party officials, and many lower-level officials were feeling considerable uncertainty and resistance to Mao’s Hundred Flowers campaign.°! Jiang’s refusal to jump on the bandwagon seems less extraordinary in this context, particularly since he seems to have viewed those who did sO as Opportunists.

The Hundred Flowers was interpreted by Zhou Yang, Qian Junrui, Cal Ruohong, and their supporters as a mandate to revive traditional painting. The State Council’s establishment of new work units to support traditional artists suggests that this view became the official line. Although the CAA supported this policy, perhaps over Jiang Feng’s objection, the academies he led encouraged only those aspects of Chinese tradition that could be harmonized with socialist realism. The specific “rightist” error for which Jiang Feng was con-

demned, in short, was his recalcitrance in fully implementing the Hundred Flowers guohua policy. His point of view had been rejected by the party when it criticized him in 1956, but he refused to back down. He consistently resisted outside interference in administration of the academies, be it from the Ministry of Culture or from local party organizations.

The procedure followed in the campaign against him was to apply the 1956-1957 party line as a standard for judging his previous career, going all the way back to Yan’an. One report asserts that Jiang Feng, Mo Pu, and Yan Han were unhappy with the Yan’an party rectification and believed that the party lacked faith in them and was too harsh with intellectuals.°? Jiang Feng’s concern for Sha Jitong, who died during the 1942 campaign, suggests that the accusation may be partly accurate, but its relevance to his administrative practices fifteen years later is not immediately obvious. During the Hundred Flow-

192 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOAHUA

ers campaign, Jiang Feng’s colleague Yan Han announced his opposition to the rectification procedure as practiced in Yan’an and revived several times in the 1950s on the grounds that people were publicly condemned without proper investigation of the allegations against them.>? The emphasis given to a Western curriculum at the academy in Hangzhou between 1949 and 1955 was blamed on Jiang Feng and his “antiparty” group, which included Vice-Director Mo Pu; color-and-ink instructors Jin Lang, Zhu Jinlou, and Jin Ye; and the oil painter Wang Liuqiu.>** Jiang’s criticism of old

artists such as Pan Tianshou and Wu Fuzhi in the early 1950s was cited as evidence that Jiang Feng intended to break the continuous history of Chinese traditional painting. Requiring depiction of the “typical,” concentrating on figure painting, drawing, and outline and color techniques, and abolishing the copying of old paintings were further errors, even though committed in the early 1950s. The targets of the campaign in Hangzhou were the Communist administrators Jiang Feng had installed in 1949. The Zhejiang Provincial Com-

mittee thus completed its sweep of leaders appointed before the province assumed control. Various other policies were allegedly aimed at abolishing guohua: replacing old faculty with young, a suggestion attributed to Jin Ye, for example; and calling the specialty caimohua rather than guohua. Guohua masters Pan Tianshou, Wu Fuzhi, and Zhu Leshan were reportedly not given teaching assignments at Hangzhou until the Zhejiang Provincial Committee criticized Mo Pu

in 1955. The caimohua department, moreover, was staffed with Westernoriented painters such as the “Three Golds [ Jiz],” Zhu Jinlou, Jin Ye, and Jin Lang, all of whom were declared rightists. Wu Fuzhi had despaired, “Those who don’t understand [guohua] pretend they do, so those who do understand had better pretend they don’t.”>> While the broad outlines of the campaign were defined by the party, professors from the preliberation academies provided its elaboration. All members of the art world, that is, were called upon to express their opinions about Jiang Feng’s “rightism” as a test of their own loyalty. Even for those who were not explicitly threatened themselves, previous campaigns had taught that if one did not condemn the errors of the accused, one might be considered a supporter of his viewpoint and so become a target oneself. As the charges against Jiang Feng were publicized, artists, art teachers, and critics were expected to prepare statements supporting the predetermined verdict. The variety of topics discussed in articles condemning Jiang Feng indicates that a certain amount of creativity in supporting the party line was encouraged. As one might expect, the earliest attacks were by Cai Ruohong and his allies. Evidence collected during the May rectification meetings was used to identify other rightists, to be supplemented by new testimony collected during the months that followed.

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 193

Among those who came forth to attack Jiang Feng were some who genuinely disagreed with his policies and administrative style. The bird-andflower painter Pan Tianshou, for example, who had been demoted from his preliberation position at the Hangzhou academy, accused Jiang Feng of pre-

dicting at a meeting in 1950 that Chinese painting would die out and be replaced by oil painting. The reason Jiang allegedly gave for this art form’s future demise was that Chinese painting failed to reflect reality, that it was unsuitable for large paintings, and that it lacked international character. Jiang was further accused of trying to make his prophecy self-fulfilling by combining the Chinese painting department at Hangzhou with the Western painting department. This new administrative unit, called simply the painting department, slighted traditional techniques and emphasized Western-style drawing.°® The guohua painters at CAFA, who had themselves been active in practic-

ing and teaching various new forms of guohua, were less personal in their charges than those, like Pan Tianshou, who had suffered at the party’s hands. According to the official report, color-and-ink painting department artists Ye Qianyu, Li Keran, Jiang Zhaohe, and the young instructor Li Qi supported Qian Junrui’s reform of the guohua curriculum, and thus did not oppose party policy.°? The following month their criticisms of Jiang Feng, which convey a strong sense of having been orchestrated by organizers of the anti-Jiang campaign, appeared in Meishu. Li Keran and Ye Qianyu, for instance, described

the development of Jiang Feng’s erroneous philosophy of teaching new guohua. According to Li, Jiang had criticized the venerable Qi Baishi at the first congress of art workers in July 1949 as follows: “Chinese painting, especially ink painting, cannot develop, with the exception of outline-and-flat-color painting.... Although Qi Baishi’s paintings are good, they have reached the end of the road and cannot be further developed.”°® Even if this quote is accurate, Jiang’s negative view of traditional painting merely reflects the party policy of popularization in the period immediately following the Communist victory. The party’s elevation of Qi Baishi to the post of chairman of the CAA in 1953, however, symbolized official reversal of this policy. New legal standards were thus applied to Jiang’s previous behavior. By about 1955, with national adoption of Soviet drawing education, a new issue arose. Theorists who had Jiang Feng’s ear, such as Wang Manshi, conceived the idea that traditional Chinese painting could be integrated with the

Chistiakov drawing system and that the abstract values of Chinese painting should be combined with Western techniques.°? The party’s renewed emphasis on tradition was acknowledged, however, in Mo Pu’s claim that Qi Baishi had unconsciously learned to draw without formal study during the course of his long life.®°

Li Zongjin’s critics accused him of conspiring with Jiang Feng to harm the

caimohua curriculum by teaching students a combination of Western and

194 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA

Chinese techniques rather than emphasizing the traditional foundations of their art. A 1955 conflict over the issue of whether to teach drawing or traditional painting led to the interruption of classes at CAFA. Li Zongjin and Wang Manshi allegedly aggravated the conflict by concluding that too much tradition was being taught; they therefore opposed the instruction of traditional ink outline drawing.®! Li Zongjin believed that in Chinese painting one should begin painting with a brush only after one’s pencil drawing is completed.®* Presumably this meant that the academic system of first drawing a detailed cartoon before beginning a major oil painting would be applied to

guohua painting. A result would be eradication of the guohua tradition of spontaneous personal expression. A further implication is that traditional techniques, which involved use of laboriously mastered conventions for lines and texture strokes, would be abandoned in favor of western modeling. Jiang Zhaohe supplied information about the terminology problem: “Jiang Feng says, ‘Oil painting is not called Western painting, so Chinese painting need not be called guohua [Chinese or national painting]. Chinese people’s paintings should not be divided into Western and Chinese on the basis of the tools they use; oil painting uses oil colors; guohua uses [water]colors and ink,

so is called caimohua, color-and-ink painting.’... Jiang Feng’s supporters called critics of his idea ‘narrow nationalists.’” Jiang Zhaohe concluded, in the spirit of the Anti-Rightist campaign, “But now we know that his idea was

intended to oppose the party central’s directive to inherit the national tradition.” 63

Some essays by CAFA professors are creative to the point of losing credibility. Ye Qianyu took the reasonable position that the long-standing bias in Chinese art schools toward Western painting helped to explain Jiang’s failings in the realm of guohua. His astounding conclusion was that Jiang’s pro-Soviet position was conservative—that is, rightist—whereas those in the party who favored reviving traditional painting were progressive. By placing Jiang in a long tradition of academics who lacked interest in guohua, Ye got away with supporting the party line without personally condemning the man. One of the

biggest faults Ye Qianyu pointed out was that Jiang propagated the Xu Beihong school of Chinese painting, which was based on Western drawing.®4 This criticism may have been the party line, but it seems odd when one considers that Ye himself was originally hired by Xu Beihong and practiced a new guohua figure painting style based on Western sketching. Another faculty member from Xu Beihong’s academy, the oil painter Ai Zhongxin, attempted to prove that Jiang’s personal virtues, such as “directness, strength of character, decisiveness, enthusiasm, vision, and personal au-

sterity,” were hypocritical means for reaching his antiparty goals. Their insidiousness was such, Ai maintained, that even after his “plot” was exposed

people continued to say that he was a good person with no malice in his

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heart.65 Such convoluted criticism paints an image of Jiang Feng not as a tyrant, but only as a popular administrator. While the authors’ motives were complex at the time and unfathomable today, one senses behind the rhetorical structure of their public statements glimmerings of opinions that do not entirely fit the party’s rigid framework.

Attacks by Cai Ruohong’s faction within the CAA, however, are unambivalent. Yan Han had accused Cai Ruohong of using political movements for factional advantage. Protestations to the contrary by Hua Junwu, a supporter of Cai Ruohong, are not convincing: Yan Han claims to be second-in-command, a great general of Jiang Feng’s Antiparty Group. He is a so-called Creation Cadre of the Artists Association. Since the 1953 reorganization, the party has allowed him free rein to devote himself to the creation of woodcuts. He has not been required to undertake any administrative work. Every month he receives a very high salary; moreover, he receives fees from the publication of his works. The party has given him superior material conditions, but Yan Han uses this freedom from going to a regular daily job to organize activities all over, to solicit people for the Jiang Feng Antiparty Group, to expand the ranks of the antiparty group, and to recruit support for Jiang Feng. Yan Han also claims that when Cai Ruohong and Hua Junwu of the CAA used “elimination of counterrevolutionaries” [sufan] to rectify him they engaged in factionalism. ... Yan Han says that Cai Ruohong and I changed twenty characters in his [self-criticism] conclusion, which is politically irresponsible. . .. He thinks he is a great artist, above the party’s investigation.©®

Among many other proofs presented of plotting by the Jiang Feng group, especially by Yan Han, Qin Zheng, and Jiang Feng himself, was the alleged fact that they were afraid to communicate openly with one another. They were said to identify themselves incompletely when making telephone calls, visit one another only after dark to avoid the notice of CAA officials who lived nearby, and hold meetings in parks and on street corners.®” If such charges were true, their caution was clearly justified, if useless, since their movements were carefully observed by the opposing faction. Yan Han’s 1988 recollection of the events placed the 1957 rectification campaign in a continuum with the Yan’an campaign and the Cultural Revolution.

The 1957 Anti-Rightist Movement . . . the Yan’an rectification campaign ... Mao suggested these. Many people were rectified .. . like a little Cultu-

196 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA ral Revolution. Or you could say that the Cultural Revolution was a continuation on a large scale of the Yan’an zhengfeng [rectification campaign]. At the time, they rectified people, but because they were surrounded by the Nationalists they couldn’t go on with it for very long. ... Many people were rectified, including Jiang Feng, but it was concluded quickly. ... I think, and so does everyone else, that the Cultural Revolution was an inevitable development from Mao’s thought, to rectify the intellectuals, rectify the old cadres, and have the Black Painting exhibition [of 1974].©8 .. . So this class struggle continues to the death. The Yan’an zhengfeng, the 1957 Anti-Rightist campaign, and the Cultural Revolution are thus related. Both in Yan’an and in 1957, some people criticized the whole idea of struggling cadres as a method of party discipline. Especially putting on people’s hats (labeling as a political criminal] without a careful investigation. You know how things work. First you put on their hats, but very often after you investigate you find that there was no problem to begin with. But I should be clear. We were rectified, but we also rectified other people. Because it was our [assigned] duty. We rectified other people; other people rectified us. We offended other people; and they offended us. But we say that we cannot assume responsibility because [Mao] was at the top and ordered this. This was a problem raised in 1957.... In 1957 the party central brought forth three items: (1) oppose subjectivism; (2) oppose bureaucratism; (3) oppose factionalism. These were raised by Mao. Everyone had to participate in this movement, and speak out, and help the party rectification. But actually they were just fishing. We were a little simple-minded. . . . So we all spoke out. Many of us protected Jiang Feng. ... 1 stood up in the big meeting [in 1957] and criticized the Ministry of Culture. J said that as far as an academic question goes, Jiang Feng did not sufficiently value Chinese painting. He urged the reform of Chinese painting. But wait, wait, this is an academic question. Regardless of whether he was right or wrong, it was an academic question. But the leaders of the time were taking names [of those who] criticized Jiang Feng. They said he used academic methods to oppose the Communist party. So I spoke. “This is wrong. In academics, you said one hundred schools should contend. People can contend, can express opinions. In politics, this becomes antiparty, counterrevolutionary. This is wrong, and should be investigated. There is time, no one will escape. We should heed the lessons of the Yan’an zhengfeng.” This is one item in my being declared a rightist.®?

The Anti-Rightist campaign in the art world arose from a conjunction of political, personal, and artistic factors. To this day, even artists and administrators who participated firsthand are not entirely clear about why it happened and what its ramifications are. There is no question that Jiang Feng was a talented, energetic, and charismatic administrator, if prone to stubbornness on

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 197 large issues and micromanagement of small ones. Yan Han believes that Jiang Feng’s purge was based not on his administrative performance but on personal relations. With the purges controlled by Zhou Yang’s faction in the party, the group who originally followed Lu Xun, including Feng Xuefeng and Jiang’s

friend Ai Qing, were obvious targets. Nevertheless, Yan Han believes that Jiang Feng’s position in the art world was such that no factional competitor could have unseated him. It was Mao’s involvement, based on reports he heard from Qian Junrui and others, that led to Jiang Feng’s purge. After complaints about Jiang Feng’s administration of Hangzhou guohua artists had been reported to Mao, the Zhejiang Provincial Committee initiated an inquiry. Jiang Feng was ordered on two occasions to go to Hangzhou to submit himself to investigation. He denied any wrongdoing and insisted on staying in Beijing while he straightened out the matter. He was subsequently criticized for not going to Hangzhou, and when he later agreed to go it was too late. In a speech of Octo-

ber 13, 1957, Mao Zedong reflected upon the Anti-Rightist campaign. He cited several examples of anti-Communists produced within the ranks of the Communist party, including General Gao Gang (who had been purged from Dong Xiwen’s 1952 Founding of the Nation), the novelist Ding Ling, Feng Xuefeng, and Jiang Feng.”°

It would be an understatement to say that the Anti-Rightist campaign, which sentenced young artists to labor camps for expressing opinions on such normal professional issues as critical standards, methods of art education, and the performance of art administrators, offends Western standards of justice. Rehabilitation of rightists in the late 1970s indicates that current Chinese authorities recognized the resentment it created within China itself. Not only the results, but the very process of “proving” the “crimes,” is appalling. Most of the case against Jiang Feng is recorded in secret documents, but even the published accounts support the view that he and his supporters were victims of factional attack. He was charged retroactively for policy errors that, when implemented, were considered correct by the party and by many of his accusers. Insofar as the views of Cai Ruohong and Qian Junrui represented the party in 1957, however, Jiang Feng was guilty of breaching party discipline.

The Anti-Rightist campaign resulted in the expulsion from the CCP of party leaders and art professors who held “erroneous” views, particularly Jiang Feng, Yan Han, Hong Bo, Mo Pu, Wang Manshi, Li Zongjin, Jin Ye, Jin Lang,

and Zhu Jinlou.”?! Non-Communist professionals such as Wang Xun, Liu Kaiqu, and Pang Xunqin were similarly attacked.” Every unit of the Chinese administration was required to purge itself of rightists—with, in many cases, a quota of 5 percent of all personnel set as a goal.73 At CAFA the students and professors who had defended Jiang Feng or who refused to testify against him were easy targets. Testimony was collected, rightists were condemned, and

many were shipped out by train to labor camps on the Soviet border of

198 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA Heilongjiang. A total of forty-four rightists were found at CAFA.”4 According to Naranarayan Das, a special police force was established to deal with these offenders.7°

The carefully chosen and politically reliable oil painting training class led by Maksimov offered up many victims. It is hard to imagine that the class harbored serious antiparty sentiments, since the stiff competition for admission had undoubtedly involved close scrutiny of the students’ ideological records as well as their artistic competence. Support for Jiang Feng was the downfall of many of the oil painters involved, however. The names of two delegates who represented the class at the Ministry of Culture, He Kongde and Qin Zheng, appeared in print and became targets for the campaign. From an art historical view, the most serious result of “wearing a rightist cap” was that the artists were effectively barred from official exhibitions until 1962. In practice, many were prohibited from painting and spent the most important years of their lives at hard labor. He Kongde was sheltered somewhat by his position in the People’s Liberation Army and managed to put his career back on track after his cap was removed in 1962. Qin Zheng did not reemerge until after the Cultural Revolution. Two irregular students in Maksimov’s class, Wang Liuqiu, who was a professor from the East China campus of the Central Academy, and Yu Yunjie, an illustrator from Shanghai, were also singled out as rightists in Meishu magazine condemnations.’¢ If the oil painting class had been assigned a separate quota for the production of rightists, it might have been as high as 20 percent; however, most students were counted toward the quotas in their home institutions, thus protecting someone else. The most profound impact the Anti-Rightist Movement had on the arts lay in its condemnation of leaders one would under normal circumstances have described as leftists: those who advocated rapid development of revolutionary art at the expense of traditional painting and who were enthusiastic about Soviet models. A second important group of artists banished from public life were those who might logically be called rightists. Liu Haisu was condemned at a meeting of the Jiangsu Provincial FLAC held between October 22 and 26 and attended by members from five provinces; he was exposed by testimony from the preparatory committee for the Nanjing branch of the CAA. Liu held many honorary titles in the new regime, including Shanghai Municipal Committee member of the Democratic League, member of the Jiangsu Political Consultative Council, member of the Jiangsu Provincial FLAC, member of the directorate of the Shanghai branch of the CAA, vice-director of the preparatory com-

mittee for the Nanjing branch of the CAA, and director of the East China Arts Academy (Huadong yizhuan), which included the remnants of his old Shanghai Art Academy. His primary crime was his refusal to move the East

THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA 199

China Arts Academy from Nanjing to Xi’an, as ordered by the State Council in 1956. When, shortly thereafter, the State Council canceled the move, he took credit for the policy change. During the party rectification campaign of May 1957 he spoke out in Shanghai in favor of moving the school back to Shanghai. He ridiculed the ignorance of party officials, referring to them disparagingly as “this bunch of Shandongers” and so forth, who “don’t know anything but live off the [Communist] party.” He opposed the study of Soviet art and uttered such sacrileges as “The best art in the world is not Soviet art; Soviet art has no stature on the world art scene.” His motive was to restore his preliberation Shanghai Art Academy.”” The charges against him, moreover, were probably true. One Shanghai Art Academy graduate who was a party official at the East China campus of CAFA is known to have held private discussions with Liu about combining the two schools.in Shanghai.78 It is ironic that both men were condemned as rightists for their exemplary demonstration of cooperation between party and nonparty administrators. Many old guohua artists who gave vent to their outrage at shoddy treatment by the Communists were condemned for antiparty sentiments. Others were charged with economic crimes. Lu Yanshao was declared a rightist for having tried to negotiate a higher salary when he was offered a transfer to the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting. Zhang Shouchen, organizer of the Shanghai fan painting cooperative, was condemned, presumably for his efforts to resolve the conservative guohua painters’ economic needs.7? The newly founded Beijing and Shanghai Chinese Painting Institutes lost several recently appointed administrators. Of four top administrators at the Beijing Institute, the director, Ye Gongzhuo, and the vice-director, Xu Yansun, were branded rightists. Ye Gongzhuo’s condemnation is particularly poignant from an art historical point of view, for the best traditional paintings in Mao Zedong’s residential guohua collection were joint scrolls and albums organized by Ye as birthday gifts or national day presents for China’s supreme leader.8° Xu Yansun was declared the leader of an antiparty group in guohua circles; his alleged crimes included accusing the party of not understanding guohua and attacking the work of Li Keran and Zhang Ding as not being guohua, as well as preferring good hotels and lower train berths when traveling.8! He, like Jiang Feng, failed to confess properly. The art historian, calligrapher, and painter Qi Gong was identified as belonging to his group.82 Before the Hundred Flowers campaign, the art world had been largely free

of direct interference from higher authorities. Cultural directives were issued by the party, and art leaders such as Jiang Feng decided how they might be applied to artistic activity. In 1956, however, the CCP adopted the question of guohua in new China for larger political purposes. Decisions were made that flatly contradicted previous art policy and that could not be integrated into the

200 THE POLITICIZATION OF GUOHUA

art bureaucracy. In such conflicts, as we have seen, central authorities easily overruled and purged individual bureaucrats. Overturning the entire system, however, was more difficult and was not attempted. Instead, the State Council created new institutions, most notably the Institutes of Chinese Painting, outside the existing art bureaucracy. The largely nonpolitical art produced by the privileged older artists in the Institutes of Chinese Painting was fragile, flourishing as long as men at the highest levels of the party were able and willing to protect it. It was only at the close of the decade that the party’s ideological shift toward “national forms” in art was given a sound theoretical basis. Nevertheless, young artists assigned to work there in the 1960s still considered the Institutes of Chinese Painting a retirement club for old artists rather than an important cultural force.’ The socialist realist mainstream, thus, remained vigorous, with a strong theoretical basis in Soviet and Chinese Communist doctrine and the support of a bureaucracy that continued to function, even after many of its founders were purged. The Anti-Rightist campaign removed from professional life the most committed advocates of both the proreform and the protraditional points of view. It had disastrous personal consequences for many alleged rightists. Some artists were transported in special rightist trains to rural labor camps in Heilongjiang, the Chinese equivalent of Siberia, and were forced to leave their families behind. Others, like Jiang Feng and Yan Han, underwent labor reform in the Beijing suburbs, after which they were assigned to low-level jobs in the cultural bureaucracy. Worse than the economic privation was the fact that they were shunned by former colleagues, friends, and even some family members. Such stresses led to divorce and other family problems. Pang Xunqin hid his problems from his wife, who was in the hospital recovering from heart problems. His efforts to shelter her failed, however, for she had a fatal heart attack after hearing a radio broadcast that castigated him.%4

Mao Zedong’s campaign to squelch antiparty sentiment may have found its proper targets, but it was also used in factionally motivated attacks to ruin party art leaders. Conventional professional and human relations splintered as artists were coerced into testifying on academic questions, only to see their testimony used to exile colleagues like common criminals. With blind loyalty to the CCP being placed above all other virtues, fundamental principles of individual and social morality were eradicated. The administration of art in China has never recovered from this blow. Among the condemned were men and women of principle and vision. The art teachers and students who were labeled rightists with Jiang Feng tended to be those who possessed personal qualities we associate with the successful artist, including ambition, independence, outspokenness, self-confidence, stubbornness, even self-righteousness. The purge, however, undoubtedly made implementation of Mao’s next cultural experiment somewhat less difficult.

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Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, revised ca. 1967, oil on canvas, 230 cm X 400 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History.

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Lu Yanshao, Landscapes After the Poems of Du Fu, 1962, album leaf, ink and color on paper, collection of the artist.

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THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 213

nianhua and other popular forms of art in a special half-year class. Faculty were dispatched to teach amateur artists at a nearby mine.*6 More regular admissions procedures were reinstituted in 1959, though outreach provisions were retained for the spring 1959 examinations. Sitting for the examination required a high school diploma, unless the candidate was a worker, commune member, or folk artist with three years’ experience, in which case a middle school cultural level was acceptable.4” Examinations were held in four regional centers that year. However, political circumstances once again disrupted normal artistic activity. The national campaign against rightist tendencies conducted in late 1959 led to a six-month hiatus in regular classroom activity.*®

A debate launched in 1958 about the relationship between politics and specialization, the “red-versus-expert” question, was carried forward into the following year. Because the artists were already considered expert, what mattered for them was the state of their political consciousness, or the degree of their “redness.” At CAFA, faculty and students who allegedly valued expertise over political reliability were selected as negative examples and subjected to

public criticism in a small-scale replay of the Anti-Rightist campaign. The printmaking professor Huang Yongyu and the oil painter Dong Xiwen were attacked for exemplifying capitalist views of art, valuing art over politics, and overemphasizing student talent. First-year students Jiang Tiefeng and Guang Jun in the printmaking department and Yao Zhonghua in the oil painting department were similarly castigated for their lack of interest in politics. Some of these students were attacked again in 1964 and banned from participation in their class’s graduation exhibition. Once labeled politically unreliable, their careers were ruined. In 1964, Guang Jun was assigned a job in the sanitation department; Jiang Tiefeng and Yao Zhonghua were given unappealing jobs in distant Yunnan.*? While similar political movements disrupted institutions all over China,

they were particularly damaging to the national art academies, especially CAFA, because of the severe setbacks already undergone during the AntiRightist campaign.5° Some artists who were students during those years mark their lives not by their art but by succeeding political movements.°! These included the “red-versus-expert” debate of 1959, the Three Banners of 1960, the anti-Khrushchev movement of 1961, the anti-revisionism campaign of 1962, and the Socialist Education Movements of 1963 and 1964. Some individuals on the academy staff managed to retain national visibility during this period, as we shall see later, but the emphasis on collective activity and the failure of CAFA to compete successfully with other institutions for the attention of

critics led to a decline in the academy’s influence after the Anti-Rightist campaign.

Because of CAFA’s location in the heart of Beijing and the ties of many students to high officials, the academy has always been more sensitive to high-

214 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

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level politics than many provincial institutions have been. Children of Deng Xiaoping and Liu Shaoqi attended the academy, as did a girl reported to be Zhou Enlai’s goddaughter, to name only a few. While loyal artists in China might have been able to change their styles gradually when confronted with a new official line, very few could produce an artistic response to policy change at the drop of a hat. And during the Great Leap Forward and the subsequent famine, unmanageably swift changes in political climate were more the rule than the exception. In the absence of a strong director, it is probable that pollitical uncertainty left academy artists unclear about the best direction for their long-term artistic development. By contrast, the Lu Xun Academy of Art, under the hard-line direction of Zhang Qiren since 1957, won national recognition as a progressive work unit in 1960.52 It was not until June 1960, on the eve of the Third Congress of Literary and Arts Workers and the national art exhibition, and with the country facing ever-worsening domestic and international crises, that one finds young CAFA artists receiving any public recognition. Two works in particular count among the earliest artistic contributions to the cult of Mao that flowered in the peculiar iconography of the Cultural Revolution. Contemporary Heroes, a large drawing prepared collectively by fifteen young faculty members of the CAFA middle school, commemorates one of the first congresses held in the newly completed Great Hall of the People in October 1959.53 Reworked soon after as a Chinese painting (fig. 67), it depicts Chairman Mao striding into the hall flanked by dozens of bemedaled people’s delegates from all walks of life. The enormity of the architectural stage on which Mao is placed, his centrality, and the great number of people walking with him propagandize powerfully for the mutual support between Mao and the people.

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 215

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Two young teachers at CAFA, Jin Shangyi and Wu Biduan, produced an equally effective iconographic formula in Mao Zedong with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (fig. 68), published on the cover of an important issue of Meishu.>* Jin was a graduate of Maksimov’s oil painting class; Wu had studied in Leningrad from 1956 to 1959. “For reasons,” as the editors apologetically and ambiguously state, the CAA magazine was issued two and a half months after its scheduled publication date in mid-July—the “reasons” consisting largely of the Soviet Union’s abrupt announcement that it was recalling its experts in China. When the magazine finally did appear in late

216 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

September (presumably after undergoing editorial changes), the cover vividly

asserted the Chinese Communist party’s claim to represent both orthodox Communism in the face of Soviet heterodoxy and the regions in which it intended to dominate the international foreign policy stage. Oddly enough, considering the anti-Soviet implications of its Maoist theme, in style and subject matter the piece is closely related to the work of a leading Soviet artist, A. A. My’nikov (b. 1919), who had visited China not long before. His Awakening, exhibited in Beijing in 1957, depicts the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas marching together with raised fists.55 The stylistic and iconographic origins of the Chinese work were not publicized, however, and the young Central Academy artists, unprepared by the school’s erstwhile Western orientation for the new emphasis on national forms in art, made their mark by developing a new iconography for Chairman Mao.°® THE STUDIOS

A brief relaxation of pressure on artists in the spring and summer of 1959 led to experiments in decentralizing instruction at some art academies. In Being and Hangzhou, the color-and-ink painting department had been renamed the Chinese painting department in 1958 as part of the Anti-Rightist campaign and reorganized by genre, with students specializing in landscape, bird-andflower, or figure painting, along traditional] lines.°’ The oil painting and printmaking departments were later divided into separate studios that would teach slightly different styles.°8 The presumed goal was to contribute to the Hundred Flowers policy by increasing artistic variety and by diminishing the stranglehold of Soviet art on the academy’s curriculum. Ai Zhongxin claims credit for the idea; the first studio at CAFA was named for the academy’s director, Wu Zuoren, whom Ai assisted in administering it. Both men were disciples of the European-trained Xu Beihong. Whatever its political justification may have been at the time, the studio system was hardly a new idea. Many Chinese artists who studied in France learned painting at privately run studios. The national academy in Hangzhou, which had a strong French tradition, had been organized by studios as early as the late 1940s. Moreover, Chinese artists who failed to obtain teaching posts before 1949 often survived by running instructional studios at home. Enterprising students, even those enrolled in the art academies, might explore different approaches by taking lessons at such private studios. Several private

studios continued to operate in Shanghai during the 1950s and 1960s, led by artists who were technically very skilled but unemployable for political reasons. The most prestigious of these was the Zhang Chongren Studio, taught

by a Catholic sculptor who had been trained in Belgium. Ha Ding, one of Zhang Chongren’s students, taught Renaissance-style drawing and British-style

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 217

watercolors at his less expensive studio.5? The Repin Art Academy in Leningrad, where Chinese students studied in the 1950s and early 1960s, was also organized by the studio system.®° Apparently the French academic and Soviet systems were similar enough to satisfy both Communist and non-Communist realists.

The Soviet practice of referring to studios by the names of their directors | was soon recognized as an ideological error in Communist China. Consequently,

the CAFA oil painting studios changed to a numbering system. Studio One, the former Wu Zuoren Studio, was taught primarily by Ai Zhongxin, with the assistance of Xu Beihong students Wei Qimei and Feng Fasi. Its mission was to teach European styles of oil painting, by which was meant premodernist styles. Studio Two, headed by Luo Gongliu, was taught by enthusiasts of Soviet and Russian art.61 When Luo became involved with other administrative duties, his Soviet-trained assistants, Li Tianxiang and Lin Gang, carried on.

As we have mentioned, the failures of the Great Leap Forward led to a nationwide reevaluation of administrative practices in 1961.°? Investigation of educational policies led to the drafting of Sixty Regulations Governing Work in Institutes of Higher Education, commonly referred to as the Sixty Articles on Universities. Deng Xiaoping asked that the draft include a provision that rightist teachers could return to educational roles. Documents concerning high schools and primary schools soon followed, thus ending the half-work, halfstudy system of the Great Leap Forward. The documents stressed adjustment, consolidation, augmentation, and improvement (tiaozheng, gonggu, chongshi, tigao), an approach usually abbreviated in China as the Eight Character Directive. Party supervision of academic activity was to be minimized. Lu Dingyi called for a staffing system in universities that would yield one-third proletarian intellectuals, one-third left bourgeois, and one-third neutral bourgeois. CAFA began to reemerge from its obscurity in this new atmosphere. Oil

Painting Studio Three, headed by Dong Xiwen and Japan-educated Xu Xingzhi,° was founded in 1962,°* the same year that some rightists were allowed to resume high-profile educational positions. Although Dong, like Wu Zuoren, had been protected during the 1957 Anti-Rightist campaign, he was criticized in 1959, probably because he was believed by students to value art over politics. Dong Xiwen sought to imbue the Western medium of oils with a Chinese aesthetic so as to produce “national-style” oil paintings. His work, like

that of his students, was based on study of both Chinese and European art, with faint echoes of prohibited early modern styles.

The CAFA goal of attaining variety through the studio system was hindered by both high-level politics and practical administrative concerns. Dong’s studio was in formal operation less than two years before the system was eliminated, targeted by the cultural crackdowns leading to the Cultural Revolution. None of the studios survived long enough to develop an artistic tradition of its

218 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

own. Moreover, the younger faculty in each studio, who did much of the teaching, had themselves been trained in a uniform Soviet manner. Maksimov pupils Jin Shangyi and Zhan Jianjun worked in Studios One and Three, respectively; Soviet-trained Lin Gang and Li Tianxiang assisted Luo Gongliu in Stu-

dio Two. Drawing fundamentals remained grounded in the Soviet-inspired Chistiakov system; hence, students assigned to studios in their second or third years were already steeped in principles of Russian art.

The print department was divided in 1961 into four studios similar to those of the oil painters, with Li Hua, Gu Yuan, Huang Yongyu, and Wang Qi the head instructors.65 One former student characterized the differences between the print studios on the basis of political outlook more than artistic

style. Li Hua, who had worked in Chongqing during the war under Guo Moruo and Zhou Enlai, is remembered best for the rigor of his teaching methods. He required students to master a standard set of knife strokes before they could carve their first picture, much as a traditional guohua teacher might require students to copy ink strokes endlessly before allowing them to paint a landscape.®* He was a devoted disciple of Lu Xun and held his students to a

canon of styles approved by the master. Gu Yuan, a veteran of the Yan’an print movement, was considered the most “revolutionary.” Most of his students were party members. Wang Qi was interested in Soviet prints but diligently supported the party line.

Huang Yongyu, who attracted unfavorable publicity by refusing to join the party, was a particularly lively teacher who, like Dong Xiwen, was believed to value art over politics. His only requirements were that students love China and study hard, though he rejected potential students whose sole talent might be spying for the CCP.6” Huang’s official art, as exemplified by his New Sound

in the Forest (fig. 69), tends to be sweet and optimistic. His more personal pictures, most notably his cartoons, are satirical, however, and were more welcome in Hong Kong than in Bejing. Changes in guohua instruction between 1958 and 1963 were probably the

greatest of any medium. Jiang Zhaohe taught drawing in charcoal and ink wash; Ye Qianyu and Li Hu taught outline drawing from life with a Chinese brush. While the deemphasis on academic pencil drawing and on rendering three-dimensional forms was an important shift, its effects were not immediately noticeable. The most competent students in the 1958 entering class were the CAFA middle school graduates. Yet because they had already re-

ceived four years of training by the Chistiakov method, they were slow to adapt to different techniques. Zhou Sicong, one of the most talented CAFA middle school graduates to enroll, recalls that she saw objects as volumes rather than as linear forms when she entered college and had to work very hard to master outline ink sketching.©8 In 1961, the Chinese painting depart-

ment was formally divided into specialties that functioned as studios. Ye

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 219

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lanyu and Jiang Zhaohe directed figure painting instruction. The landscape painting specialty was headed by Li Keran and Zong Qixiang. The bird-andflower specialty was taught by Guo Weiqu, Tian Shiguang, and Li Kuchan. A former student recalls Li Kuchan’s group as the daxieyi (large idea writing) studio.®? Assigning Li Kuchan to teach was intended to correct “errors” of the previous administration by reviving a style and subject that had suffered

220 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

neglect since 1949. Li’s position was somewhat special. In 1949, he had been retained as a professor at the National Beiping Art Academy, but he was not on regular salary and was assigned to decorate pots in the ceramics department. One summer night in 1950, after consuming a copious amount of liquor, he dashed off a long calligraphic complaint to Mao Zedong. The epistle, written in the “crazy-cursive” script of the Tang-dynasty monk Huaisu, took

up most of a large sheet of Chinese painting paper (about one by ten feet, according to his biographer) and must have been impressive to the calligraphy

enthusiast Mao Zedong. Within a month, Mao had written to Xu Beihong asking him to solve Li’s employment problem. Li was subsequently assigned to

the National Art Research Center and paid a steady salary.” This may have solved his economic difficulties, but the research center was segregated from the teaching staff. It was not until the conclusion of the Great Leap Forward that Li emerged as a teacher of traditional painting and his freely brushed pictures rose in official status.

Most exhilarating for young artists in 1962 was the burgeoning of unofficial student-organized activity. Students had been extremely enthusiastic about the Great Leap Forward. According to one CAFA graduate, they had covered every blank wall with mural paintings, built blast furnaces in the school courtyard, and carried baskets full of dirt to help build the Ming Tombs

Reservoir as part of their patriotic effort. They believed the propaganda they painted—that grain was piled to the sky and that pigs were as big as elephants. The bubble burst with the onset of rationing in 1960 and real hunger in 196x. Students did not know of starvation in the countryside, but morale was low nevertheless. In 1962 an academy leader, probably responding to Zhou Enlai’s suggestion to improve and broaden the cultural level of cadres, suggested that study groups be established to improve the academic atmosphere. Several good stu-

dents in the upper classes, including Guang Jun and Yao Zhonghua, were asked to organize informal groups. The students were permitted to study almost anything, including impressionism and abstract art. At night they held informal critiques of one another’s work. They conducted drawing classes for students in other specialties and eventually branched out into musical performances and dancing lessons.”! Guang Jun’s group was so popular and successful that students began referring to it as “Guang Jun’s salon.”72 Students who entered the CAFA middle school in the early 1960s recall an equally lively atmosphere among high school students.73 Their daily schedule involved ten hours of class, organized around a rigorous Soviet curriculum. Drawing, taught according to the finely sharpened pencil method associated with Chistiakov, was extremely strenuous. Despite hunger due to growing food shortages, they spent their Sundays and evenings practicing drawing, taking turns posing for each other.”4

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 221

Enjoying the freedom and incentives of the studio system, the faculty poured their efforts into teaching and painting. Huang Yongyu, who lived in a courtyard next to his classroom, would hop out his back window to pay late-

night visits to the studio, where students worked into the wee hours. One memorable and mildly shocking event was his “no-shirt party,” held for his allmale studio on a hot summer evening. Former students describe the very close artistic and personal relationships that developed between professors and the pupils in their studios.7> Some recall other practical benefits—teachers, including Huang Yongyu, provided snacks to the hungry adolescents during the three famine years. Largely for reasons that lay outside the academy, however, the

short-lived studio system had little impact on the stylistic development of Chinese art.

Ominous signs were to be seen even in the midst of the liberalization. In 1962, Cai Ruohong published a letter he had sent to an unidentified art educator that implicitly advocated strict limits on creative freedom in the classroom. He proposed a list of topics that students should be required to paint. For example, guohua students should depict the teenage martyr “Liu Hulan Delivering Army Shoes,” in both the hanging scroll and horizontal format. They were

to base the picture on the Biography of Liu Hulan, a text describing the peasant girl’s heroic virtues in the face of the enemy, and on their own imaginations. Their goal should be to convey the assistance Liu gave the Eighth Route Army, for which she was executed, by means of the arrangement of shoes.” Even if the CAA leader’s proposal was not adopted, it is evidence that the liberalization was narrowly interpreted by some. Another important event of the period was the second oil painting training class. It was originally planned that a second Soviet expert (identified by one

student as Myl’nikov) would begin training Chinese oil painting students in 1960, just as Maksimov had done five years before. When the USSR pulled its personnel out of China just as the class was slated to begin, the Ministry of Culture decided to demonstrate Chinese self-sufficiency by conducting the class without Russian help. As a result Luo Gongliu, an artist trained in Hangzhou,

Yan’an, and Leningrad, was appointed to teach the eighteen students. The group, which referred to itself as the “Eighteen Arhats,” included many artists from Beijing, such as CAFA painters Zhong Han, who served as secretary, Wen Lipeng, and Du Jian; a cadre from the Creation Studio at the People’s Art Press; and an army artist.”” Although the students’ graduation works, exhibited in 1963, were all history paintings, they were more varied in style than were those of the Maksimov class. This evolution probably had as much to do with developments in Soviet art, which was still the predominant model, as with the Chinese cultural thaw of 1962. In addition, Luo Gongliu himself was quite open-minded about painting styles; as we shall see below, his own work of the period is somewhat experimental. The best-known and most dramatic

222 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

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painting of the group was Du Jian’s Advancing Among Swift Currents (fig. 70), which no longer survives.78

The encouragement of diverse views within the academy and the bonds that developed between students in studios had an unexpected effect once political circumstances changed. When Communist authorities renewed political attacks on artists in 1964, they found fertile soil for the factional competition that drove their rectification movements. Unfortunately, by 1967 factionalism became bloodshed. CAFA seems to have been better prepared in the 1960s to respond to political swings to the left than to liberalization. THE SHANGHAI ART SCHOOL

One of the most unexpected aspects of art education in the PRC, as we have

seen, was that China’s pre-1949 art center, Shanghai, was left out of the

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 223

national art college system. After the private art academies were closed Jiang Feng and Mo Pu had intended to move the Hangzhou campus to Shanghai, but the plan was scrapped with Jiang Feng’s purge. Decentralization of education as part of the Great Leap Forward, which led to the establishment of many short-lived local art colleges, gave the Shanghai art world another chance. The Shanghai Art School was founded in March 1959, under the auspices of the Bureau of Light Industry. The academy was initially organized as a technical school at the high school level (zhongzhuan) and had a three-year curriculum. In 1960, junior college and college programs were added, and the academy was reorganized under the Shanghai Department of Education. During its brief existence, it moved at least four times, occupying the grounds of an old middle school, then an abandoned synagogue, and finally moving into the old campus of St. John’s University, where it shared its facilities with the Shanghai Institute of Social Sciences.

The new school’s faculty members included many skilled artists who were not satisfactorily employed because of political difficulties. Zhang Chongren, a

sculptor very much out-of-step with the Communist art world, was hired in 1959 to teach anatomy in the technical school. With the founding of the college program at Shanghai Art School in 1960, Zhang was promoted from anatomy instruction to his specialty, sculpture. Zhang, a devout Catholic, had been educated in church schools in Shanghai and at the Royal Academy in Brussels. He won a gold medal in a Belgian sculpture competition and collaborated with

his classmate, the illustrator Hergé, on two comic books about China.7? On his way home from Belgium he traveled to Rome for an audience with the pope. Upon returning to China he earned fame by winning a national competition to sculpt the image of the Nationalist leader Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek). After liberation he had hoped to participate in carving the Beijing Monument to the People’s Heroes, but the commission went instead to Liu Kaiqu, a French-trained sculptor with ties to Zhou Enlai.®° Our view of his subsequent career comes from younger Shanghai artists,

who present a slightly negative but strangely uniform account of Zhang’s career, one that may be based on Red Guard condemnations. They believe, for example, that Zhang was rejected from participation in the Tiananmen relief sculpture because he requested an excessively high payment for his draft plan. He supported himself in the 1950s by giving private art lessons in his home. His studio, though the most prestigious in the city, was also the most expensive, and he required that tuition be paid promptly. Students at the Shanghai Art School considered him an excellent watercolorist and found it memorable

that he wore a Western suit to class. He spoke at a national conference on watercolor painting in August 1962°!—proof that his talents were, however briefly, recognized by the arts leadership.

In the painting department, rightists and modernists emerged as the lead-

224 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

ing faculty members. Among the rightists were Yu Yunjie, an oil painter from the Shanghai People’s Art Press who had studied with Konstantin Maksimov, and Meng Guang, who became a popular oil painting instructor. Wu Dayu, a cubist and former head of the Western painting department of the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, had been forced to leave that school after liberation. He was hired by the Shanghai Art College in 1960. Guohua was taught by part-time instructors from the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting, including Cheng Shifa.82

Russian realism was the predominant stylistic approach adopted by the students, in part because of the influence of Yu Yunjie and Meng Guang and in part because their contemporaries in Hangzhou, Beijing, and other colleges favored it. Some of the students, such as Xia Baoyuan, had graduated from the

art middle schools of one or another of the national academies. All were steeped in Soviet socialist realism before admission to art college. This had its problems. One former student, for instance, described Wu Dayu’s classes as incomprehensible, a problem he attributed, in retrospect, to the students’ narrow interest in Soviet art rather than to the teacher’s weakness. Wu Dayu himself was viewed as a particularly unworldly character, prone to relating art to the philosophy of Zhuangzi and Laozi rather than to that of Chairman Mao and refusing to collect his monthly pay in person. Many of the first class of graduates at the high school level, who finished

study in 1962, were assigned to work at the Shanghai Drama Academy, though some remained at the Shanghai Art School for further study as college students. Probably as a result of economic recentralization in the post-Leap era, the school was closed after the graduation of its first college class in 1965. The remaining students were transferred to the local handicraft institute. Its graduates and some teachers were assigned to a newly established institution in 1965, the Municipal Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio. Because their rise to artistic prominence did not occur until the Cultural Revolution, we will delay further discussion of Shanghai Art School artists until the next chapter.

The Chinese Artists Association The tense political atmosphere of the Great Leap Forward was harmful to both the reputations and the artistic development of most academic artists. Outside the academy, however, the period following the Anti-Rightist campaign had another aspect: unprecedented support for artistic activity, partial implementation of the Hundred Flowers policy, and increased regard for the artistic production of artists in regional cultural centers. We have seen that political conformity was strongly enforced, both during

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 225

the concluding months of the Anti-Rightist campaign in 1958 and during the movement against rightist tendencies in the latter half of 1959. Yet two practical aspects of the Great Leap Forward were an emphasis on high productivity and a decentralization of economic administration. The former was reflected in March 22, 1958, regulations issued to all members of the Chinese Artists Asso-

lation: they were to prepare Great Leap Forward work plans, to concern themselves with politics as well as art, to engage in popularizing work, and to increase their teaching of the masses. Moreover, in 1958 all but the old and weak were required to engage in manual labor in the countryside.®3 Two slogans were coined as inspiration for increased artistic production. One, “More, Faster, Better, Cheaper” (duo, Ruai, hao, sheng) exemplified nationwide economic policy. Some groups of artists responded by contributing directly to industrial production. Shi Lu and his X1’an colleagues, for example, designed decorations for enamelware.84 One washbasin embellished with a Cheng Shifa design was even published in a propaganda magazine.®> Cheng, like other artists, reportedly worked side by side with laborers, thus learning from the masses. Other painters, particularly guohua artists, were praised for making pictures that were sold cheaply, so as to be affordable to all. The Beijing painters Li Keran, Ye Qianyu, and Li Kuchan, for example, all of whom were salaried at CAFA, sold their paintings for $0.20 RMB.°° A fan exhibition sold works by older Beijing masters such as Chen Banding and Yu Feian priced at $0.80 to $11.00 RMB.87 A second slogan, “Every Home a Poem, Every Household a Painting” (jiajia shige huhu hua),88 was implemented by painting murals on many rural walls and by making vast numbers of folk paintings on paper. Peasants and urban artists collaborated on the designs and execution of many such works.®? In Bi county, Jiangsu, 183,000 murals and folk paintings were reportedly produced in two months, work deemed of sufficient significance for exhibition in the CAA Art Gallery in Beijing in September 1958.79 In a similar vein, the guohua artist Fu Baoshi painted albums illustrating the poems of Chairman Mao.?! Decentralization was announced somewhat obliquely in the new work policies of the CAA leadership. The national CAA officers pledged to increase their contacts with artists, to hold more exhibitions outside Beijing, and to spend at least a month or two every year inspecting art activities in localities outside Beijing.?2 According to a report published in November 1959, they did in fact investigate activities in nineteen provincial and municipal centers during the preceding year.??

Material support for artistic activities during this period appears to have been largely a local responsibility. Decentralization of the Chinese economy gave local officials more discretion in their use of funds and a greater incentive to produce regional results.?* An exhibition of Great Leap Forward guohua

226 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

held on October 1, 1958, was sponsored and funded by the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CCP. Most of the artists represented in the exhibition were members of the Beijing Chinese Painting Research Institute or staff painters at the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute.?> This model of local funding and administration seems to have been emulated nationwide. In some areas, decentralization gave previously neglected artists muchneeded financial and critical attention. When Great Leap Forward work plans were publicized, the quotas promised by local branches of the CAA, not by the national organization, were reported in the CAA journal. For example, it was announced on March 8, 1958, that the Shanghai branch of the CAA was rais-

ing its production plan from 10,000 works of art to 20,000. On March 10, fifty-five members of the Shanghai branch who had not gone to labor in the countryside pledged to turn out 9,200 works of art and write twenty-five books in 1958. The guohua artists He Tianjian and Tang Yun, for example, vowed to create a new guohua style within one or two years. The old oil painter Yan Wenliang promised to make ten paintings and write a book during

the year. Others promised to join the Communist party within a specified period.?”

The preparatory committee for the Nanjing CAA branch pledged its 791 artists to paint 80,981 pictures and its theorists to write 3,046,000 words.?® Similar reports issued from other cities, including Chongqing?? and Xi’an.!00 Even regions that did not yet have CAA branch organizations vowed to step up artistic production.!°! While such a method of planning artistic production is of course preposterous, it did put pressure on local leaders to ensure that all painters and art theorists had adequate support to fulfill their quotas. It also focussed unprecedented critical attention on regional artistic activities and regional artists. A primary motivation of the CAA-sponsored Great Leap Forward activity was to produce works for the Third National Art Exhibition, which, as we have seen, was scheduled to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Chongging branch, for example, announced plans to submit eighty “excellent works” to the national exhibition.192 Such a goal was rather different from the decorating of rural walls and washbasins, for it put the various local] arts administrations in competition with one another for qualitative recognition at the national level. Local support and, in some cases, political protection for the artists involved were clear prerequisites if this goal was to be met. Reports published in the late 1950s and early 1960s indicate not only greater concern for the activities of local CAA branches but also a rapid increase in the number of such branches. In 1954 alone branches were established in six major cities: Tianjin, Chongqing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Guangzhou, and Wuhan.!93 Likewise, during the late 1950s preparatory committees, which seem to have functioned as the leadership of branches that were operating but

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 2.2.7

not yet formally recognized by central authorities, arose in many cities and provinces, including Nanjing, Zhejiang, and Guizhou. By 1960, twenty-four local branches existed, comprising about 3,500 members. !°4

For most members, the national artists association served as a voluntary professional organization. Salaries were generally paid by another work unit, such as a publisher, art academy, or research institute. Typically, though not universally, leaders of the local branches had been transferred from positions as editors or administrators at provincial propaganda publications, such as newspapers and pictorial magazines.!°5 In some cases they might hold elected office in the CAA while retaining their salaried publishing jobs. The administrative link between the two seemingly different occupations is that both were, directly or indirectly, sponsored by the Propaganda Bureau of the Communist party.

Perhaps inevitably, the national CAA became more responsive to local opinion when it decentralized its admission procedures in 1958. Whereas previously the national CAA had admitted new members directly, beginning in 1958 branch organizations were made responsible for recommending potential members to the national organization. This change, coupled with greater local control of funding, greatly increased the power of regional arts leaders, both to promote and to suppress artists in their provinces. Although its membership had expanded by 1960, the national CAA remained a highly exclusive organization. In 1953, membership stood at 104. By 1960 it had climbed to 758—after taking account of seventeen deceased members, one resignation, and three expulsions.!°& According to a Red Guard account published in 1967, by 1964 the membership was 1,116; forty-six members were workers, peasants, or soldiers, and most of this group were believed to have been admitted in 1959.!97 The most influential leaders of the CAA between 1958 and 1964 were Cai Ruohong, Hua Junwu, and Wang Zhaowen, though apparently their activities were determined less by personal conviction than by the ever-changing policies sent down from above. Of the

three men, Wang Zhaowen, a prolific but thoughtful writer, reveals the greatest consistency of approach, steadfastly supporting new developments in guohua.

Commissions for the Ten Great Buildings The best-publicized aspect of Great Leap Forward art policy was state encouragement of amateur art. Peasant paintings, which saw wide overseas promotion, were in fact initiated by professional artists who taught the farmers how to paint.!°8 A related phenomenon, that of professional artists engaging in manual labor, was mentioned in our discussion of the Central Academy of

228 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

Fine Arts. The central government, however, made an extremely significant exception to the deprofessionalization of art in 1958 and 1959 with the commissioning of works for new China’s tenth anniversary. A massive construction project was undertaken in the capital in 1958 and 1959. Referred to as the Ten Great Buildings (Shida jianzhu), the project was, according to exaggerated reports, planned and completed in only seven months

by collaborative teams of architects, engineers, and construction workers. It included construction of the Great Hall of the People, the Museum of Revolutionary History, the National Museum of History, the Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Museum, the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall, the Nationalities Cultural Palace, the Beijing Train Station, the Worker’s Stadium, the Nationalities Hotel, and the Overseas Chinese Hotel.!9? Other buildings, such as the Chinese National Art Gallery, were built soon after.!!° As Ellen Laing has pointed out, the new buildings took essentially Western forms and may be related to those of Washington, Paris, or Moscow.!!! Sited around the recently created Tiananmen Square or along one of the newly wid-

ened public thoroughfares, the monumental buildings symbolized China’s emergence as a modern state. The architectural focus of the city in the imperial period, the walled compounds of the Forbidden City, became a public museum, a park, and offices for the Communist party. The new buildings shifted the focus of pedestrian attention to the unwalled and open public square south of the palace, as figure 67 suggests. Commentators proudly pointed out that the interior floor space of the Great Hall of the People was greater than that of the old palace.!!2 All the new buildings required didactic or ornamental displays. China’s leading artists were therefore commissioned to produce paintings, decorations, and sculptures to fill the buildings in three campaigns conducted between 1958 and 1965.!13 The Ministry of Culture held a conference for the purpose of consulting with architects and artists on how to make the buildings “reflect the spiritual situation of our nation’s people and our nation’s ancient cultural and artistic traditions.”!!4 The paintings from the three campaigns that have been most influential in the Chinese art world were prepared for the Great Hall of the People, the Museum of Revolutionary History, and the Military Museum. Just as Dong Xiwen’s national reputation was established by The Founding of the Nation, successful completion of the later commissions became, in many cases, the most important document of an artist’s career. THE 1958-1959 CAMPAIGN The first campaign, begun in 1958, was organized by the Chinese Artists Association, the Ministry of Culture, and the Ministry of Light Industry; it yielded 345 works. Of these, 136 were Chinese paintings, 108 were large oils or mu-

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 229

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FIGURE 71

Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue, This Land So Rich in Beauty, 1959, ink and color on paper, Great Hall of the People.

rals, and rox were sculptures.!!9 It is likely that the CAA did most of the organizational work, since its membership executed the project, but funding came from the two government ministries involved. In the frenzied atmosphere of

the Great Leap Forward, deadlines were often short and expectations high. The new buildings were scheduled for completion on October 1, 1959, new China’s tenth anniversary, which undoubtedly put the artists under substantial time pressure. In addition, government officials who rarely concerned themselves with concrete artistic questions involved themselves in this project, in some cases offering opinions about specific aspects of the works in process.

This Land So Rich in Beauty One of the most notable artistic products of this campaign was the collaborative guohua of Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue, This Land So Rich in Beauty, painted for the grand stairway of the Great Hall of the People (fig. 71). The painting’s enormous size, 5.5 by 9 meters, 1s the result of Zhou Enlai’s opinion that an earlier version, only 4 meters high by 7.5 meters wide, was too small for its setting. The artists painted the larger, final version in only two weeks—apparently to Zhou’s satisfaction, for the work became a photographic backdrop for gatherings of foreign dignitaries.'!° It is specifically mentioned in descriptions of the building.!!”

230 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

The circumstances of the commission seem to be typical of most such en-

deavors. Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue were originally brought from their homes in Nanjing and Guangzhou to Beijing by the Administrative Office (bangongting) of the State Council for the purpose of painting individual pictures for the Great Hall of the People. When it was decided in May 1959 that a gigantic Chinese painting based on Mao’s poem “Ode to Snow” should be hung on the stairway landing near the banquet hall, the two artists were asked to create it collaboratively.!18 Officials involved in the early stages of the com-

mission included the chief of the State Council’s Administrative Office, Qi Yanming; Beijing vice-mayor Wu Han; and CAA vice-directors Cai Ruohong and Hua Junwu. The artists were then assigned neighboring rooms in the Oriental Hotel (Dongfang fandian) and allowed to use the second-floor meeting room of the Great Hall as a studio. Despite the reputations both men had earned for successfully illustrating revolutionary poetry, they claimed to have had difficulty

arriving at a satisfactory draft.1!9 The standard translation of Mao’s poem makes clear the problems landscape painters might encounter in converting its

imagery to pictorial form: ,

North country scene: A hundred leagues locked in ice, A thousand leagues of whirling snow. Both sides of the Great Wall One single white immensity. The Yellow River’s swift current Is stilled from end to end. The mountains dance like silver snakes And the highlands charge like wax-hued elephants, Vying with heaven in stature. On a fine day, the land, Clad in white, adorned in red, Grows more enchanting. This land so rich in beauty Has made countless heroes bow in homage. But alas! Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi Were lacking in literary grace, And Tang Taizong and Song Taizu Had little poetry in their souls; And Genghis Khan, Proud Son of Heaven for a day, Knew only shooting eagles, bow outstretched.

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 231

All are past and gone! For truly great men Look to this age alone.!2°

When Foreign Minister Chen Y1, FLAC chairman Guo Moruo, Wu Han, and Qi Yanming came to check on the painting’s progress, the artists were forced to confess their failure to complete a usable draft. Chen Yi, the poetgeneral, immediately advised them to focus on the word jiao (beauty) as the key to the composition. He stipulated that the picture should include territory on both sides of the Great Wall, the full length of the Yellow River, the snowy northwestern plateaus, and the broad expanse of Jiangnan; it should ihcorporate the four corners of China and the four seasons. Only then might it convey the magnificence of the fatherland’s mountains and rivers. The group immediately accepted Chen Yi’s ideas and began refining them. Would figures be included? Should the sun be visible? All agreed that figures were unnecessary, but Guo Moruo suggested that a red sun rising in the east would aptly symbolize ten years of Communist rule. Just as Mao’s poem was deemed to exemplify revolutionary optimism, the artists aimed to emphasize this same optimism with a dawn landscape. Following Chen Yi’s suggestions,

they sought to describe the beauty of the nation as a whole. The landscape thus was constructed as a composite of different geographical features, rather than as a description of one particular place. To emphasize China’s grandeur, the artists took care in applying color, so that the mountain peaks appear to recede over a vast distance. A draft of the entire composition in Fu’s hand survives,!2! but the most prominent details of the finished version are from Guan’s brush. The scratchy and rather subtle brushwork visible beneath the pine trees suggests that Fu painted the waterfall and mountains in the right foreground. Yet Guan’s more dramatic style is pronounced in the remaining foreground treatment, with its distinctive mountain vegetation. As the collaboration proceeded, Guan Shanyue painted the Great Wall and the distant snowy mountains, while Fu Baoshi was responsible for the panoramic middle distance, including the river view that leads the eye to the right, toward the glorious rising sun. The resulting composition is held together by the crossed diagonals of Guan Shanyue’s bold mountains and Fu Baoshi’s more restrained panorama. !42 By mid-September the work was complete. The two artists were instructed to have the painting hung for an inspection by Premier Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi. Zhou studied it from all angles for almost an hour before judging it a success. Even so, he concluded his viewing with two complaints. First, the painting was too small; and second, the sun was out of proportion to the architectural setting. Following his instructions, the artists completely repainted the work before

232 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

the October x national holiday.!23 Particular care was taken in the enlarged version to make the red sun more prominent and to spread the red tonalities of light more widely. The goal was to create the feeling of “the east is red; the sun

has risen,” joining images from Mao’s poem with phrases from the national anthem.

The painting was completed with the arrival of Mao Zedong’s handwritten inscription of its title, the poetic phrase on which the painting was based. Zhang Zhengyu, a professor at Beijing’s Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, spent the night before the tenth anniversary celebration laboriously enlarging and copying Mao’s calligraphy onto the completed work. The selection of guohua landscape painters to fulfill the most important commission of the period was a clear sign of the government’s commitment to indigenous forms of art. Regardless of party slogans urging inheritance of the “national tradition,” however, This Land So Rich in Beauty is unprecedented in the Chinese tradition. It is crucial to recognize the incorporation of Western concepts in the form and content of this painting, for it may serve as a marker of the effective replacement of traditional painting with a new, synthetic mode that combines Chinese and European traditions. The problem the two guohua artists were set was extremely difficult. The painting commission, like the building in which it was hung, was essentially Western in conception. Like many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European paintings, their work was to be a monumental, horizontal, framed picture on permanent display in a public building. The artists believed that this was the first such guohua ever created. It was certainly one of the largest Chinese works ever painted on paper. Traditional guohua tended to be created in one of three basic formats: hanging scrolls, handscrolls, and albums. Hanging scroll paintings on paper or silk were exhibited on walls, with collectors generally rotating works according to season or personal inclination; as a result, even in the home, works were not on permanent display. A small horizontal scroll or album was meant to be held in the hands, like a book, and then, after viewing, rolled or folded up for storage. Less commonly in later Chinese history, painted screens might be made as part of the interior decoration of a palace or mansion; murals were often included in decorative programs for temples. Fu Baoshi excelled at painting small hanging scrolls and albums that require intimate inspection of their subtle brushwork and washes for fullest enjoyment. His work of the 1940s and 1950s, like this painting, conveys effects

of weather and mood by contrasting hazy, wet ink and color with dry, scratchy brush strokes. His album leaf The West Wind Blows Red Rain, for example, is a richly textured and quite beautiful small landscape (fig. 72). Slightly more chaotic than many of his best small pictures, this autumnal scene is brought to order by the sweep of red leaves falling on the delicately rendered

THE GREAT. LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 233

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skiff and ancient scholar at lower left. The tidy boat is balanced by the artist’s inscription, a phrase from a poem, in the opposite corner. This same rather romantic style may be seen in paintings Fu executed immediately before his 1959 call to Beijing. The most notable of these is his delicate album after the poems of Mao Zedong, which he painted in November and December 1958 and which includes a remarkable monochromatic ink rendering of Mao swimming the Yangzi.!+4

Guan Shanyue is best known for his hanging scrolls, of which his Newly Opened Road of 1954 Is typical (fig. 61).!2° Slightly under two meters high

and about one meter wide, the painting provides a breathtaking view of a

234 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

mountain gorge, making excellent use of the vertical format to convey height. Using a combination of loose wet outline strokes and careful washes, the artist has exploited to the fullest his mastery of atmospheric perspective, thus adding depth to the scene. From a technical point of view, Guan combines a tradi-

tionalist’s interest in the abstract qualities of ink with more naturalistic, Western-style spatial effects. The latter, achieved by carefully conceived washes, may be found in Song dynasty painting as well, but their revival in the

twentieth century is due in large part to Western influence reaching China from Japan.!2¢ Silhouetted against mountain mists, a band of tiny monkeys perches atop foreground trees. Our attention is drawn to the object of their curiosity, a truck lumbering up a newly built mountain road. While both men had painted successful political guohua, neither artist’s earlier work indicates a talent for painting on the scale or in the format required for This Land So Rich in Beauty.

This Land So Rich in Beauty is a monument not only to the Communist regime and its founder but also to the artistic policies in effect when it was created. Because communist ideas of statehood were heavily influenced by Western ideologies, it is not surprising that physical monuments to the regime would require Western forms. Yet in the aftermath of the Anti-Rightist campaign, cultural policy called for more attention to national forms in art. The huge painting implicitly responds to a discredited idea attributed to Jiang Feng—that guohua was unsuited to large paintings for public spaces.

The contradiction at the core of this artistic effort is inherent in the nationalism of the period. Twentieth-century Chinese nationalism, like communism, has a strongly Western flavor. With the clash between Mao’s ambitions and Soviet policies in the late 1950s, the Chinese Communist party saw fit to mandate the selective revival of traditional cultural forms. The result was a hybrid, a complex synthesis of Western and Chinese elements. The party leadership’s selection of these native and foreign components was an important determinant in the subsequent development of guohua. The format and materials of This Land So Rich in Beauty are the clearest physical evidence of a synthesis of Chinese and Western conventions. The work is painted on Chinese paper with Chinese ink and colors; it was backed with stiffened paper and decorated with silk borders, in the Chinese way, but

then was framed in the Western manner.!2” Its brushwork is bold and its

, atmospheric perspective strong, so that it may be viewed from a distance. The subtle effects of ink and wash that characterize Fu Baoshi’s best work and most good Chinese paintings may be found if the work is inspected from a ladder or platform, but they are lost when the work is seen from the floor. Moreover, the size, shape, and proportions of the painting are closer to those of nineteenth-century France than of imperial China.

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 235

While large, framed guohua may be unprecedented, China has a long tradition of mural painting. According to historical texts with which the artists were undoubtedly familiar, Tang-dynasty palaces, temples, and tombs often boasted large landscape paintings as decoration. Thus, although the tradition was largely defunct by the twentieth century, and likely would not have been revived had China not been exposed to Western art, those seeking native sources for the concept of monumental mural painting could easily find textual evidence of great Chinese muralists centuries before Michelangelo. The beauty and technical refinement of Tang imperial tomb murals excavated during the Cultural Revolution strengthened such claims in the late 1970s and 1980s, but temple sites such as Dunhuang, Yonglegong, and Fahaisi provided similar material to artists and theorists of the 1950s. The somewhat shaky conclusion that the practice of monumental mural painting in modern China merely represents a continuation of the national tradition is not far behind.128 Just as the physical form of This Land So Rich in Beauty synthesizes native and foreign elements, so does its theme. Chinese emperors in earlier periods had commissioned paintings from court artists to praise, legitimize, or prop-

agandize for their reigns and dynasties;!2? the 1959 picture, though clearly more national than imperial in substance, performs a similar function. We will examine the ways in which This Land refers to traditional imperial propaganda, but it-is important to keep in mind that the fundamental concept of the painting, the glory of the Chinese nation, is as modern and Western as the Great Hall of the People in which it hangs. Specifics of the painting’s commission unquestionably reflect the Chinese tradition, in which poetry, painting, and calligraphy have long been viewed as closely related arts. Just as court artists of the Song dynasty were required to base their paintings on poems by the emperor, Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue were asked to make a painting based on a poem by the contemporary Chinese leader. As in some Song paintings, the poetic line that inspired the picture 1s in-

scribed on the painting in the calligraphy of the ruler. | The idea that the spirit of man can be represented by means of a generalized landscape has been fundamental to Chinese painting since earliest times. An identification of Mao’s spirit with the grandeur of the scene is implicit in this

painting.!3° Natural images were used to characterize individuals in literary

texts as early as the fifth-century A New Account of Tales of the World (Shishuo xinyu).131 Yet despite this reference to traditional Chinese views of the landscape and by extension to dynastic legitimacy, in This Land Westernstyle nationalism is never far off. The natural environment was a vehicle for conveying many meanings in traditional China, but national greatness was not one of them. Some American landscape paintings of the late nineteenth century, by contrast, embodied intensely nationalistic sentiments.!32 One might

236 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

argue that Communist intellectuals were often as sympathetic to such Western values as to the Confucian culture underlying traditional Chinese landscape painting.

Details of Fu and Guan’s execution are immediately recognizable as Chinese. The emphasis on ink and brushwork that led the artists to use huge brushes, rather than simply building up the image from many small, inconspicuous, strokes, is a fundamental of Chinese painting. Atmospheric perspective, which produces a sense of expansive space in the mountains, has parallels in both early Chinese landscape painting and Western art, as we have seen. On the surface, the execution of the picture makes it an excellent example of tradi-

tional Chinese forms in art. At a deeper level, however, the expression of nationhood that it embodies is based quite securely on nineteenth- and earlytwentieth-century Western ideas of art.

Fighting in Northern Shaanxi The Great Hall of the People was constructed with large rooms in which delegates from each province might hold meetings and banquets or simply relax. These rooms were decorated by artists who lived in the province in question, and often depicted the scenery, customs, or cultural history of the region. The history museums on the other side of Tiananmen Square, conversely, were better suited to illustrations depicting famous events. In either case, the artists selected for these prestigious commissions gained an opportunity for unprecedented national visibility. One artist whose 1959 work attracted a great deal of attention was the Xi’an guohua painter Shi Lu. He was called to Beijing to make two monumental paintings, one for the Shaanxi room of the Great Hall of the People and the other for the Museum of Revolutionary History. Both paintings were praised for their local color and innovative style, but his Fighting in Northern Shaanxi, rendered for the museum, became particularly famous (plate 3).!33 According to a friend who accompanied Shi Lu to Beijing, the artist’s desire to create a powerful and innovative image led him to difficulties in executing his assigned topic. The picture depicts Mao Zedong pausing during a milltary campaign to contemplate the local landscape. Mao was on the run from the Nationalist army during this period, but his future victory is foreshadowed by his elevated position in the scene. He stands isolated on a precipice, planning his next move. Below Mao on the trail one sees his heroic white horse and three bodyguards. Mao himself is depicted with dark washes of ink in which the artist has left pale highlights. The rich ink bleeds into the paper, as in paintings by earlier masters, while the highlights create a startlingly three-dimensional effect. According to his friend, Shi Lu based his image of Mao on a sculpture rather than on a photograph. The figures who accompany Mao are depicted with pale gray ink, which pushes them into the distance and diminishes their im-

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 237

portance. It is significant that Shi Lu chose not to paint a figural composition, but instead surrounded his small image of Mao with a grand Jandscape.

Shi Lu’s painting bears certain similarities to the huge painting by Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue both in the panoramic concept and in the nontradi-

tional approach to guohua landscape painting. Shi Lu’s innovative style, however, is less a synthesis of Western and Chinese norms than a mode of painting oblivious to both. His earlier work, most notably his woodcut Down With Feudalism (fig. 42), demonstrates the artist’s powerful innate sense of composition. Yet neither his spotty artistic education nor his previous work provides evidence that he was particularly skilled in the refined techniques of either Chinese or Western painting. This painting, indeed, marks a breakthrough for the artist; it is, moreover, compositionally more successful than the much larger This Land So Rich in Beauty. The viewer gazes on the panoramic landscape as though from a helicopter. Bold, dark outline strokes and deep orange pigment create a heavily abstracted but powerful image that is very effective when viewed from afar in the museum setting. The hills become paler in tone as they recede, giving a sense of the vast territory that waits to be conquered. The stark, loess plateaus are identifiable geographic references, but the overall feeling of the landscape remains highly generalized.

Although the work shares its romantic view of the Chinese landscape with This Land So Rich in Beauty, Fighting in Northern Shaanxi was conceived as a

history painting, not as an interpretation of a poem. Nevertheless, Shi Lu’s painting describes a particular moment in time and a known locale in such a way as to transcend the specific. Indeed, Mao could as easily be composing a poem as planning strategy. His noble character and the greatness of China thus become more important themes of the work than the particular military campaign the artist was asked to illustrate. The territory Shi Lu was assigned to de-

pict was that of his home province, but the elevated point of view seems to make Shaanxi a symbol of the entire nation. One wonders whether proximity to the Fu and Guan project may not have

spurred Shi Lu to his innovation. Shi Lu’s work, like This Land So Rich in Beauty, satisfies the new interpretation of national forms in painting. His landscape subject matter has deep roots in the Chinese aesthetic tradition. His execution, however, is based not on traditional conventions for rendering mountains but on a personal reinvention of guohua techniques. He dragged his brush across the paper to create a structure of slightly messy ink outlines and paler texture strokes. Outlines and texture strokes were mandatory elements of Chinese landscape painting as early as the tenth century, but none, not even those of Shi Lu’s idol Shitao, ever looked quite like this.13+ His medium, ink and color on paper, his landscape subject matter, and even his concept, that the loftiness of the man might be reflected in his setting, come straight from the

238 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

Chinese tradition. Yet the large square compositional format was new, and the bright color, even today, overwhelms the exhibits located next to it. The result

was a thought-provoking exploration of the problem of painting modern guohua. More important in its time, it was a remarkable success in its assigned task: to glorify the regime from the walls of the Museum of Revolutionary History.

Five Heroes of Mount Langya Many of the best-known works for the history museums were oil paintings in the Soviet style. There was, by 1959, a strong group of painters who had been trained in this mode. In addition to the artists who had studied with Konstantin Maksimov in Beijing, students were beginning to arrive back in China from their six-year courses in Leningrad. One typical example of the Soviet style was painted by Zhan Jianjun, a faculty member at the Central Academy of Fine Arts who had studied with Maksimov. The Five Heroes of Mount Langya is executed in the broad, flat strokes of paint favored by many Russian-trained artists (fig. 73). The five figures in the composition are fierce, well-muscled men. They are placed, as on a pedes-

tal, atop a precipitous mountain peak and carefully posed, one behind the other, to form a single, rather sculptural unit. The artist’s unifying intent is made explicit in the background of receding mountain ranges, one peak of which echoes exactly the silhouette of the group. The heroes, in short, represent the highest peak of the glorious natural configuration that they dominate.

The exaggerated poses and musculature of the figures, as well as the artist’s handling of paint, are based on Soviet socialist realism, though it is probable that the artist was well aware of the romantic landscapes of the guohua painters. In 1955, after all, he had completed the CAFA graduate program in guohua, one of the young artists Jiang Feng hoped would develop the new Chinese painting. In spite of the growing emphasis on “national forms”—which meant guohua and folk painting—Soviet-style works such as this continued to play a key role in Chinese art. As we have seen, the Ten Great Buildings project, which itself was undoubtedly influenced by Soviet prototypes, assumed a central role for art created for public display. The Sovietstyle paintings were thus admirably suited to exhibition in the new museums, both because of their dramatic, or even melodramatic, styles and because of their narrative content. To remove the stigma of foreign influence, this form of

art came to be called by a simple, relatively unideological term: history painting.

Bloody Clothes An unusual work prepared for the Ten Great Buildings is Wang Shikuo’s Bloody Clothes, which depicts peasants during land reform testifying to the horrors they had suffered at the hands of a brutal landlord (fig. 74). Wang had studied at the National Hangzhou Arts Academy under Wu

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 239

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Dayu and at the Shanghai Art Academy, from which he graduated in 1935. He

was an art student in Japan until the Japanese invaded China following the Marco Polo Bridge incident of 1937, and in 1938 he joined the Communists at

Yan’an. He had exhibited a woodblock print on the subject of land reform, Reform the Hooligans, at the First National Exhibition in 1949 (fig. 6). During the 1950s he became one of the most popular teachers at CAFA. Rather than abandoning the theme of land reform, as most printmakers did once the movement concluded, Wang made it his life’s mission to execute a monumental history painting on the theme. He worked on sketches throughout the fifties and

was invited to complete the work for the 1959 opening of the historical

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He Youzhi, illustrations for Great Change in a Mountain Village, 1963, vol. 3, lianbuanhua, ink on paper, Shanghai People’s Art Press collection.

warning of her despair or laziness. He Youzhi has a talent well suited to an illustrator, that of observing people as an actor or director might, to develop a cast of visible, moving characters based on the printed word. He Youzhi’s illustrations for Li Shuangshuang (fig. 80) are slightly more conventional, but no less successful. Many of the scenes take place indoors. A device we saw in the earlier Railroad Guerrillas is used here to great effect: the artist looks at his figures from every corner of the interior space, including the ceiling, so as to increase the variety of his compositions and intensify the emotional tenor of each scene. Colleagues from the press still marvel at the visual interest he managed to create in each of the seemingly endless series of party meetings the story required. Unlike Railroad Guerrillas, Li Shuangshuang does not portray exaggerated socialist realist heroes, but relatively ordinary, if attractive, people. He Youzhi’s flair for surface pattern is particularly evident in the two scenes reproduced here. Textile designs, window lattices, and even electric switches contribute to striking formal relationships. The blank rectangu-

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lar window behind Li Shuangshuang’s head (fig. 80, left) is a fitting frame to contain the isolation she felt in her hopeless quarrel with her husband. Li Shuangshuang was based on a film script of the same title, and some viewers believe that the heroine looks rather like the actress who starred in the movie. Nevertheless, the lianhuanhua version stands very well on its own. The focus of the story is Li Shuangshuang’s marital conflict. Shuangshuang has become active in local party affairs, a role in which she does many good deeds for fellow villagers. Her husband, humiliated by these exhibitions of female independence, quarrels with her and eventually leaves her, though in the end he .sees his error and returns. Their little daughter is used throughout the story to intensify the drama of their bitter arguments. In scenes 100 and ro1, pictured here, the little girl appears to be the only means of communication between her mother and father.

A third important lianhbuanhua of the period was Monkey Beats the White-boned Demon by Zhao Hongben and Qian Xiaodai (fig. 81), which won one of the four first prizes in the 1963 competition. The story, taken from

the Ming novel Journey to the West, and the pictorial style, which has a strongly traditional flavor, are very much in keeping with the nationalism of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Whereas He Youzhi incorporated traditional elements into his modern style, Zhao and Qian go the opposite route and modernize the “ancient costumes” genre. The simplified settings, angular rocks,

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trees, drapery folds, and details of costume make reference to conventions of traditional woodblock illustration. Nevertheless, the individualization of character, naturalistic gestures, and essentially Western figural arrangements give the images a three-dimensionality rare in classical illustrations. Claims that Shanghai lianhuanhua combine national forms with realistic observation are fully realized in works such as these. The reform program in the publishing houses reached its goals between 1958 and 1964, producing illustrations of unprecedented popular appeal, quality, and originality.

The Reappearance of Regional Art As we described at the beginning of this chapter, the cautious liberalization proposed by Zhou Enlai in his speeches of 1959 and 1961 was paralleled by greater diversity in the administration and practice of art. The most notable

trends of the period—the development of regional schools of art and the limited reappearance of artistic individualism—may be attributed, in part, to

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this ideological stance. A more important change, however, was wrought by the administrative decentralization of the Great Leap Forward. This restructuring had irreversible consequences for the Chinese art world in its encouragement of local artistic activity. While events in the major art centers of Beijing and Shanghai continued to be reported nationally, regional groups of artists began to receive unprecedented national attention during the Great Leap Forward. Conditions necessary for this critical success included one or more effective local arts leaders, unusually strong support for these leaders by the provincial party organization or by a national political leader, a local group of capable artists, and good relations with national CAA leaders. In most cases, such groups worked in Chinese media, such as guohua or woodblock prints. We will look at two schools of guohua painters, those of Nanjing and Xi’an, and two groups of printmakers, those of Sichuan and Heilongjiang. THE NANJING PAINTERS

The group that received the earliest and most enthusiastic national recognition was the Nanjing guohua painters. In a review of a late-1958 exhibition of their work in Beijing, editors of the official art journal cited the strength of Nanjing painting as evidence that guohua was flourishing nationwide. Further, in this era of decentralization, the Jiangsu provincial party secretary was lauded for his successful participation in their activities. !47 Although some of the Nanjing artists had exhibited in previous exhibitions

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FIGURE 88

Ya Ming, Steel Mill, 1960, album leaf, ink and colors on paper, 27.8 cm X 40.1 cm, collection of the artist.

Fu Baoshi’s works were predictably popular. Qian Songyan’s Summer Light on the River was lauded for conveying a calm feeling in terms identical

to those used by Zhou Enlai in an important speech of 1959;18! several of Qian’s other works were judged by viewers to possess poetic meanings (sh/yt) as well.!82 Ya Ming’s Stee! Mill album was singled out for its innovative use of

the guohua medium (fig. 88).!83 Indeed, this work is unprecedented, and marks an end to his concentration on female subject matter. Painted on extremely absorbent Chinese paper with ink and hot colors, Steel Mill conveys the feeling of having been painted from life (or at least from color photographs). The work makes little attempt to directly emulate the Soviet or Western styles prevalent in Chinese academies, yet it also completely breaks with conventions of Chinese painting. His only possible figural prototype is a pale one: Fu Baoshi’s ancient figures, as we saw in his album leaf of 1956, are similarly slender.

We have attributed the rise of the Nanjing artists to a combination of decentralized artistic administration and the high-level connections of its leading

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 265

artists. The group’s affirmation of the national tradition and other cultural policies of the period made its emergence particularly important. In addition, the guohua painting of Nanjing is a good example of regional artistic development in the period following the Anti-Rightist campaign. Several other regional groups that emerged during the same period were important for slightly different reasons. The printmakers of Sichuan and Heilongjiang, for example, fully assimilated Soviet models but used them to develop a distinctly regional iconography. The guohua painters of Xi’an, by contrast, developed a new way of painting landscapes in the traditional media. We will briefly survey these three groups before concluding with the spokesman and most important innovator in the Xi’an group, Shi Lu, who went beyond the bounds of regionalism to become an artistic individualist. THE SICHUAN PRINTMAKERS

A surprising feature of regional schools of art promoted by the PRC art establishment is that most of the artists were not natives of the areas they came to represent. This is particularly true of the Sichuan printmakers, a group that included old soldiers from the northern Chinese campaigns and young graduates of the national art academies. One prominent exception, as we will see, is Wu Fan, a Chongqing native. Artists from the Sichuan print group, despite their mutual influences, are stylistically fairly diverse. The most substantial feature that distinguishes this group from those of other regions is the high technical quality of their work and the subject matter on which many artists concentrated—namely, Tibetans. The latter was undoubtedly a key factor in the group’s rise to national fame, for it gave them a domestically unimpeachable political stand on the side of national unity. The Tibetan rebellion of March 1959 led to diplomatic crises with India and the Soviet Union and gave the Sichuan prints a political weight they might not have carried in more peaceful times. The Chinese response to the crisis was one of the few issues on which the Chinese leadership seems to have been unified. Several of the Sichuan artists, including Niu Wen (b. 1922) and Li Huanmin (b. 1930), were involved in the Communist conquest of Tibet in 1951 and

1952, and they based their work on their own experience there. One wellknown Niu Wen print of 1959 (fig. 89) depicts Tibetan schoolchildren dancing and singing the Communist song, “The East Is Red.” The composition’s simplified spatial setting refers viewers back to the popularizing directness of the

Yan’an print movement, of which the artist had been a part, and gives the work a naive charm. !84

The most powerful figure in the Sichuan art world was Li Shaoyan (b. 1918), a Shandong-born printmaker. Li himself attributes the great produc-

266 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

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Niu Wen, The East Is Red, the Sun Is Rising, 1959, monochromatic woodblock print, 36 cm X 34.5 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Association, Sichuan Branch.

tivity of the Sichuan group between 1958 and 1966 to the secretary of the municipal party committee, Ren Baige, who encouraged artists to make prints

rather than waste time on politics.!85 As the Niu Wen print makes clear, however, art of the period is closely tied to politics. The difference between “good leadership” of the kind described by artists in Chongqing and Nanjing and the alternative, which artists at the Central Academy of Fine Arts seem to have encountered, is that artists in the two provincial cities were urged to be

political in their art but not to give up making art to become laborers or ideologists.!%°

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 267

By 1960 the local branch of the CAA supported at least a dozen printmakers in its print group, a substantial financial commitment.!87 One artist claims that no other province had such a print group.!88 Indeed, sums that went to maintain guohua in Nanjing, Xi’an, or Shanghai were allocated in Sichuan to

printmakers. This support was justified when the Chongqing branch of the CAA was selected as Sichuan’s “progressive work unit” delegation to the National Cultural Education Heroes Meeting in Beijing in 1960 and became one of four nationally publicized arts units.18? Four artists from the print group of the Chongqing branch, Wu Fan, Li Huanmin, Fu Wenshu, and Xu Kuang, also received prizes as progressive workers.19° Selection of the group

for national recognition was undoubtedly influenced by concerns for geographic and administrative diversity: as mentioned earlier, the other three units were in Shenyang, Shanghai, and Nanjing and included an art college, a film group, and a guohua institute. Even so, the Sichuan group had clearly been remarkably active. The primary reason cited for the group’s receiving the award was its enthusiastic implementation of the Great Leap Forward policy of popularizing

art.'?! From the dozen or so Sichuan printmakers in 1949, the group had swelled to more than two hundred ten years later.192 The associated artists had completed over two thousand different prints, including many that depicted

the liberation of the Tibetan people. Traveling exhibitions of Sichuan prints had been well received, as was a book of reproductions, Sichuan banhua xuanj1.1?3 Propaganda activities had been continuous since 1957, with monthly exhibitions of propaganda prints on the street. The Sichuan printmakers also contributed to the beautification of people’s lives by publishing, in 1959 and 1960, decorated stationery and matchbox covers. The print group of the Chongqing branch was particularly praised for its excellent combination of art and politics.194

It is not immediately clear why Sichuan should have developed and supported such an active print movement, particularly when dogma of the period proclaimed guohua the national art form, but the reason appears to rest in large part in Li Shaoyan’s leadership.!95 Li began his career as an artist upon going to Yan’an in 1938.19 After learning the woodcut technique, he was assigned as a secretary to General He Long of the 120th Division of the Eighth Route Army, a support unit that traveled all over northern China. Li’s work was mainly clerical until He Long asked him to make a set of prints documenting their dangerous journeys in 1940 and 1941. Li consulted a Lu Xun publication of Soviet prints to teach himself how to compose such illustrations. Many of his pictures for this project are quite beautifully carved and organized, though the influence of the Soviet models is strong. The completed series, entitled The 120th Division (Eighth Route Army) in Northern China, of which we saw one example in chapter 2 (fig. 39), was exhibited in Yan’an in 1941.

268 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

He continued to work as a woodcut artist in the 1940s, making portraits of leaders and illustrations while art director for the Jin-Sui Daily (Jin-Sui ribao), the Communist newspaper for parts of Shanxi and Inner Mongolia. He served as leader of the art work group at North China United University and

later as director of the art section of New China Daily (Xinhua ribao) in Chongaing.!?7

After participating in the liberation of Sichuan by He Long’s army, Li Shaoyan remained in the province as an administrator. He eventually rose to a high position in the provincial propaganda department!?8 and became chairman of the local branch of the CAA, which was founded in 1954.19? Many of the artists who went to work at the new CAA branch were transferred with Li Shaoyan from the art section of the New China Daily, where they had worked

under him.29° As in other regions, then, the core of the Chongqing CAA branch had a background in CCP propaganda publications; in addition, the artists had apparently absorbed Li Shaoyan’s commitment to making woodblock prints, a feature that stamped the branch henceforth. Li Shaoyan’s prints of the early 1950s depict Tibetans in the same Russian print style he had employed for the 120th Division series.2°! By the end of the

decade, though, he was concentrating on more boldly conceived illustrations.292 One of his most charming prints is the somewhat atypical Old Street,

New Look of 1958, an uncharacteristically apolitical image at first glance (fig. 90).293 The viewer looks down a cobblestone street lined with unevenly tiled stucco houses. A timeless mood is conveyed by the old-fashioned architecture, the only exceptions being two almost inconspicuous modern details: a telephone pole and two distant steamships on the Yangzi River. What is really new, however, is that the narrow lane appears to be completely roofed

with bamboo poles from which drying string hangs. The striking sight is clearly the result of communal effort, probably that of housewives who have opened a neighborhood factory.

Several other woodblock artists found themselves in Sichuan as part of military propaganda activities. Li Huanmin, a young veteran of the Communist army in northern China,2°4 attended the cadre training class at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1950 and 1951. After completing the course he was

sent to the south to help liberate areas not yet under Communist control. Assigned to work under Li Shaoyan in the art section of the New China Daily, in 1952 he began underground propaganda work for the Communist conquest of Tibet. He reportedly learned to speak Tibetan and to dance Tibetan dances, and claims to feel a great attraction to the Tibetan people.*°° He indeed became a specialist in the depiction of Tibetan life, usually focusing on images of women at work. One charming image is his Tibetan Girl of 1959 (plate 6).

This work, a nostalgic portrait of a youngster who had peeped into his tent after the Tibetan uprising of 1959, recalled his early days in Tibet, when only children dared to come near the Communist cadres.

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270 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

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He Haixia, Yumen Gorge on the Yellow Shi Lu, Going Upstream at Yumen, River, 1959, guohua, ink and color on 1961, ink and color on paper. paper.

On the Road to Nanniwan, is quite desolate. A single human figure walks across a clearing toward broken, leafless trees. Shi Lu and Zhao Wangyun share a somewhat unsystematic, individualistic use of the brush. Indeed, the tangled tree branches seen in Zhao’s work became a characteristic feature of much X1’an work. Only He Haixia completely eschewed this textural chaos.

A second compositional type characteristic of the Xi’an artists was one developed to describe the cliffs of the Yellow River gorges. He Haixia, who

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 293

worked in the Municipal Sanitation Bureau from 1951 to 1956, was hired by the Xi’an branch of the CAA in 1956.258 Three years later, in 1959, he painted an image of the Yumen Gorge in which rowboats struggle against the river’s mighty current (fig. 102). The artist looks down on his scene from high above, emphasizing the drama of the human confrontation with nature. His composition is very tidily rendered, with all the trees, rocks, and texture strokes bounded by the contours of the cliffs. Although he tries to minimize his references to old painting, he instinctively adopts foliage forms associated with the seventeenth-century master Shitao. This work, typical of He Haixia’s painting of the period, displays greater technical discipline than that of Shi Lu or Zhao Wangyun.

Shi Lu himself tried the same composition two years later (fig. 103). His work is more dramatic than He Haixia’s precisely because of his tenuous technical control. The edges of his forms—the boat, the cliff, and the stone path on which the boat pullers trudge—all bleed insubstantially into the paper, much as the river itself appears to do. The artist’s precarious technique lends a measure of drama to the scene by equating human constructions and solid land-

scape forms with the wild water. He adopts a lower viewpoint than did He Haixia, so that the viewer, closer to the struggle, feels greater empathy with the struggling boatmen. He Haixia believes that Shi Lu had the most acute sense of observation of all the Xi’an artists, a theory that this work would support.

Despite occasional subtle differences of hand, the early innovations in Xi’an painting appear to have been communal rather than individual in origin. The group’s works went on tour in 1962, which gave Shi Lu, Zhao Wangyun,

Li Zisheng, Fang Jizhong, and the Beijing painter Li Qi an opportunity to travel to Nanjing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. They viewed paintings at the Shanghai Museum, an event that He Haixia considers the second turning point in Shi Lu’s painting. An album by the late-Qing bird-and-flower painter Xugu was on display, and Shi Lu immediately recognized an affinity between the earlier master’s technique and his own aesthetic explorations (figs. 104 and 105). Xugu’s work, which typically depicts fish, small animals, vegetables, trees, and flowers, is constructed of dry, sharp outlines and rich washes of color. His angled brush stops and starts many times in one stroke, energizing his line and his pictorial surface. There is in his work a sense of barely controlled linear chaos. Colors are mixed in unusual ways, with green and tan washes bleeding together, or ink and rusty red pigment overlapping to compose a form. Shi Lu absorbed this style and during the next two decades made it his own. During a long illness in 1963, Shi Lu composed an illustrated treatise on painting, most of which was destroyed when the Red Guard raided his home in 1966 and 1967. Three chapters of the unpublished manuscript, however, were hidden by a young art student, Ling Hubiao, who later collaborated with

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Shi Lu to publish them. In the chapter on brush and ink, Shi Lu writes of Xugu’s painting:

I look at a Xugu painting of a plum [tree], and its angles are all squared off. Why? He took their uprightness, constancy, and righteousness as his brush intention, absorbed their snow-weighted and ice-sealed manner as his brush principle, borrowed the patterns of their crossing fissures and grids as his brush method, and attained the beauty of their spirit consonance and life motion as his brush flavor. Thus we recognize that brush and ink are the host and guest, weaving a painting’s threads of life. If a painting has brush and ink, its ideas are alive; without brush and ink, its thoughts are dead. If a painting possesses my thought, it has my brush and ink, if it lacks my thought, it will be a slave of ancient men’s

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 295

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Shi Lu’s manuscript makes clear that his revolution in art had departed the realm of gentle regionalism and now demanded an imaginative individualism. Distortion or abstraction of form was justifiable for expressive purposes. His call for self-expression evokes not Mao or Stalin, but the two iconoclasts who

296 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

lie behind his pseudonym: the seventeenth-century painter Shitao and the early-twentieth-century writer Lu Xun.

As it later became clear, lack of individualism was not a problem from which Shi Lu suffered. Even at the 1961 conference, ostensibly called to seek suggestions for the improvement of Shaanxi painting, he felt obliged to defend stylistic characteristics that others believed to be faults. Wildness, in his view, was the antithesis of scholarly elegance, and was preferable.2©° This view was not universally appreciated, and by 1963 Shi Lu’s work was

mocked by some critics as “wild, weird, chaotic, and black.”26! Shi Lu responded to this apparent insult sarcastically, making “wild, weird, chaotic, and black” a kind of personal motto. He wrote in a 1963 poem: People may scold my wildness, but I’m even wilder. Collecting the ordinary, J make marvelous pictures. People rebuke my weirdness, how weird am I! Disdaining to be a slave, I think for myself. People say I’m chaotic, but I’m not chaotic— The method that has no method is the strictest method. People mock my blackness, but I’m not too black. If black will startle the mind, I can move the soul. “Wild, weird, chaotic, black”—not worth discussion. You have a tongue, I have a heart and mind.

Life gives me new ideas, and I paint its spirit.262 With his 1963 illness Shi Lu entered a period of personal and artistic development that was crucial to his painting but filled with psychological suffering. A scandal about a love affair made him a target of the leftist political campaigns launched in 1963. Beyond the personal turmoil it may have caused, this weakness threatened his leadership position in both the party and the art community. He sought to make an artistic comeback in 1964 with his monumental Ferry to the East, prepared for the National Military Exhibition. In this work Shi Lu sought to demonstrate his newly invented brush techniques, which involved building human forms from angular strokes of black or pink-orange paint.263 When the painting was reviewed by CAA leaders Hua Junwu and Cai Ruohong, however, they failed to appreciate his abstraction of the figure. Cai Ruohong reportedly made the tactless, if aesthetically justifiable, comment that Shi Lu had skinned all the people he painted. The disappointment of his failure to satisfy the official critics, combined with personal and physical problems, is believed by one colleague to have been the first step on a difficult psychological journey. On the way, Shi Lu produced his most original paintings; but by its end, he was freed from the constraints of party policy by madness.264

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 297

| The Artist as Individual, 1961-1962 Previous sections have described one of the most important phenomena of the

period 1958-1964, the development of regional schools of art under CAA sponsorship. Equally interesting, especially from a qualitative standpoint, was the brief burgeoning of individualism and pluralism in the early 1960s. In this section we will turn briefly to the careers of three guohua painters, Li Keran, Lu Yanshao, and Wu Hufan, and to short-lived official efforts to encourage individual styles in the native media. This activity peaked in about 1962; we will _ conclude by describing its suppression in the middle of the decade. The new trends in artistic practice emerged in a comparatively liberal political and bureaucratic atmosphere. The Eight Articles on Literature and Art, released in 1962, confirmed the cultural policies of 1961 and 1962. In March, Foreign Minister Chen Yi officially “uncapped” the intellectuals who wore “capitalist class hats.” Although young rightists such as Yuan Yunsheng and Zhu Naizheng remained in Jilin, Qinghai, and other distant places, they were no longer considered criminals. (However, when one CAFA party member

allowed to return to Beijing attempted to overturn his case, he soon found himself sent back to Heilongjiang.)2® In May 1962, the CAA and Ministry of Culture held an exhibition in com-

memoration of the twentieth anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Talks. It took the form of a retrospective of Chinese art produced between 1942 and 1962, and even included some non-Communist works from the 1940s. While focusing primarily on art in Communist-controlled areas, the 1,133 works presented an unusually objective survey of every artistic movement of the period.2®° Among works in the national exhibition were Wang Shikuo’s drawing Bloody Clothes (fig. 74), Yan Wenliang’s Turner-like Evening Traffic on the Huangpu River, a Wu Hufan Bamboo, and Liu Haisu’s Green Jade Gorge, in the style of Shitao.

The painting that may best exemplify the feeling of the time was a Fauvist landscape, Strange Boulders by Hu Yichuan, a Communist printmaker who had returned to an oil painting style practiced in the Hangzhou and Shanghai of his youth.2°7 In April 1963, a retrospective of the painting of Lin Fengmian was held, an event politically justifiable only on the grounds of Lin’s gently nationalistic aims in art.268 The editorial policy of the CAA journal Meishu reflected the liberalization of 1962. As early as January, the magazine devoted a large number of color plates to reproducing contemporary still lifes and landscape paintings in West-

ern media. The February issue reproduced still lifes, flower paintings, and landscape paintings in oil from the preliberation period. These included Wei Tianlin’s White Peonies of 1938, Li Sibai’s Fish on a Blue Plate of 1943, Li Ruinian’s 1944 landscape Sha’ping, Chang Shuhong’s 1945 still life Thunder, Dong Xiwen’s Kazak Herdswoman of 1948 (fig. 34), and Ai Zhongxin’s Melt-

298 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

ing Snow, Forbidden City of 1947 (fig. 59). Dong Xiwen published an article on color in which he discussed the contributions of Monet to a scientific use of color. He commented favorably on the individual styles of various European artists, including Van Gogh. Other themes he discussed were color and class feeling, color and the spirit of the age, color and regional characteristics, and color and national customs. These, then, were the themes that might justify an expansion of artistic activity.2©? In another essay, Wu Guanzhong, then a professor at the Beijing Arts College, discussed his rather modern landscape oil paintings.2”° The March issue presented landscapes by Lin Fengmian, He Tianjian, Shi Lu, and Qin Zhongwen. In April, Li Shusheng published a short history of oil painters of the May Fourth era.*7! The editorial effort seems to have

aimed at raising standards and promoting variety by publicizing the best of twentieth-century Chinese art, regardless of the artists’ political circumstances. The combination of nationalistic support for guohua, which we discussed in preceding sections, and the new liberalization permitted Chinese landscape painters to develop and flourish between 1958 and 1965. It was in this exciting

atmosphere that a range of artistic personalities, including the innovator Li Keran, the traditionalists Wu Hufan and Lu Yanshao, and the notorious individualist Shi Lu, emerged. In our preceding section we saw how Shi Lu pushed the boundaries of Communist art theory. Let us look briefly at less extreme developments in guohua. LI KERAN

The painting and career of CAFA guohua professor Li Keran underwent particularly noteworthy development during the period between the Anti-Rightist campaign and the Cultural Revolution. In chapter 3 we looked at Li Keran’s 1954 initiation of the practice of sketching guohua landscapes from life. He spent eight months in 1956 on similar sketching journeys.*7* The year 1957 was particularly significant for him. He was fifty years old, he traveled abroad for the first time, his teacher Qi Baishi died, and the Anti-Rightist campaign seriously damaged the institution at which he taught. As we have seen, Li’s testimony was used to condemn Jiang Feng. The confrontational public stance that Li assumed in the 1957 campaign differed from his usual approach to collegial relations, in which he generally minded his own business and made few enemies. Although his bitter condemnations of Jiang Feng, who had supported Li’s artistic experiments, may have been forced, the artistic approach he described does not seem insincere. Li Keran rarely engaged in such high-visibility politics in subsequent years, devoting as much effort as the Communist party would allow to his quest for a new way to paint the Chinese landscape. The CAA held a one-man exhibition of Li’s landscape sketches in Beijing during the PRC’s tenth anniversary celebrations in 1959. The event may have

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 299

been conceived as a response to Zhou Enlai’s April and May talks, which expressed support for landscape painting and announced postponement of the national exhibition. Li’s paintings subsequently traveled to seven other cities; the exhibition and a book of reproductions published the following year made Li Keran nationally famous. His theoretical writings were also published in People’s Daily,273 and a film was made about his painting. Despite his growing fame, the work he exhibited in 1959 was uneven in quality, merely foreshadowing but not attaining his mature style.2”4 Some of the sketches are descriptive and linear, rather like the work Zhang Ding had exhibited five years before.*7> Other more personal works, however, reveal his increasing interest in the effects of light. His compositions go beyond what the eye can see, deemphasizing accurate spatial relationships and landscape details in pursuit of new compositional principles. In such works, light is rendered by contrasting blank, white paper with heavy washes of dark ink. Li experiments with various new ways of texturing mountains, but in the most successful efforts his texture strokes are all but obscured by black washes. An innovative composition that appeared in this period was a panoramic, almost maplike rendering of a misty river town, Morning Mist in a River City (fig. 106).*7° A curved white stripe of road is flanked by simplified black-and-white dwellings. Beyond them recedes a gray wash of mist. The intense tonal contrasts give life to his study of optical effects. Beginning in 1961, Li was privileged to spend part of each winter at Cong-

hua in the southern province of Guangdong and part of his summer at the Beidaihe mountain resort near Beijing. He painted prolifically, and his personal

style grew more pronounced. Rich washes of gray and black ink came to dominate his mountain textures, the intense contrasts of black ink against small pale areas of paper forming the basis of his compositional structure. Many of his paintings from this period are flatter than his earlier work, but they are pervaded with light and consistently well organized. Li’s student Du Zhesen divides Li Keran’s mature work into two groups. The first is typified by his pale, panoramic view of Guilin, painted in 1962 (fig. 107).7”” Li Keran experimented tirelessly with this composition, in which a strip of white river flanked by two rows of simplified rural dwellings divides a misty landscape. This composition is related to his earlier and more naturalistic Morning Mist in a River City (fig. 106), but in an increasingly abstract and

imaginative way owing to his constant reworking of it over the years. The second landscape type is exemplified by his 1963 Ten Thousand Crimson Hills, a mountainscape constructed of dark washes (plate 7). As in a Songdynasty painting, a massive peak serves as a looming screenlike backdrop to a tumbling, white waterfall. A mountain village of whitewashed houses, however, has a new luminosity. What is unique about Li’s new style is that his landscape is constructed less of the overlapping outlined forms of old paintings, than of subtle axes of illumination that emerge from insubstantial washes.

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FIGURE 108

Wu Hufan, Celebrate the Success of Our Atomic Bomb Explosion, 1965, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting.

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 305

subject matter unwittingly tells of a destructive shift in art policy and marks the end of the guohua revival. The artist’s motivation in creating such a bizarre image may never be known. It has been exhibited and published as a straightforward example of his patriotic art.28* His student and friend C.C. Wang, however, considers it unlikely that he would paint such a thing without being pressured to do so. One of Wu’s younger colleagues confirms this opinion, describing the picture as the result of his irritation at ceaseless demands by party officials to politicize his art. Finally, to quiet the cadres, he agreed to paint an atomic bomb.283 A story widespread in Shanghai supports this view of Wu’s relationship with political personnel. According to this possibly apocryphal tale, when Wu was urged to strive for an art that was both Communist (hong) and professional (zhuan), he responded by painting a red brick (hongzhuan). If Wu Hufan’s atomic bomb was intended ironically, though, the subtlety was lost on those who judged the work. Wu Hufan was a target of the Cultural Revolution, which was launched the year after he painted the atomic bomb blast. His art collection was not destroyed, as so many were, but was taken to the Institute of Chinese Painting, where it was carefully catalogued by young artists.28+ Much of it is now in the Shanghai Museum. The artist himself was not so lucky. He suffered a physical collapse in 1968 and died by suicide in the hospital. YOUNG ARTISTS

The primary function of the new institutes of Chinese painting was to support old guohua artists so that the tradition would not die out. To this end, five students were assigned to the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting in 1960, with three more added in 1963. At the time, the institute encompassed a range of styles and approaches: the director was Feng Zikai, best known for his idiosyncratic cartoons;*° the vice-directors were traditionalists, the landscapist He Tianjian and the bird-and-flower painter Wang Geyi; and the xieyi birdand-flower painter Tang Yun and the modern figure painter Cheng Shifa oversaw practical aspects of artistic activity. The students, who were as young as

sixteen, each received an assignment to study with an old master—among them Wu Hufan, He Tianjian, Fan Shaoyun, Cheng Shifa, and Tang Yun. In Shanghai, the traditional master-apprentice system was taken very seriously; a formal ceremony at the beginning of the apprenticeship was attended by officials of the local culture bureau. As part of their professional training students did errands and other household chores. They also learned to write classical essays and play the zither. Meanwhile, the institute’s collection of old paintings was available for copying, and teachers who had personal painting collections lent works for study as well.

306 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

Unfortunately, the experiment largely failed owing to the renewal of political controls on art in late 1963. The classical curriculum was criticized and students were sent to study at the Shanghai Art College. With the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, most of the institute’s young painters became Red Guard,?8® mandated by Chairman Mao to destroy the traditions they had studied. A similar training effort was made at the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute, beginning in 1962, but with even less satisfactory results.28”7 After Qi Baishi died, the institute received no new director. Cui Zifan, a Communist soldier

who had worked as a hospital administrator, was the party bureaucrat in charge. Although he had actually studied with Qi Baishi, the fact that he painted was not widely known, even to institute artists, until many years later. Most young artists considered the institute no more than a welfare agency for unemployable old painters. Zhou Sicong, who graduated from the CAFA middle school and CAFA guohua department, was assigned in 1963 to study with a master who painted

female beauties in the traditional outline style. Her nine years of study at CAFA left her extremely well trained in the new socialist guohua figure painting, and she confesses that she was not very receptive to her career change. In 1964, all the young artists were sent to the countryside; thus their brief traditional training came to an end.#88 The Beijing Chinese Painting Institute was expanded to include oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, and other Western specialties, which substantially diluted the traditional component of the institute’s activity.28? Its name was changed to Beijing Painting Institute, presumably to reflect the expansion of its role.

The Conflicts of 1963-1965 From a purely artistic point of view, the early 1960s constitute the high point of the first three decades of the People’s Republic of China. We have seen the flourishing of regional schools of art, the accomplishments of a few of the many active guohua painters and illustrators, the continued support for Sovietstyle oil paintings, and the revival of art education. The year 1962 may have appeared to be the beginning of a new era of cultural liberalism; unfortunately, Mao set about reversing the party’s course almost immediately. The economic decentralization of previous years had led to corruption in some areas controlled by local cadres. Once the famine of 1959-1961 had ended, high party leaders agreed that such dishonesty must be curbed. Unfortunately, ideological differences between Liu Shaoqi and Mao Zedong about proper methods of solving the problem caused cataclysmic political conflicts. A

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 307

key point of contention was whether China’s difficulties were to be blamed on the economic policies of Mao and the Great Leap Forward or on insufficient revolutionary indoctrination of the masses. Many leaders of the CCP agreed with Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping that the problems were primarily economic and administrative. In their view, relatively laissez-faire cultural policies were not harmful; indeed, if they inspired good morale, they might even be beneficial. For the Maoists, including Kang Sheng and Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, such cultural policies were by contrast the very core of the problem, which was an ideological or spiritual one. Administrative errors, this faction felt, could only be the result of waning revolutionary zeal. Needless to say, artists, like writers, stood unwittingly at the center of this fatal political conflict. The first anticorruption political movement, usually referred to by artists as the “Four Cleanups,” was launched in 1963. Liu Shaoqi, Mao’s designated

successor, believed that problems with party cadres should be dealt with secretly, within the party, to avoid demoralizing the public. To Mao, however, it was imperative that corrupt cadres be censured in mass actions.*?° The early stages of the movement were conducted in Liu’s way, by secret investigations. Probably most troubling to Mao was the fact that inquiries were strictly con-

trolled by the party bureaucracy to limit personal and politically inspired attacks.*?!

The art world was racked by the same conflicts that ravaged the higher reaches of government. For serious artists, 1961 and 1962 were the most productive years of their postliberation careers, and sentiment in favor of continued freedom of expression remained strong. However, the leftward ideological swing of the Socialist Education Movement soon affected first the criticism of art, and then its organization and practice. One indication of the coming storm may be found in an article published by the art historian Yan Lichuan in August 1963. Entitled “A Discussion of ‘Wild, Weird, Chaotic, and Black,’” it defended the general practice of landscape painting and bird-and-flower painting in socialist China but criticized the specific innovations of Li Keran and Shi Lu as elitist. Yan mentioned Pan Tianshou and Fu Baoshi favorably; he also acknowledged that Li Keran and Shi Lu had overcome the conventionalization of the traditional landscape genre.??2 Nonetheless, he largely affirmed negative opinions of the two artists’ work—as

reflected in the satirical description of Li Keran’s 1959 exhibition by some viewers as “This Land So Black” (Jiangshan ruci duohei), a play on a poetic line from Mao that served as the title for Guan Shanyue and Fu Baoshi’s “This Land So Rich in Beauty” (Jiangshan ruci duojiao; fig. 71). Shi Lu’s work, as we saw, had previously been labeled “wild, weird, chaotic, and black.” Yan Lichuan agreed with those who criticized Shi Lu’s painting

as hard to understand; it was, he said, neither traditional painting nor ortho-

308 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

dox revolutionary art, and it was an unsuitable influence on younger artists. At best, it was a transitional phase in the development of new forms of art. Yan then explicated the four terms used to castigate the artist’s work and character. “Wild” meant technically immature; “weird” suggested abnormal

artistic or living patterns; “chaotic” meant undisciplined composition and brushwork, as well as lack of rhythm; and “black” referred to lack of variety in ink and color, which resulted in poorly conceived relationships between emptiness and substance. Blackness, while it appears to be a purely stylistic concept in this discussion, also had political implications, as a contrast to the redness of communism. While such usages grew increasingly common in the subsequent Cultural Revolution period, it is entirely probable that the author

fully intended these unflattering resonances. In conclusion, Yan Lichuan asserted that this style obstructed a law of traditional Chinese realism—that spirit be transmitted through form—and failed to win appreciation by the masses.

Of Li Keran’s paintings, especially Spring Dawn in Jiangnan and Mist and Clouds on the Li River,293 Yan noted that although Li’s ink was not really black, his work had a monotonous ink tonality. Yan warned that Li Keran’s and Shi Lu’s work, because it was difficult to understand, threatened to create a new double standard for art. In traditional China, the difference in taste between the scholar-official class and the masses had been characterized as “elegance” versus “vulgarity.” The new phenomenon, one of “refined” (wen) versus “crude” or “wild” (ye) leanings, represented a similar split in standards. Yan’s implication was that the masses preferred refinement, whereas only a small number of artists and critics appreciated wildness. The new aesthetic split was between the general public and art world extremists.

A similar attitude is evident in a feature article devoted to viewer comments on Lin Fengmian’s April exhibition. None of those quoted were art professionals. Most of the group enjoyed the exhibition but found it flawed politically. Among other problems, Lin’s landscapes were felt to be “unhealthy,” and his figures were not likable. His scenes of modern life were ugly. A scientist suggested that Mr. Lin participate in more activities in society. A soldier thought that the beauty of Lin’s landscapes inspired escapist feelings, clearly a bad thing in the eyes of a military man. Another writer found the paintings gloomy, better suited to the preliberation era. A student did not like the paintings and asserted that peasants would not like them either. In the end, the

article deemed the exhibition unhealthy and aimed at a petty bourgeois audience.?94

Within China’s various art institutions, many artists recall being criticized in 1963. We have mentioned attacks on high-ranking party figures such as Shi Lu and on students of the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting. At CAFA, Chen Pei called a hasty school meeting during the Lin Fengmian exhibition

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 309

to criticize the paintings and their admirers. A printmaking student was astounded to hear the party secretary repeat verbatim a favorable comment the boy had made only that morning to a stranger who struck up a conversation in the Chinese National Art Gallery. When asked by his fellow spectator, who turned out to be a Ministry of Culture spy, what he thought of Lin Fengmian’s

painting, the student replied that it “struck a chord.” Chen Pei, obviously speaking on orders from the ministry, compared Lin Fengmian’s painting to a Japanese delicacy, raw blowfish, warning that it might appear delicious, but in fact it was highly toxic.2%5

CAFA’s recovery from the traumas of the 1957-1962 disasters was not complete when the party administration attacked it yet again. First, the hardline director of the Lu Xun Academy of Art in Shenyang was made a vicedirector of CAFA in 1963,27° perhaps a hint of policy changes to come. Then, in what seems to have been a nationwide move to recentralize higher education, the Beijing Arts College, which had been operated by the city of Beijing since 1956, was disbanded and its faculty and staff divided between CAFA and CAAC.297

Mao’s economic policies had been discredited by the famines, and with the liberalization of art and literature he lost control of culture as well. Both personally and through his wife, Jiang Qing, he began striking out at those who opposed him. His initial, unsuccessful efforts to regain control, taken in 1963, may lie behind isolated attacks against artists in that year. Zhou Yang and other officials of the Ministry of Culture failed to broaden the cultural campaigns he proposed.*?8

At his insistence, a cultural rectification campaign was launched in August 1964.*?? Western writers depict the rectification as a half-hearted affair, conducted by foot-dragging bureaucrats, that ultimately forced Mao into the excesses of the Cultural Revolution.3°° While later Red Guard condemnations

accused the cultural authorities of opposing Mao’s “red line,” all evidence points in fact to a strong leftward shift in the art world by 1964. Cai Ruohong, Hua Junwu, and other leaders who had promoted diversification during the period we have just discussed tried valiantly to steer the bureaucracy along the new, more centralized course Mao demanded. Numerous regional exhibitions were held throughout 1965. If works reproduced in Meishu are typical, the exhibited works were largely socialist realist figure paintings. One notable effort was made by a group of guo/ua painters, including Zhang Anzhi, Song Wen-

zhi, Bai Xueshi, and Chen Dayu, who were dispatched to the south by Cai Ruohong to paint pictures of Mao’s family home and other scenes from his life.30!

CAFA historians do not view the campaigns of 1964 and 1965 as halfhearted, but as a calculated prelude to the Cultural Revolution.3°2 Indeed, CAFA artists widely accept that their institution was chosen by Jiang Qing as a

310 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

test site for the mass mobilization of students against the party leadership that took place nationwide in 1966 and 1967. Former students likewise refer to the events of 1964 and 1965 as a small Cultural Revolution.3°? During this period, the director of the central party school in Beijing, Yang Xianzhen, had spoken at the CAFA middle school on his philosophical views.

When Yang’s views were attacked by young party members in July 1964, CAFA party secretary Chen Pei is reported to have said, “The venerable Yang is, after all, a Central Committee member.” Ding Jingwen, the middle school director, allegedly suppressed the middle school radicals who wished to join the anti-Yang campaign. As ambitious young party members, led by a Soviettrained oil painting instructor, joined the attacks on Yang, some faculty and students at CAFA submitted a criticism of Chen Pei to Kang Sheng. According to a chronology prepared by the Red Guard in 1967, Kang Sheng responded to the letter by sending an investigation team to the school. On October 25, Jiang Qing was dispatched by Mao to meet three “revolutionary instructors”; she allegedly told them, “Chairman Mao supports your views.” Kang Sheng promised to report suppression of the middle school radicals to the highest authorities. On October 26, he announced that a work team would be sent to mobilize the masses and to begin the testimony and struggle against those responsible.?4 Students had been informed that they were to move to the countryside near Xingtai, Hebei, in the fall of 1964 to implement the rural Four Cleanups campaign. As they prepared to depart, it was suddenly announced that the movement had been postponed; instead they were to attend a meeting on campus. The meeting was conducted by a work team of high officials, representing three administrative worlds. Song Shuo, deputy director of Beijing’s municipal university department,*?5 Lin Mohan, vice-minister of culture, and Wu Jihan, of the Central Propaganda Department, seated themselves at the head table. Chen Pei, the highest-ranking administrator at the academy, was relegated to the front row of the spectators’ seating. The focus of the meeting was an attack on “false socialist education,” presumably that practiced during the preceding year. Chen Pei was the scapegoat for the academy’s deviations, allegedly caused by right opportunism and evidenced by adoption of the Eight Character Directive, the Sixty Articles on Universities, and the Eight Articles on Literature and Art. The studio system was cited as a specific manifestation of “right opportunism.” Following Mao’s emphasis on mass mobilization, aJ] normal academic and political] activity was stopped. Students were urged to “bring out their knives” and attack the party committee and others responsible for the academy’s faults. They were told to write big-character posters and to provide notes and other evidence that could be used against teachers and administrators. Dong Xiwen, Ai Zhongxin, and Hou Yimin, al] men of bourgeois family background, were only a few of the teachers who were punished by exile to

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 415

the countryside. In many departments, prominent students were selected as scapegoats as well. Guang Jun, for example, was subjected to a mass criticism session in which every member of his graduating class was required to chastise him by turn. His studio mate Jiang Tiefeng was similarly criticized, as was the oil painting student Yao Zhonghua.?° Guang and Jiang were excluded from the class graduation exhibition. CAFA was labeled a “black dyeing vat,” which implied that the young were turned away from revolutionary ideals during the

course of their education.2°7 According to a Red Guard report, Zhou Yang attempted to protect Yang Xianzhen and Chen Pei but was overruled by Kang Sheng.3%

The mass criticisms of the Socialist Education Movement lasted from November 1964 to August 1965, utterly disrupting normal activity at the academy. One former student recalls that criticisms took place daily.*°? Quoting an unspecified document, the Red Guard report states, “The Central Prop-

aganda Department conducted, at CAFA, the first test site for the Four Cleanups in the national arts academies and schools, for the purpose of gaining experience to lead the nation.”?? This movement marked the end of CAFA’s brief golden age. Chen Pei was replaced by an administrator from outside the academy. Some young instructors, motivated by Maoist zea] or factional opportunism, mounted particularly enthusiastic attacks on college administrators and colleagues. An issue that became a focus of great debate was the appropriateness of using nude models to teach life drawing. Those who “brought out their knives” attacked this and other curricular practices throughout the latter part of 1964. One victim of the campaign relates that his classmates did not speak to him for months. The Red Guard claimed that the movement at CAFA was controlled by the Liu Shaogi—Deng Xiaoping faction, its purpose being to suppress “the revolutionary masses.”3!! [t suppressed many other people as well, however, and may have been intended as a demonstration to Mao and Kang Sheng that their leftist policies were indeed being implemented. By the following year, criticism of higher-party authorities was prohibited

and social relations between students became less strained. In the spring of 1965 Deng Xiaoping observed, “Some people just want to be famous by criticizing others.”312 Although the graduation exhibition was held as usual in 1965, it is clear from the subject matter of student works that politics had strongly reasserted itself. A lyrical print by a Li Hua student, for example, depicted the People’s Liberation Army helping the Viet Cong (fig. 109).

In 1965, the battle over the question of drawing from nude models even drew a response from Mao Zedong, who stated on July 18 that the evils of the practice were worth the positive results.?!? The Ministry of Culture apparently

found the nude model issue compelling, for a formal directive issued late in 1965 banned their classroom use.?!4 Once prohibited by “leftists,” nude

312 THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH

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FIGURE 109

Gerald Zhixing Young, Warriors of the People (The War in the South), 1965, hand-colored woodblock print, collection of the artist.

models became a political rather than a solely aesthetic or moral question. The issue retains some of its political sensitivity twenty-five years later. The spring proscriptions against further attacks on the authorities did not result in peace at CAFA; instead a new movement arose against the college Maoists who had initiated the original campaign. By the time the academy finally repaired to the countryside, the small college was bitterly divided, the

factions generally split into those who supported the mild liberalization of previous years, on the one side, and the radical Maoists, on the other. Most

THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD AND ITS AFTERMATH 313

difficult to sense from a mere chronology was the hostility felt by victims of each succeeding campaign toward those who had come forth to attack. With friendships and collegial relationships betrayed in the name of Chairman Mao, the academy’s artistic and personal atmosphere was poisoned. Students and teachers spent most of the next year and a half in the coun-

tryside working in the Four Cleanups campaign against rural corruption. Former students describe their primary activities during this time as auditing the accounts of local cadres and investigating any discrepancies they discovered. One artist recalls his team’s diligent but unsuccessful effort to find out what happened to a missing commune pig.*!° Art would not emerge from this political shadow, which became the dark night of the Cultural Revolution, for over a decade. This chapter has taken us through some of the most interesting artistic trends of the three decades we have studied. The privileged status of oil painting declined somewhat amid the nationalistic fervor that accompanied the Great Leap Forward and the Sino-Soviet split. Nevertheless, the intensive emulation of Russian and Soviet oil painting techniques that had marked the early and mid-1950s did, by the early 1960s, yield technically proficient history paintings aimed at a Chinese audience. Most significant, however, was the critical and bureaucratic support for regionalistic and, within limits, even personal styles of guohua painting and woodblock printmaking. Although the chaos of the Cultural Revolution mowed down these movements, in most cases their roots remained to sprout another day.

STX *« THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which took place between 1966 and 1976,! is referred to by many as the “ten lost years.” For artists such as Ye Qianyu, who was beaten severely by his students and then jailed for nine years, such a formulation would be entirely appropriate. For those such as Lin Fengmian, who kept his work out of Red Guard hands by scrubbing it to pulp on a

washboard,” even more than one decade of creative activity was lost. The physical and psychological violence inflicted by some Red Guard students on their teachers, their party leaders, and on each other has, understandably, produced a revulsion against any activity associated with the Cultural Revolution. Older artists in particular associate the artistic images of the Cultural Revolution very directly with the torture they suffered. For most young and middleaged artists, however, the ten “lost years” included a good deal of painting, even if it was not what we might consider high art. With the ouster of Mao’s successor, Hua Guofeng, in 1979, the CCP took a clear stand against the policies of the Cultural Revolution. The official analy-

sis of the Cultural Revolution by party historians is extremely negative, an opinion that most Western observers share. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, for example, begin their discussion of Cultural Revolution art with quotations from a 1981 party document: “History has proved that the Cultural Revolution was erroneously launched by the leadership, was used by a counterrevolutionary group, and was an internal disturbance that brought severe suffering to the nation and to the people of all its nationalities.”3 Although most people agree with this political line, such strong condemnations have made it awkward for artists to discuss work they produced during

| that period or to consider, except privately, its relationship to the art of pre/ ceding and succeeding periods. Even for those who were very active, the de- -

314 cade is often described as a “big blank.” Many paintings made during the

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 315 period have been destroyed, either iconoclastically or pragmatically—that 1s, by recycling the canvas for new paintings or for scrap. Other works have been returned to artists from the public collections in which they once were held. One monumental image of Chairman Mao in swimming garb survives in the studio of an art professor and in 1986 was in excellent condition, except for a thick layer of dust (plate 10). The artists volunteered that they had kept the

painting only because they planned to reuse the canvas and large wooden stretcher. Another example is probably more typical. Because the artist lived in a city

far from the museum that owned his painting, the work was unstretched and rolled up for return to him, thus cracking the paint. The artist, who remains proud of the fame he enjoyed during the Cultural Revolution, was nevertheless reluctant to keep the canvas in the studio he shared with several colleagues. In 1986, therefore, he stored it in the only available place: rolled up under the bed in his small apartment. Connoisseurs would be unlikely to lament the disappearance of stereo- _ typed Cultural Revolution pictures with the same sorrow they might bring to the loss of Lin-Fengmian’s oeuvre. Nevertheless, since modern scholarship calls for evaluating the period on the basis of its documents rather than simply

eradicating the record, it is to be hoped that some of these paintings will survive. Although the post-Mao destruction of Cultural Revolution art has suc-

ceeded in achieving a “ten-year gap” in the history of Chinese painting, thus making literal a concept that was in part figurative, the Cultural Revolution = did influence the development of Chinese art in important ways. For one thing, rm it revived. the strongly Antitraditional approach to Chinese painting that had ' ' — flourished in the early 1950s and successfully indoctrinated an entire genera~ tion of artists in a narrowly defined Maoist mode of art. For another, its rejection of professionalism in science and economics pushed many ambitious young people into the arts. Finally, its populist emphasis expanded the practice of official painting to regions of China that had previously produced little art. Government cultural and personnel policies thus produced an artistic pool of unprecedented breadth and talent. Unfortunately, this increase in the quantity of promising artists was accompanied by a marked reduction in the number of permissible styles and subjects. By 1974, a new and uniform official style was -

clearly recognizable. —

The political content of Cultural Revolution art, most of which promoted Cultural Revolution policies, has been largely condemned since 1979. It is important to note that the rejection of such works in post-Mao China was initially based on thematic rather than aesthetic or stylistic grounds. Most Cultural Revolution art was in fact directly descended from academic painting of the 1950s and early 1960s, and, as we shall see, the best of it was painted by academically trained artists. These pictures, for better or worse, must be seen

316 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

as part of the continuous development of painting in the PRC. They had their sources in earlier art; they left a profound legacy to the art of the 1980s. 7, — In short, the Cultural Revolution provided the artistic training for the third ‘generation of Chinese artists, young painters who emerged in the early 1970s through the official exhibition network and who remain active as official artists

and art professors{ For most of them, traditional Chinese painting, with its poetry and its lofty }deals, was an art practiced by artists of the past) the art of the present was representational and was founded in the artist’s human experlences and practical concerns. We will describe the environment in which these young artists flourished before concluding the book with a discussion of their absorption by the post-Mao art academy system. Artists were part icularly prolific during two periods of the Cultural Revolution. The frst: burst Of activity accompanied the Red Guard movement of 1966 through 1968, which destroyed the Communist party apparatus and dis-

mantled the educational system. The outlines of early Cultural Revolution artistic activity seem like a parody of the land reform and thought reform movements of the late 1940s and early 1950s, for in both eras zealous young revolutionaries attacked those who held power under the old society. As in the land reform movement, unauthorized violence against individuals was widespread and targets were chosen somewhat capriciously.* Even artistic activity paralleled that of the early postliberation period, for it was almost completely limited to propaganda of an ephemeral nature. The second period of artistic activity celebrated the rebuilding of the party between 1970 and 1976.°

Political Background: The Birth of the Red Guard Movement The political history of the Cultural Revolution may be more complex than that of any other period in recent Chinese history, but a schematic summary will help understand how and why art was made during this time.® Most historians agree that the movement was launched by Mao Zedong with the goal of removing his rivals in the party. Because he came to view his chosen successor, Chairman Liu Shaoqi, as an opponent, yet was unable to rally support for his purge within the Communist party, he mobilized millions of students to simply destroy the party apparatus. His goals were not known to most of his supporters in 1966; moreover, his failure to control the activity he set in motion led to massive human suffering and loss of life that were irrelevant to those goals.” A Red Guard chronology published in 1967 lists several important events

leading up to the Cultural Revolution.’ In February 1966, Jiang Qing held a conference on military arts and literature at which praise for the thought

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 317

of Chairman Mao was the dominant theme. In particular, she singled out the Rent Collection Courtyard, a life-size sculptural installation made at the Sichuan Academy of Arts, as a model for the art world.? Jiang Qing’s critical stance was justified, according to the Red Guard version, by the approval of workers, peasants, and soldiers. The proceedings of the meeting were issued in April as the call for a “Cultural Revolution.” Peng Zhen, the Beijing mayor, prepared a document in February that dealt with the proper implementation of the Cultural Revolution.!° In response to his suggestions, the FLAC began a campaign against Soviet revisionist art, academic art, and the capitalist trends in art research. Mao nevertheless criticized Peng’s efforts as inadequate, and Peng’s document was attacked for derailing Maoist policies. On May 16, the Politburo, at Mao Zedong’s command, issued a paper referred to as the May 16 Circular. It criticized Liu Shaogi and Deng Xiaoping for “having let all of the ox-demons and snake-spirits out of their cages,” for

“stuffing up our newspapers, broadcasts, periodicals, books, textbooks, performances, works of literature, and art, films, plays, operas, art, music, dance, and so forth,” and for refusing to accept the leadership of the proletariat.!! Four high Communist party officials were dismissed: army chief of staff Luo Ruiging, Beijing mayor Peng Zhen, director of the CCP Propaganda Department Lu Dingyi, and director of the CCP Central Committee Office Yang Shangkun.!* Staffing shifts were made throughout the propaganda apparatus so that major newspapers became more responsive to Mao’s wishes. A new Cultural Revolution Small Group (CRSG) was appointed directly under the Standing Committee of the Politburo to direct the movement—which, at this point, was official.

According to the Red Guard chronology, the principal art administrators reacted to the news with alarm. Wang Zicheng, a Ministry of Culture adminis-

trator, and Hua Junwu, of the Chinese Artists Association, rushed back to Beijing from Xingtai, Hebei, where they were engaged in work for the Four Cleanups campaign. Cai Ruohong reportedly began making lists of “good” “artworks” as defense against expected attacks on the Ministry of Culture and CAA.}3 The Red Guard journal reported with glee the chaos that broke out on the Meishu editorial board in the wake of the May 16 Circular.!4

On May 25, 1966, radical students at Beijing University posted bigcharacter posters denouncing the school’s president for suppressing student political discussion. Most students initially supported the president, but a week later Mao Zedong praised the contents of one of the posters. On June 1, Mao approved national broadcast of the text of the big-character poster.1° By this act, as the Red Guard viewed matters, he personally launched the Cultural Revolution.!© Zhou Yang and Lin Mohan, deputy directors of the party Prop-

aganda Department and Ministry of Culture, were openly attacked soon after.17

318 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

With Mao’s support thus withdrawn, most college party committees collapsed. Student activists, garbed in faded army uniforms, marched from school to school demonstrating against academic administrators. Wide leather belts with heavy buckles, a standard part of the costume (see plate 10 and fig. 136), were used by some students as weapons against those who failed to cooperate. The Standing Committee of the Politburo dispatched work teams to prevent anarchy on campuses. One prominent work team member was Wang Guangmei, Liu Shaoqi’s wife, who participated in efforts to organize students for orderly criticism of specified cadres. This moderation was soon criticized as obstructionist by Mao’s allies. Student activists involved in this early stage of the Cultural Revolution and who cooperated with the work teams were often sons and daughters of high officials, later referred to by the derogatory term “royalists.”!8 Neither the work teams nor the students understood who was Mao’s real target in the early months of the campaign. As Mao and his close supporters sought to unseat the parents of such student activists, they instigated other students to attack the work teams, thus causing the first major factional split among the student activists. By mid-June, all schools were closed. On June 4, some middle school students at Qinghua University wrote a big-character poster with the slogan “Rebellion is justified!” By late July, Mao had removed the work teams from the universities, and the students took charge. The name “Red Guard” was recognized by Mao on August 1 as the name for student activists who supported him.!? A meeting of Maoist members of the CCP Central Committee in early Au-

gust set forth guidelines on the goals of the Red Guard movement. The Red— Guard were mandated, first, to overthrow those within the party who took the | capitalist road and, second, to uproot and destroy the “four olds”—meaning | old ideas, old culture, old customs, and the old habits of the exploiting classes ~ to corrupt the masses.29 On August 5 Mao himself posted a big-character poster on the door ofthe room where the Central Committee met, calling on the Red Guard to “Bombard the Headquarters” of his party opponents who exercised “bourgeois dictatorship.”*!

Normal cultural activity in the capital largely ceased as students and teachers organized to support the Red Guard movement. Guo Moruo had made a self-criticism on April 10 in which he declared that all his work should be burned.?2 With attacks on Zhou Yang in late May, the cultural establishment began to crumble. Over the course of the next year, well-known artists were attacked in the press and in their studios. The guohua artist Huang Zhou (see fig. 65), a staff painter of the military museum, was severely criticized, first in Liberation Army Daily and then in People’s Daily.*3 This vicious attack had two reasons: he gave private painting lessons to one of Liu Shaoqi’s children,?4 and he was close to Deng Tuo, an early target of the movement.*> The mag-

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 319

nitude of the movement precludes listing all artists who were victimized.7®

In general, all those who reached adulthood before 1949 had “historical problems” that made them targets. In January 1967, when the Communist bureaucracy was overthrown nationwide, Cai Ruohong and Hua Junwu were targeted for attack and the Chinese Artists Association was “smashed.”?7

Red Guard Artists, 1966-1968: The Overthrow of the Establishment Political histories of the Red Guard movement rarely mention Red Guard from the art academies, for their small numbers and generally pacific attitudes had little influence on the movement as a whole. Art histories, similarly, are unlikely to mention Red Guard art, for it was, by definition, unofficial and was produced and publicized in chaotic circumstances. In any event, most young artists devoted more energy to political activities than to art of any kind. Neverthe-

less, academic artists, including Red Guard art students, proved crucial in establishing the visual images of the Cultural Revolution.*® For example, two contending Red Guard groups from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts, called, respectively, East Is Red and Jinggang Mountain, seized control of the huge billboards at the northeast and northwest corners of Tiananmen Square. Their competition was played out in the design and execution of huge painted images, which became models for billboards nationwide.?? During the spring in which the Cultural Revolution was launched, college students and many. teachers from CAFA were laboring in the countryside as part of the rural Four Cleanups campaign. \The middle school students and their teachers, who had remained on Campus, avidly joined the movement. They threw themselves into painting murals, cartoons, and posters in support of Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution, the most important functions of young professional artists during the first three years of the Cultural Revolution. Among the activities in which they later participated was preparation of a

Red Guard exhibition that included propaganda pictures and confiscated property.%°

In late May, CAFA college students were ordered back to campus. Soon thereafter, in the earliest days of the movement on campus, the Mao Zedong Thought Red Guard was formed, a student group that counted the oil painter Ge Pengren and the guohua painter Deng Lin (a daughter of Deng Xiaoping) among its officers.7!

The split between the pro—work team and anti—work team students mentioned above was only the first issue that factionalized the Red Guard. The next step came in July 1966 with the “matched couplet debate.”3* According to scholars of Chinese politics, the crisis began when a group of middle school

320 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

students at the Beijing Aeronautical Institute posted a slogan in the form of matched couplets reading: “If the father’s a hero, the son’s a real man; if the father’s a counterrevolutionary, the son’s a bastard.”33 The slogan, which sought to make class distinctions hereditary, spread throughout the city, provoking controversy and antagonism within the Red Guard movement. Red Guard students in the colleges of music, drama, and art had particularly intense reactions to the slogan, for many of them came from “bad” class backgrounds. A Beijing artist recalls that Red Guard from revolutionary families began marching, demonstrating, and chanting the slogan. He remembers with particular indignation how the mob would apprehend any fellow Red Guard

| at will and require him or her to state loudly his class background. Students from ill-favored backgrounds, such as the children of bourgeois intellectuals, organized antislogan groups. More demonstrations in favor of the slogan were held, and a formal debate between advocates and opponents of the concept took place on August 6,34 the day after Mao Zedong wrote his big-character poster calling upon Red Guard to “Bombard the Headquarters.” According to one former Red Guard, CAFA was occupied for three days by middle school students from all over Beijing who came to observe or participate in a debate at the Beijing Conservatory.?5 Some children of high officials, including Deng Xiaoping’s artist daughter, publicly opposed the slogan. Siblings and friends found themselves bitterly divided. Heavily outnumbered CAFA Red Guard opposed the slogan with great vigor but were nonetheless defeated.3° As proslogan students eventually prevailed nationwide, aspiring Red Guard from bad backgrounds were required to denounce their parents. A Hong Kong newspaper reported in November that students from the “seven black categories” were expelled from schools in Canton by the Red Guard unless they condemned their families.37 For most of the subsequent decade, a person’s class background was considered hereditary and determined access to employment and education. Mao Zedong and the reorganized CCP leadership received Red Guard who traveled to Beijing from all over the nation on eight occasions between August 18 and December 1966. It has been estimated that the total number of Red Guard assembled at Tiananmen Square in the course of these receptions was between ten and thirteen million.38 CAFA faculty and students hastened to participate in these patriotic events; as a result, Mao’s meetings with the Red Guard became a favorite subject for young artists. An anonymous oil painting, Chairman Mao’s Heart Beats as One with the Hearts of the Revolutionary Masses (fig. 110), published in 1968, was prepared for one of the Red Guard art exhibitions held in 1967.39 Mao, dressed in a military uniform, strides across a stone bridge in front of the old palace to shake the hands of his young supporters on Tiananmen Square. The demonstrators area carefully varied group of student Red Guard, workers, and soldiers of both sexes. Be-

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 321

hind Mao are key Cultural Revolution leaders: Lin Biao, Chen Boda, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Zhou Enlai. All but Kang and Zhou are garbed in military uniforms, emphasizing Mao’s reliance on the army to maintain order

after his purge of the CCP. a

"~The authors of this painting are believed to have been a group of teachers and young students from CAFA—including one Soviet-trained artist and one taught by Xu Beihong—who worked collectively.4° Because the socialist realist style encouraged by Jiang Qing and other Cultural Revolution leaders requires more technical skill than most Red Guard had, and because the paintings in major exhibitions tended to be extraordinarily large, collaboration in the planning and execution of the compositions was common. If Mao were to be the focus of the picture, as he usually was, it was especially important that his face be executed as skillfully as possible. In many cases, then, an experienced oil painter—normally a teacher—would be sought to help with this crucial part of the picture. In Chairman Mao’s Heart Beats as One, the artist who executed the face of Mao Zedong was a painter capable of both subtle effects of chiaroscuro and representational accuracy. The hand responsible for depicting the students at

the right, by contrast, was far less skilled. The images of Chen Boda, the plump bespectacled figure, Jiang Qing, Lin Biao, Kang Sheng, and Zhou Enlai

are technically superior to those of the Red Guard opposite them, but still weaker than the rendering of Mao. The image of Zhou Enlai, who stands prominently in the painting’s foreground, is the least well rendered of the government officials. Thus, at least three different hands may be discerned in the execution of this picture, a situation typical of the collaboration encouraged by the communistic ideals of the Cultural Revolution. Another group of CAFA

professors, including Hou Yimin and Jin Shangyi, were required to paint a more polished version of this composition for the 1972 National Exhibition (fig. 111).

The precise course of development of the Red Guard movement among art students in Beijing remains unclear, but former Red Guard from CAFA agree on the major events of the 1966—1967 period, namely: the 1966 smashing of the plaster casts used in drawing instruction; the Black Painting Exhibition of 1966 and the beating of old professors; the bloodlines debate of 1966; the factional battles and hostage taking of 1967; and the “Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line” Exhibition of October 1967. Although some CAFA Red Guard were in the crowd that watched the torching of the British embassy in August 1967,4! most considered it a minor event. Early in the 1966 frenzy of student activism, sometime around August 25, “revolutionary students and teachers of the Central Academy of Fine Arts” conducted a dramatic symbolic event: the smashing of the instructional plaster statues.4¢ An integral part of the CAFA curriculum, as of European academies

322 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

. , Ox — Ry re ie Re: > | si Fs } Se [e ao ae sn AS S : re > i a

[2 i | Mie oo ee 3) eae hl a FIGURE IIo Anonymous, Chairman Mao’s Heart Beats as One with the Hearts of the Revolutionary Masses, ca. 1967, oil painting.

on which that curriculum was based, was the rendering in pencil or charcoal of plaster casts of famous European and Asian sculptures. Now, however, declaring that the academy’s collection of plasters, which included reproductions of such works as Michelangelo’s David, the Venus de Milo, and the Apollo Belve-

dere, represented the “four olds,” CAFA Red Guard ritually destroyed the pieces with axes and shovels. They then threw the remnants onto a bonfire, parading around it in a victory celebration. Since completion of the ambitious undertaking required a great deal of physical exertion, the art students were assisted by students from the physical education department of Beijing Normal University.

One of the most appalling events of the early Cultural Revolution period involved violence against people as well as property. In order to smash “the power-holding faction,” a black painting exhibition was held at CAFA by the Red Army group of the CAFA middle school, a group composed chiefly of radicalized sons and daughters of high-cadre families. Works of art, including paintings by Dong Xiwen, were stripped from the academy gallery for castigation. At least four faculty members, Ye Qianyu, Luo Gongliu, Li Kuchan, and Huang Yongyu, were beaten with belts and belt buckles by Red Guard students and faculty. Witnesses and participants in this dreadful spectacle still recall vividly the conduct of each victim as he was publicly tortured. After being physically humiliated, most old artists and administrators were incarcerated in

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 323

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Yi Zhong (Chen Yifei and Xu Chunzhong), “Chairman Mao’s Red Guard Study the Model Revolutionary Youth, Comrade Jin Xunhua,” 1969, poster.

rt

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 349

for a piece, as occurred with Red Detachment of Women, painted by the Soviet-trained Quan Shanshi.

Art staffers of Jiefang ribao similarly commissioned a series of images based on Jiang Qing’s favorite piano concerto, Yellow River. Artists in this group also included graduates and students from the Shanghai Art College. Participants are explicit about their goals during the period: they aimed to please the leadership. For art, that leadership was controlled by Jiang Qing and her extremist allies. Unfortunately for the Yellow River artists, the timing of their project’s conclusion found the leadership preoccupied with other artistic activities, and the series failed to receive much critical notice, even with its 1973 exhibition at the Chinese National Art Gallery in Beiing.'*2 Although these works have had little lasting significance, they were extremely important as cultural propaganda in their time, for they were among the very few ofhcially sanctioned paintings produced between 1967 and 1971. They provided evidence, such as it was, that the Cultural Revolution had not eradicated pictorial art completely.

Reconstruction of the National Bureaucracy The Ministry of Culture, the Centra] Propaganda Department, and the Chinese Artists Association, the party and government organizations responsible for art before 1966, were abolished by the Cultural Revolution. By about 1970, their

functions were assumed by a culture group under the State Council. Jiang Qing, as director of this group, was the highest authority on cultural matters. Art activities were directed by Wang Mantian, one of the ten directors of the cultural group. Wang, who is reported to have killed herself when Jiang Qing was arrested in 1976, remains a shadowy figure. She is believed to have been a relative of Wang Hairong, who served for many years as Mao’s English interpreter, and to have studied art at the Lu Xun Academy of Art in Yan’an.!23 She served before the Cultural Revolution as a member of the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee. In 1970, as the reconstruction of government began, plans for national exhibitions were made. Artists recall that works for a national military exhibition

were prepared in Wuhan during the summer and fall of 1971. For this purpose, professional artists and curators were summoned to the city. Plans were somewhat disrupted by the mysterious disappearance of Mao’s successor, Lin Biao, on September 13, 1971, although painters were not told the reason for sudden orders to cease work on his portraits.!24 Much later, China’s citizens learned the official story: his plane had crashed as he attempted to flee to the Soviet Union.

350 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION At about the same time, Wang Mantian began planning for a 1972 exhibition to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Mao’s Yan’an Talks. Perhaps influenced by Jiang Qing’s favorable reception of Zhang Yongsheng, the ZAFA

Red Guard who had risen to great political heights,!?° she held a meeting at the Zhejiang academy to discuss procedures for organizing the exhibition. A young oil painting instructor, Gao Jingde, came to her attention. Soon after, Wang began assembling an administrative team to structure the show. She transferred Gao Jingde, along with a man from the Shanghai publishing industry and a naval administrator, to Beijing as administrators. By 1971 the Shanghai man had departed, and Gao was promoted to direct a newly established art group, which reported directly to Wang Mantian and the culture group of the State Council. Assistants, most of whom were young graduates of CAFA, were assigned to work with Gao. Gao Jingde visited all provinces and major art institutions in the country with the goal of assembling an unprecedented national exhibition to promote the thought of Chairman Mao. Although worker-peasant-soldier art remained extremely important, Gao sought high technical standards, in contrast to the

spontaneous and disorganized artistic activity of the 1966-1970 period. A 1960 graduate of the oil painting department of ZAFA, Gao had attended lectures taught by the visiting Soviet artist A. A. Myl’nikov and was an enthusiast of Soviet socialist realist oil painting. Jiang Qing’s deep aversion to traditional guohua made it natural that an oil painter would be chosen to administer the new art.

That Gao and his assistants were products of the national art academy system strongly affected the direction taken by Chinese painting in the 1970s. The 1972, 1973, and 1974 exhibitions were dominated by a narrowly defined academic style. The oil painting that Gao promoted under orders from Wang

\ S Mantian was a synthesis of the-Soviet-influenced academic painting of the art

colleges and the more restrictive Fequitements ‘developed by Jiang Qing for the

model operas. The guohua that emerged was similarly based on the new guohua figure painting developed in the academies. A former official has described a very straightforward chain of command in which Gao was empowered by Wang Mantian and the central authorities to organize artistic activities nationwide.!*© Rather than the dual government-

party structure that had been developed during the 1950s, in which political give-and-take might affect policy formulations in the art world, the governmental structure of the Cultural Revolution period was decidedly top-down. Gao, in Beijing, issued directives to provincial or municipal authorities, who conveyed and enforced them through cultural offices under their control.

In the period between his 1970 appointment and the jurying of the national exhibition in the spring of 1972, Gao met with local cultural officials throughout China. In most provinces and cities, the old Cultural Bureau still

. THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 351 existed, though sometimes under a new name. The Cultural Bureau was administered by the highest local organ of government, usually the provincial Cultural Revolution Committee. Gao approached each provincial committee to organize submissions for the 1972 exhibition.

His task was initially difficult, because most artists and local art experts were incarcerated or laboring in the fields. To reconstitute the national arts _ administration, he needed to find capable managers and educate the local authorities. He explained the goals and standards of the forthcoming exhibition and often requested the participation of specific local artists whose work was known to him from earlier periods. In many cases, Gao found that local authorities were unwilling to take responsibility for allowing professional artists to participate, for fear that such lenience might later be punished. Yet if Gao specifically requested the participation of a professional artist, his authority obliged local authorities to comply. Such artists included the guohua figure painter Liu Wenxi in X1’an, who had been Gao’s schoolmate at the Zhejiang academy;!?” Li Shaoyan and Niu Wen in Sichuan; Ya Ming, Qian Songyan, and Song Wenzhi in Nanjing; and Guan Shanyue, Li Xiongcai, and Yang Zhiguang in Guangzhou. Many of these men had been mentioned unfavorably in Red Guard tracts, but no evidence was ever produced to convict them of crimes.

The guidelines Gao established for professional participation specified that artists who had not been formally convicted of crimes should be allowed to paint. On this basis, the many artists who were incarcerated as a result of inconclusive investigations were liberated. Naturally, the situation varied a great deal from region to region depending on the zeal with which the local art world and local officials had assembled political charges against famous artists. A great many artists in Beijing had been formally convicted of political crimes

and thus remained banished. In Guangzhou, on the contrary, established artists such as Guan Shanyue and Li Xiongcai were free to participate in the exhibition.

The former Red Guard painter Sun Jingbo, for example, a graduate of the _ CAFA middle school, was imprisoned for two years on suspicion of “May 16 partisanship.” The investigation into his case was concluded in his favor just in time for him to participate in the exhibition. The picture Sun Jingbo painted upon his release from incarceration was A New Axi Song (fig. 120). In this image, minority girls in a remote part of Yunnan happily sing as they transplant

their rice sprouts. While the picture appears to be a standard example of socialist realism, Sun recalled that the optimistic tone was entirely genuine, an expression of his happiness at returning to art after his prolonged interrogation. His joyful depiction of the subject matter and local landscape was based on observations made during his daily labor. While the choice of female agri-

cultural laborers was appropriate as a subject, given Jiang Qing’s strident

392 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

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feminism, it is entirely possible that less political motives may have spurred this young artist’s interest in pretty girls. As the preceding account suggests, artists were expected to depict subjects that glorified the Cultural Revolution but that were related to their personal experiences. This trend was not new, for the graduates of Maksimov’s class, as we have seen, tended to choose politically appropriate subjects of which they had some personal knowledge as well. Nevertheless, it appears that such guidelines received relatively strict interpretation during the Cultural Revolution. The greatest number of paintings exhibited under Wang Mantian’s administration were executed by amateurs. Many of these artists had been assigned to manual labor as part of a program in operation between 1968 and 1976 to send educated urban youth down to the farms and factories. Most high school graduates left home to work as manual laborers. As opposed to young art cadres like Sun Jingbo or Chen Yifei, who engaged in temporary labor reform, the rusticated urban youth anticipated permanent careers as peasants or factory laborers. For many of those who had sufficient skill to render the ubiquitous portraits of Chairman Mao, it was clear that painting was less strenuous than

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 353

farm labor. When the Cultural Revolution authorities announced in 1971 the

forthcoming exhibition to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Yan’an Talks, some amateurs began avidly painting in their spare time. Apparently, when word was sent out that all units should gather submissions from workers, peasants, and soldiers, it was stressed that works glorifying the patriotic contributions of rusticated urban youth were particularly welcome.

The dairy farmer Tang Muli will serve as our first example. For although he qualified for the exhibition because of his rural job, he was a most atypical peasant.

Rusticated Youth and the National Exhibitions Like many artists in China, the Shanghai-born Tang Muli began painting as a child. From the age of six, Tang attended extracurricular art classes at a local children’s palace. Children’s palaces, established for the supplemental education of elementary school students, were one component of a system intended to broaden China’s cultural activities, followed by youth palaces for middle school students, worker’s cultural palaces for industrial and other workers,

and cultural halls for the masses in general. They were organized by the municipality—in Tang’s case, Shanghai—or by the local urban district. Tang studied for a total of six years in these institutions, first at the local children’s palace and then at the youth palace. Most of the children represented in local, national, and international exhibitions of children’s art were children’s palace students. Tang Muli recalls that one of his watercolors was exhibited in Australia when he was in fifth or sixth grade.!+° Tang decided during middle school that he wished to become a physicist and began doggedly studying mathematics and English. He dropped his extracurricular art classes in order to prepare for the difficult college entrance examinations. He sought to enter Qinghua University in Beijing, an appropriate step for a student graduating from Shanghai’s most prestigious high school. Unfortunately for his scientific career, the launching of the Cultural Revolution the spring he was scheduled to graduate led to the cancellation of the college entrance examinations. Tang Muli’s father, a prominent film director, was attacked early in the movement. Like many young people, Tang was afraid to return to his family’s apartment when his school was closed, for his home had been invaded and ransacked by the Red Guard, who then beat and incarcerated his father. The faculty and staff of his school had largely disbanded, leaving Tang and his classmates unsupervised on campus. They took over the classrooms as living quarters and, for the next year and a half, passed their days in political study,

354 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION which included practicing the calligraphy and painting with which they copied

the poems of Chairman Mao and rendered pictorial images of his life and work,

In 1968, workers were sent into China’s schools to restore order. It was decided that all schools should arrange manual labor in the countryside for their graduates. All over the country, educational institutions, individual administrators, and the students themselves vied to display their loyalty to Chairman Mao by executing the policy as quickly and comprehensively as possible. Tang Muli was sent to work as a laborer on a dairy farm in the Shanghai suburbs, a position that was intended to be permanent. He worked six days a week shoveling fodder, which had been dumped on the ground by a delivery truck, into a wheel barrow for transport to the barn. At first the aspiring scientist made suggestions for improving the efficiency of the laborious procedure, such as dumping the fodder in more convenient loca-

tions. Such ideas, however, were viewed as the product of a lazy and insufficiently Maoist mentality; he soon learned that to be judged a success, he must simply work longer and harder than those old farm hands who were supposed to judge him. The primary goal of his job, namely, was not high productivity, but the reform of his ideology through physical labor. In addition to a full sixday workweek, he, like all farmers, spent four evenings a week in Communist

political classes and one Sunday a month on extra labor duty. As political movements came, one after the other, people spent an enormous amount of energy simply trying to understand them in order to avoid being attacked. During this period Tang’s only free hours were his three Sundays a month and the two evenings a week when political classes were not held.

Tang’s scientific ambitions collapsed with his lifetime assignment as a fodder shoveler, but he began to analyze possible ways to escape the monotony of his daily routine. He ultimately decided that painting would be a good way

to enrich his life; moreover, it had some potential as an alternative career. Although he had abandoned his formal art studies some years before, he still retained much of his interest and basic training. Art had two further advantages: it required no state support—pencil and paper was all he needed to begin—and it was relatively unperilous. Tang reasoned that in visual art, unlike literature, it was possible to avoid expression of potentially dangerous personal opinions. And unlike music, which by virtue of its sound was unavoidably public in the communal living standards of the time, art could be practiced with relatively little outside interference. Every morning and evening Tang worked on his basic technique. He drew still lifes in his dormitory and studied textbooks used at CAFA. He emulated

the Russian academic drawings of V.I. Surikov (1848-1916) and analyzed successful contemporary Chinese paintings to extract their technical methods. On Sundays he visited old classmates from the youth palace who had become

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 355 professional artists. He heard from them about Cultural Revolution art classes on the correct method of painting portraits of Chairman Mao. From his classmates he learned the new technical requirements: pure red should be used to paint the face, burnt sienna for shading, and yellow ochre for highlights. He was warned that blue and green must never be used on the face and that the paint squeezed on one’s palette should be organized in a specific order, with cool colors in the least accessible spot. Mao’s face was to be divisible into three equal sections, and his pigmentation to follow the chromatic sequence on a color chart issued for that purpose. During the next several years, Tang spent most of his spare time making

drawings of his own hands and face in order to improve his rendering. In 1971, he submitted his first oil painting, Milk Maid, to be juried for the 1972 national exhibition (fig. 121).!2? The cultural leadership particularly encouraged the exhibition of works by peasant, worker, or soldier artists that related to their jobs. Tang Muli, now a peasant, depicted a healthy dairy farmer surrounded by cows. Once Tang’s artistic talent had been recognized by the acceptance of Milk Maid in the preliminary local exhibition, the Municipal Art Creation Office, the highest art agency in the city, requested that the dairy farm loan Tang out for other art projects. The farm declined on the grounds that his labor was needed. Soon, though, it asked him to replace the weathered billboard inside the farm’s entrance with a new portrait of Chairman Mao. He scraped the billboard down to bare metal, then applied a rust-protective primer, and finally, with several assistants, began snapping powdered strings on the surface to create the grid necessary for enlarging the standard photograph of the Great Helmsman.

As Tang Muli grew more comfortable with the scale of such work, he began looking for ways to improve his efficiency. He learned that he could dispense with the time-consuming step of applying the grid if he attached his brush to a long pole and painted freehand. With this innovation he no longer needed to rely on assistants for this basic preparatory step and could begin work more quickly. His unorthodox method was fascinating to the peasants, and he soon began attracting crowds of spectators. The factory next door requested that he paint a new portrait for their billboard; soon other work units

in the neighborhood followed their lead. Tang prided himself on painting quickly, normally completing a billboard within a week. He was not paid for his work, but was freed from farm labor and received three free meals a day for the duration of a project. His speed and reliability were appreciated by the

meal-providing units. As his reputation spread, he was “borrowed” by all twelve dairy farms in the system, and then by chicken farms and other agricultural units in the same administration. He ultimately spent an entire year painting huge portraits of Chairman Mao, with occasional variations, such as

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educated gentleman.!>? | The totalitarian means by which Jiang Qing maintained artistic orthodoxy

may be seen in Yan Han’s experience, which makes sense only if one assumes that Yan had been a subject of investigation for some time. He recalls that one

spring day, soldiers from the art academy, of which Jiang Qing was then director, arrived at his door to bustle him off to the academy for a neibu, or restricted, exhibition of black paintings. Two other old artists were present, Li Keran and Wu Zuoren. All three were required to read lengthy confessions, and articles about the traitorous artists were subsequently published in major

newspapers. !©° :

A former official recalls that he advised Wang Mantian to limit the scope

374 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION of the movement.'!¢! Indeed, he said, an expansion might well reflect on their own leadership if local authorities found black artists among those they had previously exhibited. Local art authorities, however, oblivious to the real target of Yao Wenyuan’s attacks, continued to jump on the bandwagon. Although some artists in Shanghai believe that local authorities acted on their own initia-

tive, many of the latter claimed afterward that the late and little-lamented Wang Mantian made them do it.!©2 Official accounts report that she sent underlings to eight or nine provinces and cities, including Shanghai, Nanjing, Xi’an, and Ji’nan, to organize their activities.!° The Shanghai black painting exhibition was organized by the propaganda department of the Municipal Party Committee soon after the Beijing show. In late February, party authorities attacked the pamphlet Zhongguohua as satisfying the needs of imperialism, revisionism, and counterrevolution. On March 6, the policy of promoting nonpolitical guohua was attacked as fawning for foreign exchange. On March 20, the Shanghai newspapers Jiefang ribao and Wenhuibao began what was to be a two-month assault on the catalogue.!® It was against this background that the exhibition was held. The organizers of the neibu exhibition cast their net widely; they included paintings by artists of various ages and specialties, ranging from Zhu Qizhan, Feng Zikai, Lin Fengmian, and Wu Dayu, all elderly artists from the Shanghai Painting Institute (formerly known as the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting), to the nineteen-year-old Han Xin, an amateur oil painter who had been reported to the authorities by a cultural palace administrator. In one particularly ironic example, the monumental oil painting project commissioned earlier by Jiefang ribao to win Jiang Qing’s favor, the Yellow River series, now backfired. When exhibited in Beijing in 1973, the paintings, disappointingly, had attracted only moderate interest. Now, one of the works, by Xia Baoyuan, a young Shanghai Art School graduate, was ruled to be a black painting, because the faces of the figures were too white, like those of dead people. At the other extreme, the unemployed Ha Ding, who had made his living producing factory paintings for cheap Hong Kong galleries since the forced closing of his private studio, was mortified to have his potboilers publicly exhibited and criticized for their lack of political content. Guohua painters were particularly vulnerable. Pan Tianshou was attacked posthumously for a painting he had given to a Shanghai official. Chen Dayu’s rooster, Welcoming Spring, was displayed prominently near the entrance to the black painting exhibition. An important focus of criticism was Cheng Shifa, for he exemplified everything the movement aimed to destroy. His work was not only apolitical, but it also sold well abroad. Calendar pages from Hong Kong and other reproductions of his paintings in foreign hands covered the walls of the exhibition. At the criticism session, he was attacked for unhealthy inscriptions, for formalistic images, and for catering to foreign buyers. While the

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION 375

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Cheng Shifa, Girl and Deer (dedicated to James Cahill), 1973, ink and color on paper, James Cahill, Berkeley, California.

sweet picture of a girl playing with a deer that we reproduce (fig. 130) was pre-

sumably unknown to his attackers, it is typical of the Cheng Shifa work that Jiang Qing found unhealthy. The painting, which is similar to one published in the infamous Zhongguohua catalogue, was given to an American professor in 1973.

In March, Wang Mantian’s representatives arrived in Xi'an to organize a black painting exhibition. According to one report, they found their work much easier than it had been in Beijing, for the Xi’an artists naively wrote inscriptions on all their paintings. Held in late March, the Xi’an exhibition included sixty revisionist and counterrevolutionary paintings by twenty artists. Zhao Wangyun, Shi Lu, He Haixia, and Fang Jizhong were prominent targets. After a criticism meeting in which a thousand people participated, every locality was ordered to continue criticizing black paintings. Newspapers published many articles laying out charges against the counterrevolutionary artists. He Haixia was attacked for a painting called Moonlight at Yanling, which was in-

376 THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

scribed as having been painted on a trip with Shi Lu and Li Qi. Zhao Wangyun’s paintings were castigated as “black mountains and black streams.” Denunciations of Shi Lu became particularly pronounced once a cache of

thirty export paintings was found in Tianjin. A team was immediately organized to investigate him, and the old charges of his leading a “wild, weird, chaotic, and black” school of painting were revived. His feisty poem of 1963 (see

p. 296) had been seized by the Red Guard and was now declared by Wang Mantian to be a “Counterrevolutionary Manifesto.” Only recently liberated to serve as a consultant for local submissions to the national exhibition, he was once again labeled a counterrevolutionary.!® The fundamental issue behind the Black Painting Movement was Zhou Enlai’s contention that China should have two standards for art, one for domestic and one for foreign consumption. This view was not new, for Zhou had long served as a bridge between the CCP and the outside world; the double stan-

dard in art was in fact a natural extension of his United Front policy, with which he sought to maintain a highly civilized and moderate facade for the Chinese Communist party. Given such a formulation, Jiang Qing and Wang Mantian were left to hold their annual socialist realist art exhibitions for the masses, while institutions under Zhou Enlai’s direction would produce mildly nationalistic or pleasantly apolitical paintings for the rest of the world. While such an approach has its own political logic, to Jiang Qing it appeared that Zhou Enlai had usurped the only territory over which she had unquestioned authority: the cultural sphere. The paintings were not commissioned through the culture group of the State Council; instead, Zhou simply activated the for-

eign affairs and foreign trade bureaucracies to carry out his ideas. Attacks against him, however, focused not on this power struggle, but on his fundamental policy. Jiang Qing and her allies simply rejected the need for dual

artistic standards. 166 |

For most black artists, the years after 1974 were difficult. Daily selfcriticism sessions at their work units were mandatory. Because the artists had been branded as criminals, all but their most faithful friends shunned them.

When their protector, Zhou Enlai, died of cancer on January 8, 1976, Mao sent no condolences to his widow.!6”7 A demonstration held to commemorate him in April drew hundreds of thousands of people; nevertheless, it was put down and condemned, allegedly because bad people had taken control. Mao Zedong himself lived until September 9, 1976; within weeks of his passing, the

Gang of Four—Jiang Qing, Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, and Zhang Chunqiao—were arrested. The great exhibition of Cultural Revolution art planned for the fall of 1976 did not take place.

SEVEN « THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

1976-1979 The deaths of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong left China and the Chinese art world in a state of uncertainty. The succession struggle had begun several years before, with radicals around Jiang Qing, including Yao Wenyuan, Wang Hongwen, and Zhang Chungiao, seeking to succeed Mao Zedong. Zhou Enlai was

attacked by the radicals in the Anti-Confucius campaign of 1974. His ally Deng Xiaoping came under fire in 1975. Deng delivered the eulogy at Zhou Enlai’s funeral in January 1976, and when Beijing residents held a demonstra-

tion in April at Tiananmen to commemorate Zhou, Deng Xiaoping was purged from government.!

Hua Guofeng was promoted to the premiership and to the succession in the wake of the Tiananmen demonstration. He had first come to Mao’s attention for his favorable assessment of the Great Leap Forward in 1959; in 1975

he was promoted to the powerful post of minister of public security.? His primary accomplishment as premier was the arrest of Jiang Qing and her allies.

For the next two years, the Maoist Hua Guofeng and the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping jockeyed for power. China’s artists, meanwhile, began testing the

limits of the new administration’s cultural controls. | Many people looked first to the past, not to the future, as they sought to undo the injustices of earlier years. When Meishu resumed publication in March 1976, the art leader Gao Jingde felt compelled to deny rumors that the cases against black painters would be reversed. That such ideas were circulating indicates open dissatisfaction with recent art policies. Gao further criticized the “power holders within the party who take the capitalist road”—Cultural Revolution jargon probably aimed at Deng Xiaoping. Gao affirmed the verdict that black paintings were subversive, and castigated artists who continued secretly to paint black paintings on the assumption that they might be exhib-

ited in the future. 377

378 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

In what was to be his swan song as a national administrator, Gao summarized the accomplishments of his office between 1972 and 1976: four national exhibitions; the Huxian Peasant Painting Exhibition; the Shanghai, Yangquan, Liida Workers’ Painting Exhibition; and a myriad of local art exhibitions.? There is no question that the number of national exhibitions during the last

few years of the Cultural Revolution was high and that large numbers of artists were at work. The new standards were thoroughly implemented throughout China, an administrative feat possible only under a government that brooked no dissent. The first few issues of Meishu following its hiatus were devoted to documenting the Cultural Revolution’s success by reproducing works from the previous years’ exhibitions and to criticizing Deng Xiaoping’s threat to the Cultural Revolution.

The Cultural Revolution emphasis on amateur art continued with a bimonthly instructional feature in Meishu about artistic techniques. Drawings by talented young academy graduates and Red Guard artists, including Zhou Sicong, were reproduced.* A feature on how to make woodcuts was prepared by one of the Sichuan printmakers, Song Kejun.°

Cultural Revolution Art Without the Gang of Four One step taken to regularize government in the late Cultural Revolution period was the reconstitution of the Ministry of Culture in 1975, although the staft was dominated by Jiang Qing’s appointees. Gao Jingde and one of his assistants were assigned to the Art Office of the Arts Bureau within the new ministry. Another of his assistants stayed on the staff of the Chinese National Art Gallery, with exhibition plans being implemented as before.® The official arts administration thus remained highly centralized. Gao Jingde’s supervisor, Wang Mantian, killed herself after the Gang of

Four was arrested on October 6, 1976, and Gao was soon removed from his post. Zhang Yongsheng, the Hangzhou art student who became a prominent provincial administrator and director of the Zhejiang academy, was arrested. The annual national art exhibition, originally planned to open in October, was canceled.

Nevertheless, the headless art system continued to follow Cultural Revolution administrative procedures for the next several years. All but the highest Cultural Revolution administrators remained in their jobs. Official exhibitions on political themes were held at least annually, juried according to the standards established by Wang Mantian and Gao Jingde. One of the most important bore the unwieldy title “National Art Exhibition to Ardently Celebrate Comrade Hua Guofeng’s Appointment as Central Party Chairman and Chair-

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 379

man of the Central Military Committee and Ardently Celebrate the Great Vic-

tory of Smashing the ‘Gang of Four’s’ Plot to Usurp the Party and Take Power”; it opened in Beijing on February 18, 1977.’ In a procedure Gao Jingde’s group had reinstituted, local exhibitions were held all over China in preparation for the national showing. Another significant official exhibition was the Art Exhibition to Celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army, which opened on August 1, 1977, in Beijing. According to the catalogue preface, the exhibition expressed the artists’ love for Chairman Hua

Guofeng and hatred of the Gang of Four. Annual exhibitions were held in most cities on October 1, China’s national day. The artists and art administration responded to the rapidly shifting political situation not with conceptual or stylistic innovations but with iconographic

changes. During the first years after the Cultural Revolution, portraits of Chairman Mao and Red Guard heroes were partially replaced by images of Hua Guofeng, Zhou Enlai, and other political leaders. By January 1977, for example, He Kongde and Gao Hong had prepared an oil portrait of Hua Guofeng greeting the crowd at Tiananmen Square.? Their oil portrait of Zhou Enlai at a construction site, Our Good Premier, was published soon after.!° Portraits of Zhou, which the premier had discouraged during his lifetime, were ubiquitous by the first anniversary of his death. The most famous painting theme of the era was With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, which recorded the moment at which the dying Mao passed his mantle to Hua Guofeng. The uniformity of style and iconography is a testimony to the radically restricted state of painting at the close of the Cultural Revolution. The image may have first appeared in the February 1977 national exhibition, but dozens of versions were exhibited in 1977 and 1978. The best-known interpretation was by the military painter Peng Bin and the CAFA professor Jin Shangyi (fig. 131).!! Other examples include a collaborative work from X1’an by the Maksimov student Zhan Beixin, who was primarily a landscapist, the

guohua painter Liu Wenxi, and two other artists.!* In most examples, the composition depicts a deferential Hua Guofeng receiving Mao’s mandate in his book-filled sitting room. One rejected version of the composition is an interesting testament to the official standards of the period (fig. 132).!3 The Shanghai artists Han Xin and

Wei Jingshan executed their painting collaboratively, as was the practice in 1978. Wei Jingshan, a 1964 graduate of the Shanghai Art School, had joined the Municipal Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio in 1965. During the Cultural Revolution his institute was merged with the Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting. Wei worked at the enlarged institution in 1978 when this painting was commissioned for the October exhibition. Han Xin, only eleven years old when the Cultural Revolution closed China’s schools, was a self-taught artist. He had painted in youth palaces as a teenager and had improved his technique

Cts 39

380 THE TRANSITION TO ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY

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FIGURE 131

Peng Bin and Jin Shangyi, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, 1977, oil on canvas, 226 cm X 270 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery.

by seeking advice from older professional artists. Declared a black painter in 1974 for his overly avant-garde artistic interests, particularly his enthusiasm for impressionism, he was assigned to work at a munitions plant in Anhui. He refused to accept the punitive position, however, and remained unemployed, living on his parents meager funds and ration coupons ror the next severa years. Later befriended by several official artists in the painting institute, he was hired on a temporary basis by the institute from late 1976 to late 1978 to

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FIGURE 133

Liu Yaozhen and Han Xin, Hua Guofeng at Yangqu, 1977, oil on canvas, Chinese National Art Gallery.

other Soviet-influenced professors. In 1975, though, the Shanghai Painting Institute, where they worked, acquired an encyclopedia of world art that opened their eyes to the works of Delacroix and other European history painters. On this basis they developed a new and highly refined realistic style easily distinguishable from the bold, rough brushwork of most Chinese artists trained in the 1950s. While the dramatic lighting, postures, and perspective of The Taking of the Presidential Palace are in keeping with Cultural Revolution standards, the relatively somber colors are not; the extremely detailed rendering of stone and fabric, moreover, though derivative of European and Soviet art, is unprecedented in Chinese oil painting. The power of this huge painting to impress its viewers did not escape the notice of the many young artists who studied it. Completed in 1977, it was the first and most influential exploration of photographic realism, a style that was to characterize much of the art of the 1980s. The critics Gao Minglu and Zhou Yan have labeled the years from 1976 to 1978 the post—Cultural Revolution (hou wenge) period, adopting a con-

struction Chinese writers use for postimpressionism, postmodernism, and other schools of art closely related to what came before.!© Their thesis is that

384 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

the art of the period is a continuation of the “icon-making movement” of the Cultural Revolution. Rather than basing art on the values of ordinary people, most artists simply replaced old deities with new ones. Stylistic features of the Cultural Revolution, such as “complete, many, and big,” “red, smooth, and luminous,” and “centralized,” still prevailed. One commonly saw criticism of the Gang of Four in cartoon form, but even it took the same forms, styles, and images used ten years earlier to attack Liu Shaoqi. A third, slightly less important trend identified by Gao and Zhou was the painting of revolutionary martyrs. The official exhibitions of the period support their assessment.

Ouasi-official Exhibitions With the exception of the tightly controlled capital, local arts administrators began experimenting with new themes and procedures for exhibited art in 1977.17 The most important conceptual change was that, although art remained quite conservative, the artist was now viewed as an individual rather than as a cog in the bureaucratic machine. Furthermore, these activities did not

directly involve either the Cultural Revolution art administration or the reemerging Chinese Artists Association. Events in Shanghai were particularly lively.18 Many Western-style painters

in Shanghai worked in the postimpressionist and Fauvist styles taught before liberation at the Shanghai Art Academy. The lack of a local art school after 1949 yielded a largely unregulated transmission of this style to young amateur artists via private lessons and youth palace art classes; this trend continued during the late years of the Cultural Revolution, with the styles of Liu Haisu and Yan Wenliang dominating the unofficial Shanghai art scene. So strong was this mode of painting, which reflected conservative landscape and still-life styles of early-twentieth-century Europe, that it in fact became an underground regional style (see fig. 32). It was not a dissident style, however, for most artists who practiced it did not openly reject official standards. They were, by temperament or training, simply incapable of painting the narrowly conceived official art.!? Qu Shunfa, an administrator of the Xuhui District Cultural Palace and himself a watercolorist, decided in late 1976 that official standards should be broadened under the new regime.2° Explaining to the municipal authorities that the watercolor medium had been sorely neglected by the Gang of Four, he requested permission to hold a small watercolor show. What he did not make explicit was that watercolors had failed to gain support simply because few artists could use them to paint political themes. The exhibition he organized is

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 385

believed by participants to be the first public showing of apolitical paintings in Shanghai after the fall of the Gang of Four.

The invitations to the event were hand-stamped with a big seal by the cultural palace staff, for no funds were available for printing. Qu recruited several young artists to visit the homes of well-known artists to request new works for the exhibition. Their inclusion in the show would, it was hoped, legitimate the exhibition’s artistic goals; for the organizers’ motives were not to oppose official art, but to broaden it. Further, they wanted to ensure that their exhibition would not be dismissed as an incompetent amateur effort. Some official artists declined, afraid to take such a chance in an unsettled period. Guan Liang, however, who normally painted on Chinese paper, executed a flower painting on watercolor paper for the exhibition. The Shanghai Painting Institute artists Chen Yifei and Wei Jingshan also submitted works. In addition, paintings by previously unknown young artists were shown for the first time. All works were selected by the artists, with minimal interference from the authorities. One young artist, for example, remembers being asked to change the name of his painting in deference to an old artist whose work bore the same title.21 The exhibition of landscapes and still lifes opened in December and was met with great interest from the artistic community. When no protests were heard from higher authorities, the pace of such activity increased. Most such exhibitions were held at cultural palaces or the exhibition halls

of public parks rather than in the Municipal Art Gallery. They were thus quasi-official: although they were initiated by the artists themselves and not directed or publicized by the official arts administration, they were allowed the use of government-owned facilities and had the tacit approval of the local authorities. A larger exhibition including both guohua and Western-style land-

scapes and still lifes took place in the spring of 1977 at the Luwan District Cultural Palace. Several paintings by Liu Haisu, who lived in the district, were

shown. Inclusion of this outspoken artist, a target of both the Anti-Rightist campaign and the Cultural Revolution, confirmed the renewed elevation of art over politics. One of the organizers had studied at the Zhejiang Academy of Art and invited professors from the academy to exhibit. The show drew spectators from Hangzhou as well as Shanghai. Shen Jiawei, who still lived in Heilongjiang, recalls going to see the exhibition while on a home visit in Zhejiang.22

Kong Boji, a professor at the Shanghai Drama Academy, organized several

such shows as well. The “Twelve-Man Painting Exhibition,” held at the Huangpu District Youth Palace in late 1978 or early 1979, is mentioned by Chinese writers as a particularly important event. As is typical of the bestknown quasi-official exhibitions, some of the organizers were low-level Communist party officials. These shows did not oppose the party; instead they

386 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

sought, at least in part, to influence party policy from within. Similar exhibitions were held all over China, including Xi’an and other cities.?3 The first such exhibition in Beijing coincided with the lunar new year in early 1979. A group of oil painters calling themselves the Spring Tide (Chunchao) asked Jiang Feng, who had recently reemerged from obscurity, to write the preface for their exhibition flyer. The artists were typical of participants in such quasi-official exhibitions: they ranged from amateur painters, to serious but relatively apolitical official artists, to Communist party members. Accord-

ing to Chen Yingde, New Spring exhibitors included Zhan Jianjun, Jin Shangyi, Lin Gang, Chang Youming, Wu Guanzhong, Liu Bingjiang, Cao Dali, Yan Zhenduo, and Zhong Ming.2* The group reconvened in October, showing many of the nude studies they had been making to rid themselves of Cultural Revolution conventions. Jiang Feng’s preface to the first show expressed particular approval of the independence demonstrated by their uncensored exhibition. He predicted that such painting clubs would allow creativity to flourish, would promote variety of artistic styles and subjects, would encourage mutual study, competition, and improvement among artists, would create more oppor-

tunities for art to be seen and evaluated by the masses, would be financially self-supporting, and would solve the problem of China’s lack of places, such as shops and hotels, to buy oil paintings.2> At about the same time, Jiang Feng

wrote a fervent article in praise of Zhou Enlai’s recently printed speech of 1961.26 The sincerity of his conclusion, that China needed artistic democracy, would soon be tested by the emergence of truly dissident art.

The Reemergence of Jiang Feng: The Art Academies and the Chinese Artists Association In the fall of 1977, the May Seventh College of Arts, established four years earlier by Jiang Qing, was abolished. A temporary administrative team composed of Zhu Dan, Bai Yan, Gu Yuan, Zhang Qiren, Luo Gongliu, Sheng Yang, and Ai Zhongxin set about reconstituting the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Over the next two years, 126 faculty members condemned during the Cultural Revolution were rehabilitated, as were 44 teachers who had been condemned as rightists in 1957.27 The first actions taken to release the art world from Jiang Qing’s grip resembled steps backward in time. Leftist works from the 1960s that had been

unjustifiably criticized by the Red Guard were published in 1977 issues of Meishu. A famous 1960 portrait of Mao by Li Qi, who had been ridiculed ten years earlier for dancing with Liu Shaoqi’s wife,2®8 was reprinted, as was Wang

Shikuo’s Bloody Clothes (fig. 74). Prints of the same era by such artists as Li

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 387

Huanmin and Huang Yongyu and woodcuts of the Yan’an period fill the pages of the art journal.? In 1979, the Ministry of Culture restored Jiang Feng’s party membership and named him director of the CAFA. After twenty-one years in disgrace, he responded with great enthusiasm to his new responsibilities. He was further named a special advisor to the Ministry of Culture and a member of the Political Consultative Council. In November, he was elected chairman of the newly reconstituted Chinese Artists Association. Jiang Feng exercised great power in decisions about the art world, even though many of his later opinions proved controversial. To the end of his life he displayed the conflicting loyalties that made his career so unpredictable. In spite of all he had suffered, he retained a profound belief in the ideals of the Communist party.7° At the same time, he had deep sympathy for young people, in whom he recognized idealism and talent, as well as for people who had endured political subjugation. Most of

the students and faculty who had been declared rightists for defending him in 1957 were brought back to the academy as professors in 1980. The bureaucratic difficulties of obtaining residential transfers for those who had been exiled to Heilongjiang or Qinghai were enormous, but Jiang persisted. Nevertheless, when Deng Xiaoping restricted free expression in 1980, Jiang Feng spoke publicly for the party line. The conflict between Communist bureaucracy and Communist ideals was the great tragedy of Jiang Feng’s life. He died suddenly in 1982, in the midst of a heated debate at a party meeting. The restored administrative staff of the academy grew rather crowded as former officials from before and after the Anti-Rightist campaign all returned to their jobs. Wu Zuoren, who had replaced Jiang Feng as director of CAFA in 1958, was named honorary director, and Liu Kaiqu, Zhu Dan, Gu Yuan, Luo Gongliu, Ai Zhongxin, and Zhang Qiren came on as vice-directors. Chen Pei,

who had replaced Jiang Feng as party secretary, regained that post; Jiang Feng’s protégé Hong Bo was named vice-secretary. The middle school also reopened in 1979. One of the most important events for the academic art establishment was

the reinstitution of the college entrance examination system in 1978. Two thousand applications for the CAFA graduate program poured in from all over the nation. Fifty-four artists were admitted as graduate students, fifty-five as undergraduates, and twenty more in a two-year teacher training program.?!

Major art colleges in other cities began to admit students at about the same time.

The Chinese art that emerged in the late 1970s was chiefly of two kinds: styles that had survived the Cultural Revolution and those that had been created by it. While young Cultural Revolution artists notorious for Jiang Qing’s interest in them, such as Liu Chunhua and Shen Jiawei, did not win admission to art schools, most of the students who were accepted, like Tang Muli, had

388 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

learned to paint during the Cultural Revolution. Others, such as Sun Jingbo and Ge Pengren, had studied art at CAFA before 1966 but had spent the first decade of their artistic careers making Cultural Revolution propaganda. The painting of the Cultural Revolution was a narrowly defined product of the _ Communist art academies, and the academic art of the post-1976 era inherited this impoverished legacy. Some, though not all, older professors failed to regain their interest in teaching after the abuse they suffered at the hands of Red Guard students. Younger faculty, those trained in the 1950s, had painted so many red-hued portraits of Chairman Mao that they had no personal style to which to return. Newly admitted students had come to maturity as painters in the Cultural Revolution style. Yet the art academies continued to dominate the world of official art, and the struggles of individuals within the academy to throw off the legacy of the Cultural Revolution became those of Chinese art as a whole.

Most of those who entered art school in the late 1970s brought much richer experiences to their art than had the relatively sheltered students of the 19508, for the Cultural Revolution involved them intimately in politics, war, and manual labor, not to mention other equally fundamental human experiences. Tang Muli, Sun Jingbo, and Ge Pengren were accepted by CAFA as graduate students in its oil painting program. Weng Rulan, Guang Jun, and Han Xin tested into the guohua, printmaking, and mural painting specialties. The deaths and retirements of many old teachers meant that many of these young artists were retained as instructors after graduation. The independence they had developed during the Cultural Revolution gave them a less compliant attitude toward authority than that of the generation educated in the 1950s. One of the most important unofficial art groups in Beljing in the period immediately following the Cultural Revolution emerged in 1980. Many of its members were oil painting graduate students at CAFA or CAAC, and its core members had, like Sun Jingbo, graduated from the CAFA middle school before

the Cultural Revolution. All had been through the Red Guard experience and subsequent farm labor. They chose a group name that makes their selfidentification explicit: Tongdairen, usually translated as the Contemporaries but literally meaning Men of the Same Generation; with this name, then, they asserted the uniqueness of their position in the history of modern China. While the artists’ works sometimes look rather like American paintings of the noble savages that were imagined to inhabit the Western frontier, the step backward from socialist realism was important. One group member, Chen Danging, a self-taught Shanghai painter who had labored in Tibet, began working in a new photographic style that portrays China’s people as the artists saw them, not as the government may have wished them to look. A preparatory group for the reestablishment of the Chinese Artists Association was founded in August 1978 under Cai Ruohong’s direction. In March

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 389

1979, the twenty-third directors’ meeting of the CAA was held in Beijing, attended by thirty-six people, including vice-directors, standing directors, the secretary of the secretariat, the preparatory group, some responsible people from local CAA branches, responsible people from the People’s Liberation Army, and several old cadres, such as Jiang Feng and Pang Xungin. The meeting retracted a resolution passed at the standing directors’ meeting of December 12, 1957, that labeled Jiang Feng and others rightists. It further rehabilitated all officers who had been declared capitalist roaders, counterrevolutionary revisionists, and black painters by the Gang of Four. These included the late CAA chairmen Xu Beihong and Qi Baishi; vice-chairmen Cai Ruohong, Liu Kaiqu, Ye Qianyu, and Wu Zuoren; the late artists Pan Tianshou and Fu Baoshi; and secretary of the secretariat Hua Junwu.?? In November, Jiang Feng was elected chairman of the CAA, and an all-inclusive, if unwieldy, board of directors was named (see appendix 3). The new charter contained no references to stylistic requirements, whether to those of the

national tradition or to socialist realism, although it did state that artists should follow Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought and maintain the socialist direction.34 The Hundred Flowers should bloom; art should serve the people.

Innovation As older artists strove to reestablish the art bureaucracy, they found themselves weighed down by the burden of the past. Zhou Yang issued a public apology for his role in the Anti-Rightist campaign. Although the suffering that all had shared at the hands of the Red Guard tempered old animosities, conflicts be-

tween Jiang Feng, Cai Ruohong, and Hua Junwu were almost inevitable. When the political shackles were removed from the art world, no innovations

sprang forth. As though permanently molded by the pressure of the past, exhibitions overflowed with works painted twenty years before, or ones that looked as though they might have been.

If this backward-looking trend was obvious in official art, it was even clearer in private painting. Even the most talented guohua artists of Beijing and Shanghai failed to produce major work. A few older artists, most notably Li Keran and Cheng Shifa, had continued to develop during the Cultural Revolution. Most of those who survived that tormented decade, however, stagnated, an unsurprising result of the dreadful psychological pressure under which they had lived. When they picked up their brushes again, many simply repeated successful compositions of the 1950s and 1960s. Publications of the early 1980s

were devoted to retrospectives aimed at rehabilitating the reputations of guohua artists who had been condemned during the Cultural Revolution.

390 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

Nevertheless, three important trends appeared in the works of young and middle-aged artists in 1979. Each was developed in reaction to past standards; each was related to foreign art, but was used for particularly Chinese ends; and each marked the beginning of a movement that would sweep the nation in the 1980s. The three trends were an Art Deco—inspired figure painting style of largely ornamental intent; a new sympathetic realism identified with “Scar” literature, which lamented the personal tragedies of the Cultural Revolution;

and the politically engaged modernism of the Stars. The artists in the first group, the most conservative, were middle-aged academically trained painters; those in the second group were mainly rusticated youth who had become professional artists; and those in the third were nonprofessionals, including former Red Guard, who challenged the art world from outside its territory. The fullest development of each of these trends occurred in the 1980s, but we will briefly describe their origins. The most important early exemplar of the decorative school of painting was Yuan Yunsheng. Early in 1979, the Ministry of Light Industry commissioned a group of artists to execute interior decorations for the new Beijing airport. The project was under the general direction of Zhang Ding, director of the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts. He enlisted forty-odd artists from seventeen cities to collaborate on the project, which was to take the form of

painted or ceramic murals. The thematic sources of the decorations were varied, ranging from literary texts to minority festivals. Although the artists came from all over China, most of them had some connection with CAAC. The project was considered sufficiently important that its opening ceremonies

were attended by Deng Xiaoping, Li Xiannian, and Gu Mu, as well as by officials of the Ministries of Light Industry and Culture. It is likely that Yuan Yunsheng became involved in the project through the

recommendation of his brother Yuan Yunpu, a professor at CAAC. Yuan Yunsheng had studied with Dong Xiwen in the late 1950s and early 1960s, had been declared a rightist student, and, upon graduation, had been assigned to a job in distant Jilin province. Yuan’s airport murals were the first major project he had undertaken since his 1962 graduation picture, Memories of a Waterside Village, a work that was criticized during the political movements preceding the Cultural Revolution, stolen, and eventually lost. The linear style he developed for the airport project is related to Dong Xiwen’s preliberation Kazak Herdswoman (fig. 34). It was thus linked to ancient Chinese mural decOrations, to painting in the “national tradition,” to the academy styles of the 1950s, and to what modern Western art Yuan had seen as a student in Being and in exile in Jilin province.?° His mural, Water Splashing Festival (fig. 134), is typical of the new apolitical painting for interior design. Here, compositional beauty is the primary pictorial motivation.?® Linear patterns dominate the surface. Human figures

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Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, aple,” lianbuanhua, 1979, after a short storyy by by Zheng Zheng Yi, Yi, published published iin Lianhuanhuabao.

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396 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

result of battles between contending Red Guard factions. Despite their passion, the two broke ties when their political groups split. After a decisive and particularly bloody clash, Danfeng threw herself from the roof of a building rather than surrender to Honggang’s victorious troops. The story closes with Hong-

gang’s arrest for her murder and his public execution. Red maple leaves appear throughout the story as tragic images of Danfeng and her fate.*®

The artists wrote that they characterized the hero and heroine as typical children of the time, diligent students who knew little of worldly matters. Danfeng and Honggang were typical as well in that they threw themselves totally into Mao’s Red Guard movement, even at the cost of their lives. The artists strove for complete historical accuracy, hoping only that their pictures would not suffer the same fate as Dong Xiwen’s Founding of the Nation. Cultural Revolution slogans and benevolent-looking posters of Lin Biao and Jiang Qing served as backgrounds to the figures.4? In the changing climate of late 1979, these images of the now-out-of-favor leaders were considered too neutral, and

this issue of Lianhuanhuabao was banned. The journal editors ignored the order prohibiting sale, however, and apparently got away with their disobedience. The controversy caused sales to skyrocket, making the paintings among the best-known of the post—Cultural Revolution period. A third example of the new realism from the Sichuan academy, Father by Luo Zhongli, became notorious in 1980 largely for its ambiguity (fig. 137).°° This enormous rendering of an old peasant, which is almost 2.5 meters high, is clearly influenced by the style of the American photo-realist Chuck Close. The juxtaposition of such a postmodern mode of painting with standard Communist subject matter is a bit perplexing to the Western viewer. Few Chinese observers, however, would have been aware of the stylistic source; to them, the work most closely resembled the enormous portraits of Chairman Mao that ornamented every public space in the nation. Replacing the ageless Chairman Mao with a weather-beaten man who has suffered from his work was more than a bit mischievous, however. While Luo’s challenge to the status quo was encouraged by the administrators of his school, it was opposed by the print-

maker Li Shaoyan, who suggested that Luo add a ballpoint pen behind the peasant’s ear; then the viewer would know that the subject was a progressive contemporary peasant, not an oppressed preliberation one. Such critical dialogue is evidence that the Yan’an veterans who continued to regulate art either

failed to understand the younger generation’s challenge to their legacy or sought to waylay them by pretending to miss the point. The most notorious artistic event of 1979 was the “Stars” (Xingxing) exhibition, the title of which was probably a naughty reference to a 1930 article by Mao Zedong that was often quoted during the Cultural Revolution: “A tiny spark [xingxing zhi huo] can set the steppes ablaze.”*! Open calls for “artistic democracy” filled the press, leading to the proliferation of quasi-official exhibi-

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 397

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FIGURE 137

Luo Zhongli, Father, 1980, oil on canvas, 240 cm X 165 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery.

tions and such experiments as the publication of “Maple” in a state-run periodical. On September 27, 1979, during a preparatory display for the Fifth National Art Exhibition, planned to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the People’s Republic, an unprecedented incident occurred.** A group of young amateur artists hung their work on the fence and in the garden outside

the Chinese National Art Gallery. Because the spot happened to be near a major bus stop, the pictures immediately drew huge crowds of spectators. The backgrounds of the organizers were somewhat different from those of artists associated with the quasi-official exhibitions; although most were children of

party officials or high-ranking intellectuals, few were academy-trained or official artists. The participating artists, moreover, seem to have had different motivations: they did not gain official sanction, but instead openly defied both the art establishment and the government. While much of the exhibited art was naive, the event was politically and conceptually quite sophisticated. Wang Keping, one of the organizers, recalls that the point of staging the event at the

National Gallery during an important exhibition was to show that artists

398 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

could emerge both from within the academy and from outside it. Possibly inspired by Moscow’s dissident “bulldozer exhibition” of five years before, the demolition of which had been reported in the official translations of foreign news reports available to cadres, these artists presented themselves as dissidents. They did not seek to expand the boundaries of the official art world from within; rather, their intention was to invade from without. This effort attracted the attention of the art world, the masses, and the police. According to Wang Keping, Jiang Feng was sympathetic to the group and gave permission to store their paintings in a lounge inside the National Gallery at night. After they set up their work on the second day, thirty policemen arrived to arrest them for the illegal posting of bills. When the artists explained that the Chinese constitution guaranteed artistic freedom, the police departed. On the third day, the artists arrived to find their spot occupied by five hundred policemen*? and a sign prohibiting exhibitions. They tried to regroup at the nearby CAFA middle school but found it full of policemen as well. When they attempted to remove their paintings from the National Gallery, they were prevented from doing so by still more policemen. The swelling crowd began arguing with the police, who finally withdrew. Before long, a crowd of hoodlums arrived to harass the artists. One of the artists believes that the hoodlums were temporarily released from jail for this very purpose. A CAA official finally persuaded the police to remove the hoodlums from the scene.54 With the exhibition closed down, the artists posted a notice on Democracy Wall that if the police did not apologize for infringing their rights they would hold a protest march on October 1, their intent presumably being to mar the national day celebrations. No apology arrived, and on the appointed day a group of about seven hundred people set forth from Democracy Wall toward the municipal government buildings. Police blocked them from marching across Tiananmen Square but allowed them to continue by another route. Wang Keping recalls that most of the demonstrators disappeared when the police came. The artists finally reached the offices of the Municipal Party Com| mittee, where Ma Desheng delivered a lecture from the steps. Huang Rui and Xu Wenli negotiated with bureaucrats inside, but no conclusion was reached. The matter remained unresolved until November, when the group was allowed to mount an exhibition at Beihai Park. This event, linked with the Democracy Wall movement, was one of the few examples of dissident art in the first three decades of the PRC.°5 The organization and timing of the exhibition reveal a remarkable sensitivity to political currents and a marvelous sense of humor. Wang Keping commented

that their ragtag demonstration drew so much attention from the foreign media that journalists all but neglected to report an important national day speech.°® None of the artists was arrested, and the group became internationally famous.°” Although less polished than his later work, Wang Keping’s

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 399

|;’e

FIGURE 138

Wang Keping, Idol, 1979, wooden sculpture.

Idol, which seems to combine an image of the late Mao with that of a corpulent Buddhist deity of late-Tang or Song-dynasty style, typifies the strongly political tone of the group’s activity (fig. 138). Events of this sort came to an end by 1981 with renewed political pressure on the arts. Nevertheless, the “new wave” or “avant-garde” movements of the late 1980s look to the Stars as models. The most important features of these successor groups are their rejection of official art, be it traditional guohua or Soviet socialist realism, and their enthusiasm for Western modernism or postmodernism. Although these groups initially proved less successful than the

400 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

Stars at attracting foreign attention, many individuals have found collectors and supporters abroad. In China, more to the point, they have often stirred up as much controversy as the Stars did a decade earlier.°®

Conclusion Jiang Feng’s idealistic but slightly horrifying exhortation that the art that people will accept is the art they are accustomed to seeing has been partly validated by the experiences of the Chinese art world.5? Much has been written

about the resilience of the Chinese artistic tradition, a point of view that is supported by the modest reappearance of guohua landscape paintings in the studios of artists born after the liberation. As Chu-tsing Li, an important champion of modern guohua in the West since the 1950s, observed in 1979, “Because many artists were trained in...a literati background they cannot easily forget the tradition’s valuable aspects, such as its spiritual aspect, its aesthetic excellence, its rich meaning and its profound expression.”©° As Li implies, the Western observer must keep in mind that there is some truth to even the most nationalistic cultural formulations, and that much of contemporary Chinese culture is indeed unique. Nevertheless, it is rare in any society for an artist to work in a world entirely of his or her own making, free from the pressures of social, political, and economic circumstances. In the People’s Republic of China, such an isolated artistic life is virtually impossible owing to the far-reaching social, economic, and political policies of the official sector; the Communist remolding of Chinese art has thus had every opportunity to gain the upper hand. Perry Link has described a system of bureaucratic control under which Chinese writers labored after 1949.°! The primary question to be asked about the postliberation Chinese art world was similarly bureaucratic: what mattered

was not what the artists might be inclined to paint, but instead who would determine which artworks might be exhibited. Most artists hoped that their contributions to Chinese art would be recognized. Such aspirations led many to a certain degree of cooperation with the authorities; as a result, bureaucratic factors became ever more important as determinants of artistic production. Indeed, by the early 1980s most artists simply assumed that one’s career was naturally determined by the art bureaucracy. Complaints might arise, but they generally focused on individual bureaucrats who had failed to recognize the value of a certain artist’s work, not on the system of control itself. There may be superficial parallels between this system and the American art market, particularly in terms of their rewards. Fame and material comfort come from critical recognition in both societies. As in China, the attention of

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 401

an influential American critic, curator, or art dealer has been known to turn an unknown painter into a star. The primary difference is, of course, on the negative side. Artists in the West have not in recent times been subject to criminal punishment for producing critically unacceptable works or for criticizing the work of other artists.®* An artist who, voluntarily or involuntarily, has failed to attract positive critical attention can still lead a productive artistic life. In China, however, with a system based on centralized social engineering, styles and techniques flourished, declined, or died strictly on the basis of administrative decisions and procedures.

Our survey of the Chinese art world between 1949 and 1979 has attempted to describe some of the ways in which the art bureaucracy sponsored

, and controlled art. By rewarding and punishing artists, the Communist art education system and art bureaucracy systematically and effectively altered the very nature of Chinese painting. Traditional painting, with its rigorous technical requirements, was by 1979 practiced by only a handful of old painters. It had been eradicated as a living artistic tradition, replaced by the new ways of using Chinese media developed in the academies and local CAA branches of the 1950s and 1960s. Modernism, dimmed by the Japanese invasion of the late 19308, was extinguished by Communism. Since 1949, realistic oil painting

has been fully integrated into the Chinese art world, an attainment that the Westernizers of the early twentieth century would probably have thought impossible. They might have been equally surprised to find the Chinese art world enthusiastically preserving, practicing, and developing styles of painting

defunct in the West for almost a century. ,

Not unexpectedly, efficiency of bureaucratic control and artistic creativity appear to have been inversely related in China between 1949 and 1979. The

most aesthetically pleasing art reproduced in this book was made during periods of greatest bureaucratic irregularity, in particular the Hundred Flowers

period (1956-1957) and the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward (1960— 1962). By contrast, the official art of the Cultural Revolution appears, in the simplicity of its bureaucratic support, not as an aberration, but as the logical, if cold-blooded, development of efficient, state-sponsored Maoist art.

We have looked, in the course of our examination of the Chinese art bureaucracy, at the careers of artists from three generations. The oldest genera-

tion is defined, quite broadly, as men and women who were professional artists, administrators, or revolutionaries before 1949. Despite the disparities in age and experience within this group, its members shared an important common experience: all were required to adapt their preliberation inclinations and ideals to the new discipline imposed by the Communist party. The second generation is similarly defined in terms of education and experience rather than by strictly chronological age. It comprises artists who were educated during the 1950s, at the height of China’s new national pride and progress, a period of

402 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

extreme standardization and self-confidence. The third generation of artists has | childhood memories of the three-year famine of 1959-1961. Some received their artistic education in the 1960s, but they are best characterized as the Red Guard generation.®?

The artists we have looked at, Communist and non-Communist alike, have sought to contribute to Chinese culture, society, and politics through their art. Many of the artists in the first generation were idealistic Communists who followed the twists and turns of party policy with faith unshaken. Most of those

we know today as artists, however, eventually missed one of the turns and were forced to stumble along on their own paths. Shi Lu is the most notable example of the artistic personality overcoming the party bureaucrat persona, a victory possibly provoked by party criticism but made all the more tragic by its association with his mental illness. The talented Yan Han, whose woodcuts had adapted to every movement, from new year’s pictures to Soviet socialist realism, did not begin developing an individual style until the early 1960s, after the party had rejected him in the Anti-Rightist campaign. His focus on illustrating literary works, a specialty for which artists received extra pay, may have been determined by a drastic reduction of his salary after he was declared a rightist. In any event, it was during this period that he began exploring new and more expressive carving techniques.®* Unfortunately, he did not really free himself from external control on his art until his old age, during the early and mid-1980s, when he turned to a semiabstract manner reminiscent of Matisse’s late paper cuts. By the end of the 1980s, he had turned to abstract expressionist ink painting. This phase of his career came to a premature halt with a heart attack he suffered in the early hours of June 4, 1989.® Non-Communist guohua painters suffered from different constraints. Fu

Baoshi, as an art teacher, was permitted to paint, and as a result his art developed quickly and consistently during the early postliberation years. With his national recognition at the end of the 1950s, however, political interference be-

came evident in some of his work. He died from the complications of high blood pressure in 1965, and so did not live long into this phase of his career, but it appears that he was quite sensitive to political rewards and pressures. The guohua painter Li Keran is one of the great successes of the contem-

porary Chinese art world. This judgment is based both on the quality of his work and on the shape of his painting career as a whole, one that could not be taken for granted in the China of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. He painted continuously throughout his life, interrupted only during the early years of the Cultural Revolution. He managed to bring into existence a new style that satisfied both his own artistic aims and those of the Chinese system, while largely protecting his art from the vagaries of politics. Moreover, his art developed steadily in a direction he himself chose. These characteristics are, in a society where art is free, fundamental to artistic self-definition. For Li Keran to create

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 403

such art in China, however, one can only assume that beneath his mild and unassuming exterior he was a man of truly extraordinary artistic commitment and self-confidence. One does not see the false starts one finds in the work of Shi Lu, the dutiful sacrifice of art to the requirements of propaganda that characterizes much of Yan Han’s output, or the excessive sensitivity to the praise of political leaders from which Fu Baoshi suffered briefly in the early 1960s. Nevertheless, Li Keran’s accomplishment was an extremely fragile one, possible only because he was sheltered from harm at critical moments of his career. As a result, he was rewarded for aspects of his art that harmonized with party

policy and, except for the early years of the Cultural Revolution, rarely punished for those that might not.° An evaluation of the long-term effects of bureaucratic policies of the first three decades of the People’s Republic is premature, for their influence will continue to be felt for decades. In particular, the experiments and attainments

of the 1980s still await systematic study. A print by Wu Fan, originally intended as a criticism of the Cultural Revolution, may sum up the mood of many artists of his generation in the 1980s (plate 12). Plum blossoms, an ageold Chinese symbol of spiritual resilience, have been crushed by the tires of a jeep. An attack on heavy-handed cultural policies, especially on brutality directed against intellectuals, the work lends itself to broader interpretations. Might it not represent the destruction of all that was subtle, delicate, and traditional in Chinese art by the machine of modernity? Even in its style, the quiet work is filled with tension. Executed in the water-based shuizyin technique promoted by nationalists of the late 1950s, it adopts a modern, photographic point of view. Unfortunately, the second generation of artists in the People’s Republic has

adopted a legacy with precedents in the distant past. Wai-kam Ho characterized the imperial painting academy of the Song period in terms that may be recognized in the official ateliers established under Mao: “The inclination to dogmatism, the tendency towards institutionalization, the encouragement of over-specialization, and the temptation to be isolated and wrapped up in a theoretical cocoon of an intoxicated narcissism—these were some of the negative aspects of the Academy.”®7

The 1980s, the period in which the second generation came to power, was marked by bureaucratic continuity. During that decade, almost every major art academy except the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts appointed Soviet-trained artists to key administrative positions. As a result, graduates of the CAFA class of 1953 and their contemporaries may, at the tirhe of this writing, be found in important positions all over China. The Maksimov pupil Jin Shangyi, for example, is director of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. His classmate Ren Mengzhang is vice-director and chief administrator of the Shenyang Lu Xun Academy of Art. The Soviet-educated oil painters Xiao Feng and

404 THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY”

Guo Shaogang direct the Zhejiang and Guangzhou academies, respectively. A sculptor trained in the Soviet manner, Ye Yushan, heads the Sichuan academy. Furthermore, department chairmen at most academies have usually been, since the mid-1980s, CAFA-trained or products of their own institutions. While we would not venture to predict an individual art administrator’s behavior on the basis of his or her educational background, the new generation of administrators was trained by the art bureaucracy we have described, operates within its nets of personal relations, and, in most instances, accepts its norms. As for the Chinese Artists Association, the only national vice-chair young enough to have been educated after 1949 was Zhou Sicong, a CAFA-trained guohua painter. Director of the CAA secretariat (shujichu shuji) between the Anti—Spiritual Pollution campaign of 1982-1983 and the 1989 Tiananmen massacre was Ge Weimo, a 1953 CAFA graduate; editor-in-chief of Meishu in the same period was the Soviet-educated theorist Shao Dazhen, a professor at CAFA.

Branches of the CAA have retained unique local characteristics, but their personnel hail from the party bureaucracy or art academy system we have described. In many local branches, leaders have risen through the ranks with the help of a powerful bureaucratic patron. Li Huanmin in Sichuan is one such example; the influence of his revolutionary patriarch, Li Shaoyan, remains strong. In regions where the patriarch has died, as in Xi’an, Shi Lu’s iconoclastic fiefdom was overturned by an influx of art academy graduates, who took over the local branch. The Shanghai CAA branch was run by Shen Roujian, a woodcut artist of the New Fourth Army, throughout the 1980s. The Shanghai Chinese Painting Institute was, during this decade, directed by the guohua painter Cheng Shifa, who rose through the ranks of the local art bureaucracy, first in the publishing industry and later in the painting institute. A few members of the Red Guard generation emerged during the late 1980s in important administrative roles. Upon Cui Zifan’s retirement, the Beijing Institute of Painting somewhat surprisingly chose as his successor Liu Chunhua, who, you will recall, was trained at the Lu Xun academy’s middle school and CAAC. The Chinese art world, to reiterate, is dominated by the art academy system and its standards. We conclude our study with the year 1979, the thirtieth anniversary of the PRC, for reasons other than arithmetic orderliness. Deng Xiaoping’s opening to the West introduced factors that profoundly changed the Chinese art world in the 1980s. The precedent set by the Stars in 1979 for unofficial dissident art produced more artists who operate largely outside the official structures. Even more important has been China’s involvement with the international art market. Few artists today look to the party as their only patron; instead, many seek the attention of collectors in Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Paris, New

THE TRANSITION TO “ARTISTIC DEMOCRACY” 405

York, or Los Angeles. Even some official artists find national exhibitions uninteresting; their goal is to exhibit abroad. One Soviet-trained oil painter confessed in 1990 that he had recently turned down an important museum history painting commission. He recalled that things were different in the old days, when artists would paint for prestige alone, excited by the simple joy of using high-quality imported materials. Official galleries, vying with the international market, which can offer artists more than political platitudes, have difficulty collecting new work. The party bureaucracy has lost its role as the sole exter-

nal arbiter to which an artist might respond, and art is gradually becoming more diverse. Nevertheless, the Chinese art world remains different and separate from that of the West. Some of the unique characteristics it retains have to do with its ancient legacy, some are the result of China’s particular experiences in the twentieth century, and many simply reflect the bureaucratic habits established between 1949 and 1979.

Appendix 1 ¢ National Arts Administrators, 1949

All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles (FLAC), July 1949 CHAIRMAN: Guo Moruo VICE-CHAIRMEN: Mao Dun, Zhou Yang STANDING COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, Zhou Yang, Ding

Ling, Cao Yu, Sha Kefu, Zhao Shuli, Yuan Muzhi, Tian Han, Xia Yan, Xiao San, Ouyang Yugian, Yang Hansheng, Ke Zhongping, Zheng Zhenduo, Ma Sicong, Li Bojian, Hong Shen, Xu Beihong, Liu Zhiming, Zhang Zhixiang (in order of importance) ARTISTS AND ART CRITIC MEMBERS OF FLAC: A Ying, Al Qing, Cai Ruohong,

Gu Yuan, Jiang Feng, Lai Shaoqi, Li Hua, Li Qun, Liu Kaiqu, Ni Yide, Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong, Ye Qianyu, Zhang Geng (in alphabetical order) SUPPLEMENTAL MEMBERS: Hua Junwu, Wang Zhaowen, Yan Han, Ye Fu, Zhu Dan

All-China Art Workers Association (AWA), July 1949 CHAIRMAN: Xu Beihong VICE-CHAIRMEN: fiang Feng, Ye Qianyu STANDING COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Xu Beihong, Jiang Feng, Ye Qianyu, Cai

Ruohong, Liu Kaiqu, Wu Zuoren, Li Hua, Gu Yuan, Wang Zhaowen, Ni

Yide, Li Qun, Zhu Dan, Ye Fu (in order of importance) 407

408 APPENDIX I ADMINISTRATORS

DIRECTOR OF THE SECRETARIAT: Ye Qianyu

EDITING AND PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT: Cai Ruohong DEPARTMENT FOR DIRECTING MOVEMENTS: Wang Zhaowen EXHIBITIONS DEPARTMENT: Ye Fu

BENEFITS DEPARTMENT: Jiang Feng

NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Ai Qing, Cai Ruohong, Cai Yi, Cao Zhen-

feng, Chen Qiucao, Chen Shuliang, Chen Yanqiao, Ding Cong, Fu Luofei, Gu Yuan, Hu Mang, Hua Junwu, Jiang Feng, Lai Shaoqi, Lei Guiyuan, Li Hua, L1 Keran, Li Qun, Liang Sicheng, Liu Kaiqu, Ma Da, Mo Pu, Ni Yide, Pang Xunqin, Qi Baishi, Shi Lu, Te Wei, Wang Manshi, Wang Shikuo, Wang Zhaowen, Wu Zuoren, Xu Beihong, Yan Han, Ye Fu, Ye Qianyu, Yin Shoushi, Zhang

Ding, Zhang Yangxi, Zhao Wangyun, Zhu Dan, Zhu Minggang (in alphabetical order; excluding twelve members from as yet unliberated areas) SUPPLEMENTAL MEMBERS: Ai Yan, Hu Yichuan, Huang Binhong, Shi Qun, Wang Liugiu, Wang Zixiang, Xi Ye, Zhang Leping, Zhang Wenyuan, Zhu Jinlou (in alphabetical order)

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Source: Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dahui xuanquanchu (All-China Congress of Literary and Arts Workers Propaganda Department), Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dabui jinian wenji (Commemorative essays) (Beijing: Xinhua shudian, 1950), pp. §79—-580, 587—588.

Appendix 2 + National Art Administrators, 1960

Officers Elected by the Second Congress of the Chinese Artists Association (CAA), 1960 CHAIR: He Xiangning VICE-CHAIRMEN: Cai Ruohong, Liu Kaiqu, Ye Qianyu, Wu Zuoren, Pan Tianshou, Fu Baoshi

STANDING DIRECTORATE: Abudu Kelimu, Cai Ruohong, Feng Zikai, Fu Baoshi, Gu Yuan, Guan Shanyue, He Xiangning, Hua Junwu, Lei Guiyuan, Li Hua, Li Qun, Liu Kaiqu, Pan Tianshou, Shao Yu, Shen Roujian, Shi Lu, Wang Gey1, Wang Shikuo, Wang Zhaowen, Wu Zuoren, Ye Qianyu, Zhang Ding, Zhang Jinghu (in alphabetical order) FIRST SECRETARY OF THE SECRETARIAT (shujichu diyi shuji): Cai Ruohong

SECRETARIES: Chen Pei, Hua Junwu, Li Qun, Luo Gongliu, Shao Yu, Wang Zhaowen, Zhang Ding, Zhao Fengchuan (in alphabetical order) DIRECTOR OF THE SECRETARIAT (mishuzhang): Hua Junwu ASSOCIATE CHIEF SECRETARIES: Zhang Wuzhen, Zhang E

Directors of the CAA, 1960 Abudu Kelimu, Ai Zhongxin, Cai Ruohong, Cao Zhenfeng, Chang Shana (f), Chang Shuhong, Chen Baiyi, Chen Banding, Chen Long, Chen Pei, Chen Shuliang, Chen Yangiao, Chen Yin, Chen Zhifo, Cheng Qiucao, Deng Bai, Fang

410 Cheng, Feng Zikai, Fu Baoshi, Fu Luofei, Gu Bingxin, Gu Yuan, Guan Bu,

NATIONAL ART ADMINISTRATORS, 1960 4iI

Guan Shanyue, Guo Tongjiang, He Tianjian, He Xiangning (f), Hu Man, Hu Yichuan, Hua Junwu, Hua Tianyou, Huang Xinbo, Huang Yongyu, Jiang Zhaohe, Jin Meisheng, Ke Huang, Lai Shaogi, Lang Zhuohong, Lei Guiyuan, Li Hua, Li Keran, Li Qun, Li Shaoyan, Li Shuoging, Li Youfu, Li Zhiqing, Liang Sicheng, Lin Fengmian, Liu Kaiqu, Liu Mengtian, Liu Zhuan, Liu Zijiu, Long Tingba, Luo Gongliu, Ma Da, Ma Fengtang, Mi Gu, Na Di, Ni Yide, Niu Naiwen, Pan He, Pan Tianshou, Pan Yongbing, Peng Peimin, Sa Kongliao, Shao Yu, Shen Fu, Shen Fuwen, Shen Roujian, Shi Lu, Shi Qun, Song Enhou, Song Yinke, Su Guang, Te Wei, Wang Geyi, Wang Shikuo, Wang Shuhui (f), Wang Shuyi, Wang Songxian, Wang Zhaowen, Wu Fan, Wu Jingding, Wu

Shuyang, Wu Zuoren, Xi Ye, Xiao Chuanjiu, Xie Ruijie, Xie Touba, Ya Ming, Yan Han, Yang Shihui, Ye Qianyu, Yu Ben, Yu Feng (f), Yu Xining, Yuan Shaocen, Zeng Xingfei (f), Zhang Ding, Zhang E, Zhang Guangyu, Zhang Jinghu, Zhang Jitang, Zhang Leping, Zhang Qiren, Zhang Yangxi, Zhang Zhaoming, Zhang Zhengyu, Zhao Fengchuan, Zhao Yannian, Zhou Zhuanxian, Zhu Dan (in alphabetical order; f = female)

Chinese Text of Membership Lists CAA OFFICERS, 1960

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412 APPENDIX 2 CAA DIRECTORS (continued )

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Appendix 3 « National Art Administrators, 1979

Officers Elected by the Third Congress of the Chinese Artists Association, 1979 CHAIRMAN: Jiang Feng

VICE-CHAIRMEN: Cai Ruohong, Guan Shanyue, Hua Junwu, Huang Xinbo, Li Keran, Li Shaoyan, Liu Kaiqu, Wang Zhaowen, Wu Zuoren, Ye Qianyu STANDING DIRECTORS: Abudu Kelimu, Cai Ruohong, Chang Shuhong, Chen Pei, Gao Hong, Gu Yuan, Guan Shanyue, Hu Yichuan, Hua Junwu, Huang Xinbo, Huang Yongyu, Huang Zhou, Jiang Feng, Lai Shaoqi, Lei Guiyuan, Li Hua, Li Keran, Li Qun, Li Shaoyan, Lin Fengmian, Liu Kaiqu, Liu Xun, Lu Meng, Luo Gongliu, Mo Pu, Pang Xunqin, Qian Songyan, Qin Zheng, Shao Yu, Shen Fu, Shen Fuwen, Shen Roujian, Shi Lu, Wang Zhaowen, Wen Hao, Wu Guanzhong, Wu Zuoren, Xia Xiangping, Ya Ming, Yan Han, Yang Jiao, Ye Qianyu, Yu Feng (f), Zhang Ding, Zhang Leping, Zhou Sicong (f), Zhu Dan (in alphabetical order; f = female)

Directors of the CAA, 1979 (Exclusive of Standing Directors) Ai Zhongxin, Cai Zhenhua, Chang Shana (f), Chao Mei, Chen Baiyi, Chen Boxi, Chen Pei, Chen Qiucao, Chen Shuliang, Chen Tianran, Chen Yin, Chi Xing, Deng Bai, Ding Cong, Ding Jingwen, Dong Chensheng, Du Jian, Fang Cheng, Fang Jizhong, Fang Zengxian, Fang Zhinan, Fu Tianchou, Gu Bingxin, Guan Bu, Guan Fusheng, Guan Liang, Guan Wanli, Han Meilin, Hazi Aimaiti,

He Youzhi, Hou Yimin, Hu Xianya, Hua Tianyou, Hua Xia, Huang Mao, 413

414 APPENDIX 3 Huang Miaozi, Huang Pixing, Jiang Yousheng, Jiang Zhaohe, Jin Weinuo, Kang Zhuang, Li Binghong, Li Huaizhi, Li Huanmin, Li Kuchan, Li Shuoging, Li Xiongcai, Li Zisheng, Liao Bingxiong, Lin Yong, Liu Haisu, Liu Jiyou, Liu

Mengtian, Liu Wenxi, Lu Xueqin, Lu Yanshao, Mi Gu, Niu Naiwen, Niu Wen, Pan He, Pan Jieci, Qiang Ba, Qin Xuanfu, Sa Kongliao, Shi Qun, Shi Ximan, Shi Zhan, Song Wenzhi, Song Yansheng, Song Yinke, Su Guang, Sun Qifeng, Tang Daxi, Tang Xiaoming, Tang Yun, Te Wei, Tian Xingfu, Tu Ke,

Wang Dewei, Wang Geyi1, Wang Guan’an, Wang Liugiu, Wang Qi, Wang Qinghuai, Wang Shenglie, Wang Shuhui (f), Wang Shuyi, Wang Xuetao, Wang Xuyang, Wei Zixi, Wu Biduan, Wu Fan, Wu Lao, Xie Haiyan, Xie Ruijie, Xie Touba, Xie Zhiliu, Xu Xingzhi, Yan Wenliang, Yang Nawei, Yang Taiyang, Yang Zhiguang, Yin Shoushi, Ying Tao, Yu Ben, Yu Xining, Yuan Xicen, Zeng Xingfei (f), Zhan Jianjun, Zhang Deyu, Zhang E, Zhang Fagen, Zhang Songhe, Zhang Wang, Zhang Wenyuan, Zhang Yingxue, Zhao Yan-

nian, Zhao Zongcao, Zheng Ke, Zhou Changgu, Zhou Lingzhao, Zhou Shaohua, Zhu Minggang, Zhu Naizheng, Zhu Youtao, Zhuang Yan (in alphabetical order)

Chinese Text of Membership Lists CAA OFFICERS, 1979

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Source: MS 1979, no. 12, p. 6.

Appendix 4 « Oil Painters in the Soviet Manner

Participants in Konstantin M. Maksimov’s Oil Painting Study Class, 1955-1957 CAFA, BEIJING: Hou Yimin, Jin Shangyi, and Zhan Jianjun; Feng Fasi, Shang Husheng, and Zhang Wenxin (for part of the course) CAFA, HANGZHOU: Wang Chengyi, Wang Dewei, Wang Liuqiu (irregular student), and Yu Changgong LU XUN ACADEMY OF ARTS, SHENYANG: Ren Mengzhang

NANJING COLLEGE OF ARTS: Lu Guoying PEOPLE’S ART PRESS CREATION STUDIO, BEIJING: Wu Dezu

PLA: Gao Hong and He Kongde SHANGHAI: Yu Yunjie (special student) SICHUAN: Wei Chuanyi

TIANJIN: Qin Zheng WUHAN: Wang Xuzhu and Yuan Hao xV’AN: Zhan Beixin

Participants in Luo Gongliu’s History Painting Class, 1961-1963 Zhong Han (secretary), Dong Gang, Du Jian, Fu Zhigui, Ge Weimo, Gu Zhujun, Li Huaji, Li Renjie, Liang Yulong, Liu Qing, Ma Changli, Tuo Musi, Wei

416 Lianfu, Wen Lipeng, Wu Yongnian, Xiang Ergong, Xin Mang, Yun Qicang

OIL PAINTERS IN THE SOVIET MANNER 417

Artists Who Painted History Paintings (Partial List) 1961

Ai Zhongxin, Bao Jia, Dong Xiwen, Gao Chao, Hou Yimin, Jin Shangyi, Li Tianxiang, Lin Gang, Luo Gongliu, Wang Shikuo, Wu Zuoren, Yin Rongsheng, Zhan Jianjun, Zhang Fagen 1964-1965

Cai Liang, Deng Shu, Huang Lisheng, Jin Shangyi, Li Jun, Lin Gang, Ma Changli, Qin Dahu, Quan Shanshi, Tang Xiaohe, Wang Dewei, Wang Shikuo, Wen Lipeng, Xin Mang, Yan Wenxi, Yun Qicang, Zhan Jianjun

Notes

Introduction 1. Exceptions to this generalization exist, of course. The most prominent was probably Wu Guanzhong, who had studied in Paris between 1947 and 1950. After a thirty-year career in which his opinions were largely ignored, he emerged as an influential artist in the 1980s. See the catalogue of his solo exhibitions, Wu Guanzhong: A Contemporary Chinese Artist, ed. Lucy Lim (San Francisco: Chinese Culture Foundation, 1989); and Anne Farrer, Wu Guanzhong: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Painter (London: British Museum, 1992). 2. One study of Western art in China is Mayching Kao’s dissertation, “China’s Response to the West in Art, 1898-1937” (Stanford University, 1972). 3. Franz Schurmann described this phenomenon in Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), esp. pp. 109-110. 4. Introduction to Perry Link, ed., Roses and Thorns: The Second Blooming of the Hundred Flowers in Chinese Fiction, 1979-1980, pp. 1-41. Link’s “Introduction: On the Mechanics of the Control of Literature in China,” in Stubborn Weeds: Popular

and Controversial Chinese Literature After the Cultural Revolution, ed. Perry Link (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 1-30, is a superb introduction to this question. 5. | have seen issues of Renmin meishu from 1950. Meishu has been published from 1954 to the present, with a ten-year hiatus between 1966 and 1976. In the 1980s, CAA members also received an “internal circulation” publication, Meishujia tongxun (Artists’ circular), which printed particularly important articles as guides to official art policy.

1. Revolutionaries and Academics 1. For an account of these losses, see Frederic Wakeman, Jr., The Fall of Im-

perial China (New York: Free Press, 1975), pp. 131-224. 419

420 NOTES TO PAGES 11-13 2. Cai Yuanpei, one of Liu’s supporters, believed that Liu’s academy was the first; see his “Sanshiwu nian lai zhongguo zhi xinwenhua” (China’s New Culture over Thirty-five Years), reprinted from Zuijin sanshiwu nian zhi zhongguo jiaoyu (Chinese education over the past thirty-five years) (N.p.: Commercial Press, 1931), in Caz Yuanpei yuyan ji wenxue lunzhu (Cai Yuanpei’s writings on linguistics and literature), ed. Gao Pingshu (Shijiazhuang: Hebei People’s Art Press, 1985), p. 257. Kao, “China’s Response,” p. 63, and Michael Sullivan, The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), p. 174, write that Western art was taught as a department of the Jiangsu-Jiangxi Normal School in Nanjing as early as 1906. 3. Liu Haisu, “Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao ershiwu zhounian bianyan” (Preface for Shanghai Art Academy’s twenty-fifth anniversary), reprinted from Shishi

xinbao (Current affairs), Nov. 23, 1936, in Liu Haisu yishu wenxuan (Liu Haisu’s collected writings on art), ed. Zhu Jinlou and Yuan Zhihuang (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1987), p. 172. 4. In mainland China, the convenient but value-laden term “liberation” is used

to describe the Communist assumption of power in 1949. I have adopted the term in conformity with that usage. 5. Michael Sullivan has asked similar questions in his article “Art and Reality in

Twentieth-Century Chinese Painting,” in Twentieth-Century Chinese Painting, ed. Mayching M. Kao (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 1-20. 6. The struggle between modernism and tradition in Chinese art of the first half of the twentieth century, while beyond the scope of this book, had a strong influence on the post-1949 period. Excellent studies of the art of the Republican period include Ralph Croizier, Art and Revolution in Modern China: The Lingnan (Cantonese) School of Painting, 1906-1951 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988); Kao, “China’s Response”; Sullivan, Meeting of Eastern and Western Art, pp. 174-185; idem, Chinese Art in the Twentieth Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959); and Chu-tsing Li, Trends in Modern Chinese Painting (The C. A. Drenowatz Collection), Artibus Asiae Supplementum 36 (Ascona, Switz.: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 1979), pp. 11-55. 7. Cai Yuanpei, “Sanshiwu nian lai zhongguo zhi xinwenhua,” p. 261. 8. Croizier, Art and Revolution, p. 109. 9. Interview with A. ro. “Jiang Feng nianbiao” (A chronology of Jiang Feng) [hereafter JFNB], in Jiang Feng meishu lunji, ed. Hong Bo et al. (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1983) [hereafter

JFMSLJ], p. 315. Note that, while it is desirable to avoid cluttering the text with Chinese terms, romanized names are supplied for organizations that will be unfamiliar to most readers and for terms that have more than one possible translation. rz. JFNB, p. 315. Jiang Feng, writing in 1979, dates his meeting with expelled students to 1930; see “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe’” (Lu Xun and the Eighteen Art Society), reprinted from Meishu [hereafter MS], 1979, nos. 1 and 2, in JFMSLJ, p. 129 (also reprinted in Li Hua, Li Shusheng, and Ma Ke, eds., Zhongguo xinxing banhua yundong wushi nian [Fifty years of the new Chinese print movement] [Shenyang: Liaoning meishu chubanshe, 1981], pp. 187~—198). The same source, p. 128, refers to the Hangzhou academy as “Hangzhou guoli xihu yishu yuan.” Hu Yichuan recollects that expulsions for political reasons occurred in 1929 and again in 1932; see “Huiyi Lu Xun yu ‘yiba yishe’” (Recalling Lu Xun and the Eighteen Society), reprinted from Meishu xuebao (Guangzhou Institute of Arts), 1980, no. 1, in Yiba yishe jinian ji (Col-

NOTES TO PAGES 13-15 421 lection to commemorate the Eighteen Society), ed. Wu Bunai and Wang Guanquan (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 1981), pp. 23, 25 (also reprinted in Li, Li, and Ma [eds.], Zhongguo xinxing banhua yundong wushi nian, pp. 171-181). 12. The name of the society refers to the year of its founding, the eighteenth year of the republic, and, according to one interview source, to its original eighteen members.

13. Interview with B. The Eighteen Art Society was a leftist splinter of the school-sponsored group; see Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Lu Xun yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in Wu and Wang (eds.), Yiba yishe jinian ji, p. 21. 14. Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Lu Xun yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in Wu and Wang (eds.), Yiba yishe jinian ji, p. 23.

15. JFNB, p. 316; Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Lu Xun yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in Wu and Wang (eds.), Yiba yishe jinian ji, p. 23. 16. Interview with B. 17. The Chinese term in JFNB, p. 316, is wenzong, an abbreviation for Zhongguo zuoyi wenhua zong tongmeng. See Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSL]J, p. 130.

18. JFNB, p. 316; Lou Shiyi, “Songbie Jiang Feng” (Saying farewell to Jiang Feng), reprinted from Wenhuibao, Oct. 20, 1982, in JFMSL], pp. 342-343. 19. JFNB, p. 316; Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSLJ,

pp. 130-135. For the relationship between Feng and Lu Xun, see Merle Goldman, Literary Dissent in Communist China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. XI, 9-11. 20. Ding Ling, “Dao Jiang Feng” (Mourning Jiang Feng), reprinted from Renmin ribao (People’s daily) [hereafter RMRB], Dec. 27, 1982, in JFMSL], p. 364. 21. Lou Shiyi, “Songbie Jiang Feng,” p. 342. 22. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSL], pp. 131-134.

23. JFNB, p. 316. The prints, entitled Portrait and Labor, are reproduced in JFMSLJ, pls. 1-2. 24. Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Lu Xun yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in Wu and Wang (eds.), Yiba yishe jinian ji, p. 25. Also, interview with B; and “Hu Yichuan meishu huodong nianbiao” (Chronology of Hu Yichuan’s art activities), in Hu Yichuan youhua fengjingxuan (Selected landscapes in oils by Hu Yichuan) (Guangzhou: Lingnan meishu chubanshe, 1983).

25. JFNB, p. 317. 26. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” as corrected in Li, Li, and Ma (eds.), Zhongguo xinxing banhua yundong wushi nian, p. 194. Sun Lung-kee translates it as the Spring Field Painting Club; see “Out of the Wilderness: Chinese Intellectual Odysseys from the ‘May Fourth’ to the ‘Thirties’” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1985), p. 295. Jiang Feng’s original text (MS 1979, no. 2, p. 38) and the version reprinted in JFMSL], p. 135, refer to it as Chundi meishu yanjiu suo (Spring Earth Art Research Center), as well as by the shorter name.

27. According to an autobiographical sketch, Ai Qing enrolled at the National Hangzhou Art Academy for a term when he was eighteen; the academy’s director, Lin Fengmian, urged him to go abroad to study. See “‘Wulao’ yi Lin Fengmian xiansheng” (“Five elders” remember Lin Fengmian), Zhongguo meishubao, 1989, no. 48, p. I. 28. Translations of some poetry and theory by Ai Qing may be found in Hualing Nieh, ed., Literature of the Hundred Flowers, vol. 2: Poetry and Fiction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 57-75.

422 NOTES TO PAGES 15-19 29. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSLJ, p. 136; JFNB, pp. 317-318. According to Jiang Feng, Communist monetary contributions had been promised the club by the party organizer Tian Han, but when they failed to arrive Lu Xun began supporting the group. 30. One student turned out to be a spy. Others arrested were Yu Hai, Li Xiushi, Li Yang, and Huang Shanding. See Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSLI, p. 136. 31. Ibid., pp. 136-137. Jiang notes that Lu Xun’s diary for December 31, 1932, records receipt of a letter from “Jie Fu, Jia, et al.” Jie Fu and Jia were pseudonyms for Jiang Feng and Ai Qing, respectively. 32. Huang Shanding, “Yipian zhongcheng—chentong daonian laozhanyou Jiang Feng” (A life of loyalty—mourning my old comrade-in-arms Jiang Feng), in JFMSLJ, p. 401.

33. JFNB, pp. 318-320. 34. Goldman, Literary Dissent, pp. 9-17.

35. Ibid., pp. 11-14. ,

36. JFNB, p. 319. 37. Reproduced in JFMSL], shang, pls. 11-12. Such designs were popular in books of the 1930s. See Scott Minick and Jiao Ping, Chinese Graphic Design in the Twentieth Century (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990), pp. 54-65. 38. Reproduced in Lu Xun bianyin huaji jicun (Art albums edited and published by Lu Xun), vol. 3 (Shanghai: People’s Art Press, 1981), figs. 107, 105, 125.

40. JFNB, p. 320. /

39. These events are described in Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern

China (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), pp. 403-410.

41. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu Zhongguo de xinxing muke yundong” (Lu Xun and China’s revolutionary woodcut movement), reprinted from Orzyue [July], 1939, no. 2,1n JFMSLI, p. 1. 42. Goldman, Literary Dissent, pp. 15-16. 43. Yan Han, “Yi Taihangshan kangri genjudi de nianhua he muke huodong” (Recollections of the new year’s pictures and woodcut movement in the Taihangshan anti-Japanese base), reprinted from MS 1957, no. 3, in Li, Li, and Ma (eds.), Zhongguo xinxing banhua yundong wushi nian, pp. 308-309; and Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Luyi muke gongzuotuan zai dihou” (Recollections of the Lu Xun Academy’s woodcut work team behind enemy lines), in ibid., pp. 296—297. Yan’s article is summarized in Ellen Johnston Laing, The Winking Owl: Art in the People’s Republic of China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988), p. 14.

44. Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, Art Under a Dictatorship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), has described the ways in which religious iconography, such as that of Christmas, was similarly manipulated for political purposes by the Nazis and the Soviets.

45. Bo Songnian, Zhongguo nianhua shi (A history of Chinese new year’s pictures) (Shenyang: Liaoning Art Press, 1986), p. 177, dates the first such prints to the lunar new year (late winter) of 1939 and attributes them to Jiang Feng and Wo Zha. Yan Han, “Yi Taihangshan,” pp. 308-309, describes events leading up to the lunar new year of 1940.

Wo Zha (1905-1974; né Cheng Zhenxing) entered Shanghai New China Arts School (Shanghai xinhua yishu zhuanke xuexiao) in 192.6 but graduated from the Shang-

hai Art Academy (Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao) in 1935. He was a member of

NOTES TO PAGES 19—22 423 various left-wing groups, including the Eighteen Art Society, the Taokong huabui (Taokong Painting Club), and the Tiema banhuahui (Iron Horse Print Club). He went to Yan’an in October 1937 and served for a time as art department head at the Lu Xun Academy. See Zhongguo meishu cidian (Dictionary of Chinese fine arts) (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe, 1987), p. 234. Chen Tiegeng (1908-1969; also named Kebo and Yaotang) entered the National Hangzhou Arts Academy in 1927 but went to Shanghai in 1930 to work as a propagandist and printmaker. He participated in Lu Xun’s printmaking class and belonged to the Eighteen Art Society and the League of Left-Wing Artists. He went to Yan’an in 1938

and was charged with establishing a branch campus of the Lu Xun Academy in the Taihang Mountain Communist base area. See Zhongguo meishu cidian, p. 234. Luo Gongliu (b. 1916) enrolled in the Zhongshan University Middle School in

Guangzhou in 1931. He was admitted as a scholarship student to the National Hang| zhou Arts College in 1936 but went to Yan’an in 1938. See Yang Mingsheng, ed., Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan (Biographies of modern Chinese painters) (Zhengzhou: Henan Art Press, 1983), xia, pp. 592-600; and Zhongguo yishujia cidian, xiandai (Dic-

tionary of Chinese artists, modern) (Changsha: Hunan People’s Art Press, 1981), 2:520—-521.

Yan Han (b. 1916; né Liu Yanhan) entered the National Hangzhou Arts Academy in 1935. He joined the Communist party in Yan’an in 1938. See Zhongguo yishujia ctdian 1:508—510. 46. JEFNB, p. 320.

47. JENB, pp. 320-321. 48. Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Luyi muke gongzuotuan zai dihou,” pp. 296-297; Yan Han, “Yi Taihangshan,” pp. 308-309. 49. Unlike some other Yan’an artists, Jiang Feng apparently saved very few of his prints. The judgment that he made fewer prints after he became an administrator in Yan’an is based on prints collected in JFMSLJ. Prints not included in that collection have been brought to my attention by Jiang Wen, his son, and it is possible that searches of preliberation newspapers and other publications might lead to another view

of his Yan’an activity. ,

50. For a translation and discussion of Mao’s text, see Bonnie $. McDougall, Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art’: A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary, Michigan Papers in Chinese Studies, no. 39 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, 1980). 51. Gu Yuan, “Bumie de huoyan—mianhuai Jiang Feng tongzhi” (An unextinguishable flame—cherish the memory of Comrade Jiang Feng), reprinted from RMRB, Oct. 25, 1982, in JFMSL], shang, p. 349; and Luo Gongliu, “Renmin yishu jiaoyu jia Jiang Feng tongzhi yongsheng” (May the people’s art educator Comrade Jiang Feng live forever), reprinted from Gongren ribao, Oct. 8, 1982, in ibid., p. 340. 52. Kang Sheng is reputed to have been particularly ruthless in attacking former convicts (conversations with Joseph Esherick and Xin Han). 53. Yan Han, “Jiang Feng tongzhi de banxue chengjiu” (Jiang Feng’s achievements in educational administration), reprinted from Meishu yanjiu, 1983, no. 1, in JFMSL], shang, p. 375.

54. JFNB, p. 321. ,

55. Interviews with C and D. See Spence, Search for Modern China, pp. 484498, for background on this stage of the civil war. Over one hundred thousand soldiers from the Eighth Route Army made the arduous journey. _

424 NOTES TO PAGES 22-28 56. Li Song, ed., Xu Bethong nianpu, 1895-1953 (A chronology of Xu Beihong) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1985), p. 105; interview with BL. Zhang Xiaofei directed the new academy’s art section. 57. Jiang Feng, “Huihua shang liyong jiu xingshi wenti” (The problem of using old forms in painting), reprinted from Jin-Cha-Ji ribao (Jin-Cha-Ji daily), Feb. 6, 1946, in J/FMSLJ, pp. 8-11. 58. Goldman, Literary Dissent, p. 15.

59. Ibid., pp. 15-16. 60. A slightly atypical picture of the yuefenpai type is reproduced in Minick and Jiao, Chinese Graphic Design, p. 84. 61. Interview with D. 62. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi” (Record of the thirty-five years since establishment of the Central Academy of Fine Arts), Meishu yanjiu (Art research), 1985, no. 1, p. 4. Additional information is taken from an anonymous mimeographed manuscript, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi” (A brief history of the Central Academy of Fine Arts), reportedly compiled by the art historian Li Shusheng under the direction of school authorities. 63. JFNB, p. 322. 64. Hong Bo, “Huainian geming meishu shiye de kaituozhe Jiang Feng tongzhi” (Remembering a pioneer of revolutionary art, Comrade Jiang Feng), in JFMSLJ, p. 428. 65. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 5. Other works considered important at the time included Feng Zhen’s anti-American gouache painting Children’s Game of 1948; reproduced in Bo Songnian, Zhongguo nianhua shi, p. 20. 66. In 1952, the Suzhou Art Academy, Shanghai Art Academy, and the Shandong University art department were combined into a new institution called the East China Arts Academy (see chapter 2). Based in Wuxi, the new school was directed by Liu Haisu. Yan Wenliang was transferred to the East China branch of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, where he served as a vice-director. See Qian Bocheng, “Yan Wenliang xiansheng nianpu {Chronology of Yan Wenliang],” in Yan Wenliang, ed. Lin Wenxia (Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 1982), pp. 179-180. 67. This summary is based on William J. Duiker, Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei: Educator of Modern China (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), pp. 44-523 and Xiao Feng, “Guanghui de yeji shanlan de weilai—wei xiaoqing liushi zhounian erzuo” (Brilliant achievements, a glittering future—written for the school’s sixtieth anniversary), Xinmeishu, vol. 31 [sic], 1988, no. 1, pp. 4-5. Duiker refers to Cai’s article of February 1912, “Duiyu jiaoyu fangzhen zhi yijian” (My views on the aims of education), in Jiaoyu zazhi, as his source on the five-part curriculum. One of many reprinted versions of this article may be found in Cai Yuanpei meixue wenxuan (Selected texts by Cai Yuanpei on aesthetics), ed. Wenyi meixue congshu Editorial Committee (Beijing: Beijing University, 1983), pp. I-7, where the source is given as Lingshi zhengfu gongbao (Occasional government papers), no. 13 (Feb. 11, 1912). Duiker notes that when the program was adopted by the government, aesthetic education was retained but the internationalist world-outlook education omitted, which presumably left only four parts to the curriculum. Xiao Feng, whose documentation is incomplete, discusses Cai’s proposal as consisting of only four parts—moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic—and cites an unidentified article in Xin gingnian (New youth), 1917, as his source,

The most thorough studies of pre-1937 Chinese art education are those by Mayching Kao, including “China’s Response” and “The Beginning of the Western-Style Painting Movement in Relationship to Reforms in Education in Early Twentieth-

NOTES TO PAGES 28-31 425 Century China,” New Asia Academic Bulletin (Xinya xueshu jikan, University of Hong Kong) 4 (1983): 373—397. Basing her discussion on Cai’s “Duiyu jiaoyu fangzhen de yijian,” she, like Duiker, discusses Cai’s educational aims as being fivefold. 68. “Yi meiyu dai zongjiao” (The theory of replacing religion by aesthetic education), a speech Cai gave to the Shenzhou Scholarly Society in Beijing, April 8, 1917, reprinted in Cai Yuanpei xtansheng yiwen leichao (An anthology of essays by Cai Yuanpei) (Taibei: Fuxing shuju, 1961), pp. 229-233; and in Cai Yuanpei metyu lunji (Cai Yuanpei’s collected essays on aesthetic education) (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1987), pp. 43-47. The latter cites Xin gingnian, vol. 3, no. 6 (Aug. 1917), as its source. 69. Xiao, “Guanghui de yeji shanlan de weilai,” p. 5. 70. Kao, “China’s Response,” p. 118. 71. Kao (ibid.) states that Lin concluded his tenure in 1939. Wang Gong, Zhao Xi, and Zhao Youci, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu” (A short history of the Central Academy of Fine Arts), Meishu yanjiu, 1988, no. 4, p. 96, are not specific as to the date; they attribute his demotion to the 1938 decision by the Nationalist Ministry of Education to abolish the post of director when the exiled Hangzhou and Beiping academies were merged. 72. Ellen J. Laing credits Lin Fengmian with a “staunch refusal to bend to the art demands [of the Communist government, which] branded him as a maverick and left

him after 1952 without official support,” in “Zhongguo de yuegui yishu yu fandui yishu” (“Deviant” and “dissident” art in the People’s Republic of China), Jiuzhou yuekan (Chinese culture quarterly) 2, no. 2 (Jan. 1988): 142; p. 6 in unpublished English version.

73. Kao mentioned biographical details about Xu; see “China’s Response,” pp. 81, 102-104, 155-156. Chinese-language literature on Xu Beihong is voluminous. Much of that available before 1975 was examined by Chu-tsing Li, Trends, pp. 91-98, in his evaluation of the artist. Among the more recent publications are Li Song (ed.), Xu Beibong nianpu; Ai Zhongxin, Xu Beihong yanjiu (Research on Xu Beihong) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1984); a biography by his wife, Liao Jingwen, Xu Beihong yisheng (Beijing: China Youth Press, 1982) (also published in English translation as Xu Beihong: Life of a Master Painter {[Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1987]); an exhibition catalogue, Xu Beihong de yishu (The art of Xu Beihong) (Hong Kong: Urban Council, 1988); and Wang Zhen, Xu Beihong yanjiu (Research on Xu Beihong) (Nanjing: Jiangsu Art Press, 1991). 74. Chu-tsing Li, Trends, p. 98. 75. Li Keran, who was close to both Lin Fengmian and Xu Beihong, characterized the latter as the art world’s Bo Le, in reference to an ancient story about a man who could recognize a horse’s potential even when it was not obvious to ordinary observers. See “‘Wulao’ yi Lin Fengmian xiansheng,” p. 1. 76. Liao, Xu Beihong (1982), p. 95/(1987), p. 86; Kao, “China’s Response,” p. 134. 77. Liao, Xu Beibong (1982), pp. 81-82/(1987), pp. 74-76.

78. Michael Sullivan notes, “This curious work was much admired by Mao Zedong” (Meeting of Eastern and Western Art, p. 176). 79. Tian is mentioned in a letter by Xu Beihong recorded in Li Song (ed.), Xu Beihong nianpu, p. 71. 80. Liao, Xu Bethong (1982), p. 328/(1987), p. 281. The letters were addressed

to his student Wu Zuoren, whom he invited to serve as dean, and the underground communist oil painter Feng Fasi, whom he invited to serve as oil painting professor. 81. Jiang’s moving pacifistic statement was, according to several slightly younger

42.6 NOTES TO PAGES 31-35 colleagues, commissioned by a Japanese administrator as a piece of antiresistance propaganda. According to this account, a now-lost section of the picture included American bombers as one source of the terror. This alleged collaboration marred his reputation in the early years after the war, but has been ignored by his recent biographers. The painting, whatever its inception, describes the suffering of the Chinese people in a war they did not initiate. 82. Other new faculty members were Li Hua, Ye Qianyu, Li Ruinian, Ai Zhong-

xin, Li Keran, Li Kuchan, Li Hu, Zhou Lingzhao, Dong Xiwen, Wang Linyi, Hua Tianyou, Dai Ze, Wei Qimei, and Liang Yulong. Qi Baishi and Huang Binhong held largely honorary appointments. See Liao, Xu Beibong (1982), pp. 328—329/(1987), p. 283.

83. Liao describes the affair as an “anti-Xu Beihong scheme” provoked by his | progressive political activities; ibid. (1982), pp. 334—-337/(1987), pp. 287-289. 84. Liao recalls that Tian Han visited Xu in 1948 to tell him that Mao and Zhou hoped he would not leave Beijing but would work for the party; ibid. (1982), p. 357/ (1987), p. 306.

85. Interview with E. :

86. Li Song (ed.), Xu Beihong nianpu, p. 107. According to a chart of the new government published in RMRB, Sept. 30, 1949, p. 2, the Government Administration Council was one of four high-level bureaucratic structures. Most important for our purposes, it was the one that administered art and education. 87. Liao, Xu Beihong (1982), p. 380/(1987), pp. 324-325. Ai Zhongxin records a meeting between Xu Beihong and Zhou Enlai in 1946; see “Xu Beihong de xueyuan jiaoyang he youhua yishu” (Xu Beihong’s academic training and the art of oil painting), in Zhongguo youhua (Chinese oil painting), ser. no. 46 (1992, no. I): 3.

2. The Reform of Chinese Art 1. Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 508.

2. The following information is from Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” pp. 98—99, unless otherwise noted. 3. Ibid.; Liao, Xu Beibong (1987), pp. 324-325.

4. For the text of Mao’s note to Xu, dated November 29, 1949, see Li Song (ed.), Xu Beihong nianpu, p. 106; and the Red Guard broadside Meishu fenglei (Art storm), no. 3 (Aug. 1967), reproduced in Red Guard Publications (Hongweibing ziliao) (Washington, D.C.: Center for Chinese Research Materials, Association of Research Libraries, n.d.), 15:4862. Mao’s calligraphy is reproduced in Meishu fenglei and in “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi,” p. 5. Mao’s calligraphy remains part of the school’s logo today. 5. The school adopted an official English name, Central Institute of Fine Arts, in the early 1980s, but most English writers still refer to it as the Central Academy of

Fine Arts. Although perfect consistency is impossible, J] prefer to use the term “academy” to refer to teaching institutions and the term “institute” to refer to organizations that focus primarily on research or creative activity.

6. Guo Moruo, Zhou Yang, Shen Yanbing, Qian Junrui, Tian Han, and Ouyang Yuqian were speakers; see “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi,” p. 4.

NOTES TO PAGES 35-41 427 7. Ibid. and interview with D, who recalls that Mao greeted every group whose banner was legible.

8. JFNB, p. 322; Liushinian wenyi dashiji, 1919-1979 (Sixty-year record of major events in literature and art), ed. Disici wendaihui choubeizhu qicaozu (Drafting Group of the Preparation Group for the Fourth Congress of Literary and Art Workers) (Beijing: Wenhuabu wenxue yishu yanjiuyuan lilun zhengce yanjiushi [Theory and Policy Research Center of the Ministry of Culture’s Literature and Art Research Institute], October 1979) [hereafter Liushinian], p. 123. Yang Mingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, shang, p. 218, xid, p. 611. 9. Liushinian, p. 123. 10. JENB, p. 322. 11. Zhou Enlai xuanji (Selected works of Zhou Enlai), vol. 1 (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1980), pp. 351-357.

12. Jiang Feng, “Jiefangqu de meishu gongzuo” (Art work in the liberated zones), reprinted from Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dahui jinian wenji (Collected texts in commemoration of the All-China Congress of Literary and Art Workers), 1950, in JFMSLJ, pp. 16-22. 13. Other artists mentioned were Zhu Dan, Li Qun, Sha Fei, Yin Shoushi, Shi Zhan, and Chen Shuliang. 14. Liushinian, p. 124. 15. This information was reported by Cai Ruohong at a meeting in his honor in the spring of 1990 and was recited to me by several witnesses soon after. The existence of such documents has been independently confirmed by senior arts administrators who did not attend the meeting at which Cai spoke.

16. Meishu zuopin xuanji (Selected artworks), ed. Zhonghua quanguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe daibiao dahui xuanchuanchu (Propaganda Department of the Chinese National Literary and Arts Workers Congress) (Beijing, 1949). 17. Li Song, “Zhongguohua fazhan de daolu” (The Road of Chinese Painting’s Development), MS 1984, no. I0, p. 8. 18. Introduction to Meishu zuopin xuanji, n.p. 19. Dong Xiwen’s design and other handbills, including designs by Li Hua, are in the collection of Hou Yimin, one of the student organizers. 20. Yan Han’s published recollections would establish the priority of the traveling woodcut teams’ production of new nianhua over that of artists working at Yan’an, including Jiang Feng. Bo Songnian believes that the two groups made new mianhua at

about the same time, in 1939; see Zhongguo nianhua shi, pp. 177-178. In any case, Jiang Feng’s administrative efforts at Yan’an were important. See Yan Han, “Yi Taihangshan”; Hu Yichuan, “Huiyi Luyi muke gongzuo tuan zai dihou”; and Yan Han, “Jiang Feng tongzhi de banxue chengjiu,” p. 375. 21. Ding Ling, “Dao Jiang Feng,” p. 365. 22. JENB, p. 323. 23. Interviews with BA and F. 24. See Jiang Feng’s “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in JFMSLJ, pp. 134135, for a tale of Tian Han’s hypocrisy and stinginess. 25. Jiang Feng, “Huthua shang liyong jiu xingshi wenti,” p. ro. 26. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 99. Hu Yichuan was discussed earlier for his activities as a radical:student in Hangzhou and Shanghai and for his leadership of woodcut activities behind the Communist lines after 1938. The Hangzhou-trained Luo Gongliu had worked on Hu Yichuan’s woodcut team

428 NOTES TO PAGES 41-43 during the anti-Japanese war; after the Japanese surrender he worked as a propagandist with Jiang Feng and others in Hebei. The sculptor Wang Zhaowen had, like most of the others, worked with Jiang Feng in Yan’an and Hebei. As we have already mentioned,

Zhang Ding, a woodcut artist who had made the long trek by foot from Yan’an to Manchuria in 1945, moved to Beijing to edit propaganda publications after liberation. 27. Zhu Jinlou, “Zai Huadong wenhuabu zhuban benyuan xinnianhua guanchahui shang de baogao” (Report presented at the viewing of our college’s new nianhua sponsored by the East China Department of Culture), Meishu zuotan, no. 1 (Nov. 18, 1950): 5. 1am grateful to the late Professor Zhu for providing me with this material. 28. Arnold Chang, in his Painting in the People’s Republic of China: The Politics of Style (Boulder: Westview Press, 1980), discussed the opposing principles of popularization and raising of standards as ideological foundations for Chinese painting. See especially his conclusion, pp. 73-76. 29. Mo Pu,“‘Huazhong Luyi’ meishuxi de huiyi” (Recalling the art department of the Central China Lu Xun Academy), in Xinsijun meishu gongzuo huiyilu (Recollections of New Fourth Army art work), ed. Yang Han (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1982), p. 15. Mo Pu and his colleagues established the Central China branch of the Lu Xun Academy in late 1940 under orders from Chen Yi and Liu Shaogqi, but the institution was short-lived because of an unfavorable military situation. 30. Mo Pu, “Yi Sha Jitong (Chen Zhengxi) tongzhi—yige guozao bei cuizhe de qingnian huajia” (Remembering Comrade Sha Jitong [Chen Zhengxi]—a prematurely broken young artist), MS 1983, no. 2, pp. 22-23; and “Nanyi mibu de shunshi—dao Jiang Feng” (An irreplaceable loss—mourning Jiang Feng), reprinted from Wenyibao, 1982, no. 11, in JFMSL], p. 334. 31. Conversations with G, 1981 and 1982, and personal observation. The issue may be more complex than this description suggests. Yuan was considered a member of Jiang Feng’s group in the highly factionalized art world of the early 1980s. He, like Jiang Feng, had been condemned as a rightist in 1957 and 1958. His return from Manchuria to the capital was made possible by a mural commission, but he was subsequently attacked because his mural depicted a few female figures in the nude. Some of these events will be described in chapter 7. See also Joan Lebold Cohen, The New Chinese

Painting, 1949-1986 (New York: Abrams, 1987), pp. 39-41, for discussion of the controversy. It was believed by Yuan and by others in Jiang Feng’s group at the time that the attack was factionally motivated and that Yuan was being used as a surrogate for an attack on Jiang Feng. That Jiang Feng criticized him just as his mural was being

partially covered with plasterboard was an extreme demonstration that as a public figure Jiang Feng’s artistic principles came before factional attachments or personal feelings. He compensated for his public rigidity with flexibility and even kindness on the personal level.

32. Xingxing is a politically laden term that is difficult to translate. It is sometimes translated literally as “Star Star.” The duplicative acts as a diminutive, and thus means little stars, distant stars, or even tiny points of light. The name of the group thus contrasts its amateur artists with famous professional artists. More important for this generation would be its immediately recognizable reference to the title of a 1930 article written by Mao Zedong, “Xingxing zhihuo, keyi liaoyuan” (A tiny spark can set the steppes ablaze), reprinted in Mao Zedong xuanji (The collected works of Mao Zedong), vol. x (Beijing: n.p., 1952), pp. ro1—r111. This phrase was frequently cited during the Cultural Revolution, and many Red Guard groups took the name Prairie Fire (an alternative translation of “steppes ablaze”) in reference to it.

NOTES TO PAGES 43-47 429 33. These events will be discussed further in chapter 7. Wang Keping’s sculpture Idol, which satirized Mao and the Cultural Revolution, was hidden from Jiang Feng at the preview of their next show, in 1980. Not surprisingly, Jiang Feng was angry when he found out. Interview with VV. Also see Cohen, New Chinese Painting, pp. 59-63. The context of the event is, again, complex. The exhibition emerged from the Democracy Wall Movement, which was supported by Hu Yaobang and, briefly, by Deng Xiaoping as a means to overthrow the Maoist faction. See Ruan Ming, “Why It Happened,” in Liu Binyan, Ruan Ming, and Xu Gang, “Tell the World”: What Happened in China and Why (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), pp. 78-85. Jiang Feng was victimized by Mao, as we shall see, so he was undoubtedly on the pro-Deng side of the struggle. 34. Huang Shanding, in JFMSL], p. 400.

35. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu ‘yiba yishe,’” in Li, Li, and Ma (eds.), Zhongguo xinxing banhua yundong wushi nian, pp. 188—189; and in JFMSL], p. 130. 36. Kao, “Beginning,” pp. 392-383. 37. Interview with H. 38. Now in the Chinese National Art Gallery collection, it is reproduced in Tao Yongbai, ed., Zhongguo youhua, 1700-1985 (Oil painting in China) (Nanjing: Jiangsu Art Press, 1988), no. 47. 39. Mo Pu, “Nanyi mibu,” in JFMSLJ, p. 334. 40. Interview with L.

4i. Pang Xunqin, “Ta dailaile Yan’an zuofeng” (He brought with him the Yan’an work style), reprinted from Meishujia tongxun (Artists’ circular), 1982, no. 4, in JFMSL], pp. 373-37442. Jiang Feng, “Guoli Hangzhou yizhuan tongxue chuangzuoshang de wenti” (Creation problems of students at National Hangzhou Art Academy), reprinted from Renmin meishu (People’s art) [hereafter RMMS], no. 5 (Oct. 1950), in JFMSL]J, pp. 23-— 2.8,

43. Interviews with H and |; and Yishu yaolan—Zhejiang meishu xueyuan liushinian (The cradle of art—sixty years at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts) (Hang-

zhou: Zhejiang meishu xueyuan, 1988), p. 25. Ni Yide was a Japanese-trained oil painter who had worked in avant-garde styles in the 1930s. By 1949, however, he had subjected himself to Communist party discipline. He later worked as a critic and editor. Liu Wei, a female administrator, does not appear in standard biographies of artists, although she is listed as a faculty member of the academy and served in important party posts in the 1950s. See Yishu yaolan, pp. 302, 28.

44. Yishu yaolan, p. 28. : 45. Xiao Feng, “Guanghui de yeji shanlan de weilai,” p. 5.

46. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 99. 47. Interview with I.

48. Lin Fengmian rarely dated his work. The example reproduced here was probably painted after 1949, but an earlier work may be found in Zaoqi lufa huajia huiguzhan zhuanji, Zbongguo-Bali (China-Paris: seven Chinese painters who studied in France, 1918—196c) (Taibei: Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 1988), p. 80, fig. 15. 49. Qiu Sha, “Shenchen de dahai—ji Lin Fengmian xiansheng” (A deep, dark sea—records on Lin Fengmian), Xim meishu, ser. no. 31 (1988, no. 1): 53. 50. Stylistic characterizations come from interviews with former students. Other

teachers were Ni Yide, Li Chaoshi, and Lu Xiaguang. See Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 96.

430 NOTES TO PAGES 47-52 si. Interview with I. 52. Xiao Feng, “Guanghui de yeji shanlan de weilai,” p. 5. 53. Interview with I.

54. Ibid. 55. The date of his application to leave is unclear. His French wife left China in 1956. Zhou Enlai, whom he met in Europe, and Ai Qing, who studied with him before going to France, are said to have assisted him after he left the academy. Interviews with

land J. 56. Interview with K. 57- Qtu Sha, “Shenchen de dahai,” p. 54. 58. Some of Lu Xun’s writings on the subject of lianhuanhua are collected in Lu Xun lun lianbuanhua (Lu Xun on serial pictures), ed. Jiang Weipu (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1956; 2d ed. 1982). 59. Jiang’s many articles about Western art are collected in JFMSLJ, xia. 60. Zhou Enlai, “Political Report to the National Congress of Workers in Literature and Art” (July 6, 1949), in Selected Works of Zhou Enlai, vol. 1 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1981), p. 392. 61. Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifan dang dui minzu chuantong de zhengce” (Jiang Feng violated the party’s policy toward the national tradition), MS 1957, no. 9, p. I9. Jiang’s opinion was allegedly pronounced in the 1949 art delegates’ meeting, and reportedly disheartened guohua painters. It does not appear in the published text of his 1949 speech. 62. Kao, “China’s Response,” pp. 21-22. 63. Beijing watyu xueyuan yingyuxi (English Department of the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute), ed., Hanying cidian (Chinese-English dictionary) (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1979), p. 257. 64. Kao, “Beginning,” p. 373. 65. See chapter 3 for Ai Qing’s derogatory use of the term. For a discussion of the National Essence Movement, see Laurence A. Schneider, “National Essence and the New Intelligentsia,” in The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China, ed. Charlotte Furth (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), pp. 57-89. 66. In 1957, Zhou Enlai proposed that the Beijing Guohua Institute be renamed the Beijing Chinese Painting (Zhongguohua) Institute, which was done. 67. The Nanjing guohua painter Xu Lei exhibited one such work in the February 1989 “China/Avant-garde Exhibition”; he mounted ink rubbings of a section of the street as a set of hanging scrolls. 68. Zhu Jinlou, “Guanyu zhongyang meishu xueyuan huadong fenyuan de jiao-

xue zhongzhong” (Various things on the teaching at the East China campus of the Central Academy of Fine Arts), a speech given on April 27, 1951, at the East China Department of Culture, Meishu zuotan, no. 4 (June 1951): 2.

69. Pan Tianshou, “Sheishuo zhongguohua biran taotai” (Who says Chinese painting must die out?), Meishu yanjiu, 1957, no. 4, p. 22. 70. Oral report by Huang Binhong, prepared for publication by Wang Bomin, “Gudai renwuhua de goule fangfa” (The outline methods of ancient figure paintings), Meishu zuotan, no. 8 (Feb. 15, 1953): 9-10. 71. The painting department was divided into specialties devoted to color-andink painting, oil painting, and printmaking in 1954, but the formal split into three departments came only the following year. See Yishu yaolan, pp. 28, 295. The former director of the color-and-ink painting department has confirmed the date of the division

NOTES TO PAGES §2-58 431 as 19§4; an account published in 1957, which dates the split to 1952, appears to be in error. See Deng Ye, “Jiang Feng fandang jituan zai huadong meishu fenyuan ganle xie shenme” (What the Jiang Feng antiparty clique did at the East China branch campus), MS 1957, no. 9, pp. 16—18. I accepted Deng Ye’s erroneous version in my article “Traditional Painting in New China,” Journal of Asian Studies 49, no. 3 (Aug. 1990): 569. 72. Between 1935 and 1937, Zhu edited a left-wing magazine, for which he produced striking cover designs. See Minick and Jiao, Chinese Graphic Design, pp. 80-81, 157.

73. Interview with Y. 74. Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifan,” p. 19. 75. Jiang Feng, “Jianjue jinxing sixiang gaizao, chedi suqing meishu jiaoyu zhong de zichanjieji yingxiang—dui zhongyang meishu xueyuan cunzai de wenti de yige lijie” (Resolutely carry out thought reform, thoroughly eliminate bourgeois influence in art education—one understanding of problems remaining at the Central Academy of Fine Arts), reprinted from Wenyibao, 1952, no. 2, in JFMSLJ, p. 46. 76. Interview with U. 77. Information about the plan is from interviews with H and J. 78. Kao, “China’s Response,” p. 72. Kao’s translation is from Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao ershiwu zhounian jinian yilan (Survey of the Shanghai Art Academy in commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary) (Shanghai, 1936). 79. Chu-tsing Li, Trends, p. 3. 80. Ibid., p. 33. 81. Liu Haisu, “Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao ershiwu zhounian bianyan,” pp. 172-173. 82. Yan Wenliang, p. 179. 83. It is possible that some administrators intended it to be permanent. Spence (Search for Modern China, p. 518) describes the hostility of Rao Shushi, head of the Shanghai Municipal Committee, to the softness of Shanghai’s urban population. Rao

suggested dispersal of the population to China’s interior, along with a transfer of schools and factories. Lii Meng, one of the top Communist arts administrators in Shanghai at the time, considers the transfer, in which he participated, a mistake. 84. Yan Wenliang, p. 180. 85. Yishu yaolan, p. 28. 86. Among them may be counted Mo Pu, Jin Ye, Deng Ye, and others. According to Yishu yaolan, pp. 25-26, forty-seven of the academy’s original faculty were retained. As in Beijing, Zhou Enlai is credited with particular concern for the staffing of

the academy. It 1s possible that the appointment of two French-trained artists, Liu Kaiqu and Pang Xundqin, to high positions was a result of his attention. Twenty-five new faculty members, most of whom came from the liberated zones, were added after the military takeover of the academy. 87. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 98. 88. Interview with M. 89. According to Chu-tsing Li (Trends, p. 98), Xu Beihong was largely incapacitated by a stroke in this year. 90. Interview with BA.

gi. Interview with N. 92. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi,” p. 4.

93. Others, whose works we are unable to reproduce, include Gu Qun and Feng Zhen.

94. Interviews with O and P.

432 NOTES TO PAGES 58-67 95. Hong Bo, “Huainian geming meishu shiye de kaituozhe,” pp. 432-433. 96. The list is mentioned in RMRB, Sept. 5, 1952, p. 3. 97. Zhu Jinlou, “Zai Huadong wenhuabu,” p. 5; and idem, “Guanyu nianhua chuangzuoshang de ‘danxian pingtu’ wenti” (On the problem of “single outline and flat color” in new year’s picture creation), Meishu zuotan, no. 3 (Feb. 28, 1951): 8. 98. Zhu Jinlou, “Guanyu nianhua,” p. 8. 99. Huang Binhong’s study of outline techniques in classical figure painting was clearly a response to such impulses. 100. The carefully modeled visages painted by the late-Ming portraitist Zeng Jing come immediately to mind. See Cahill, The Compelling Image: Nature and Style in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Painting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 119. ror. Interview with Q. 102. RMRB, Sept. 5, 1952, p. 3. 103. German Nedoshivin (Heiermen Niduxuewen), “Xianshi zhuyi shi jinbu yishu de chuangzuo fangfa” (Realism is the creative method of the progressive artist) (translated from the Russian), RMMS, no. 4 (Aug. 1950): 11-13. 104. Meishu zuotan, no. 2 (Dec. 1950): 9-10.

: 105. Meishu zuotan, no. 3 (Feb. 1951): 1-7.

106. Interviews with M and O. The name given here, Zhongyang geming bowuguan, appears in a 1958 exhibition catalogue, Shehui zhuyi guojia zaoxing yishu zhanlanhui: zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhanpin mulu (Exhibition of Plastic Arts from Socialist Countries: list of exhibited works from the People’s Republic of China) (n.p., 1958), no. 88. It is possible that it was called by a different name in earlier years. The museum was a forerunner of the current Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History, which was officially opened in 1961 in a building built in 1959. Some paintings from the 1951-1952 group have been on display at the current museum, though many were created specifically for the new building in 1959. 107. See China Reconstructs, no. 5 (Sept.—Oct. 1952): frontispiece, for a standard oil portrait of Mao Zedong. CAFA graduates report painting large portraits, similar to the one at Tiananmen. 108. Ni Yide, “Tantan hua lingxiuxiang” (A chat on painting portraits of leaders), Meishu zuotan, no. t (Nov. 18, 1950): 3. 109. See, for example, “Huihuaxi jiaoxue dagang—Sulian gaodeng meishu xuexiao jiaoxue dagang” (Painting department curriculum—Soviet high-level art schools curriculum), Meishu zuotan, no. 7 (Oct. 15, 1952): 13~-18; and “Yinian de zongjie— ping yijiuwuyi nian quansu meishu zhanlan hui” (A year’s conclusion—critiques of the All-Soviet Art Exhibition), ibid., pp. 19-23. 110. Interview with M. 111. Liushinian, p. 140. 112. Jian An, “Yiu wuling nian nianhua gongzuo de jixiang tongji” (Some statistics about 1950 mianhua work), RMMS, vol. 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1, 1950): §2. 113. Zhu Jinlou, “Shanghai xinnianhuazhan yu qunzhong yijian” (The Shanghai New Nianhua Exhibition and the opinions of the masses), RMMS, vol. 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1, 1950): 39.

114. Selected illustrations of the republican period are reproduced in Bai Chunxi, Liang Zhi, and Jin Guang, “Zhongguo lianhuanhua fazhan tushi, xu” (Illustrated history of the development of Chinese serial pictures, cont.), in Lianhuanhua yishu, ser. no. 12 (1989, no. 4): 77-128. A few more may be found in A Ying, Zhong-

NOTES TO PAGES 67-74 433 guo lianhuan tubua shibua (A history of China’s serial pictures) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1984), figs. 25-28. 115. Jiang Weipu, “Zhongguo xin lianhuanhua yishu de sishinian” (Forty years of China’s new serial picture art), in Lianhuanhua yishu, ser. no. 11 (1989, no. 3): §. 116. Ibid., p. 6. 117. Xia Yan, “Cong xindili huainian women de hao shizhang” (Missing our good mayor from the bottom of our heart), in Hutyi Chen Yi (Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1980), pp. 188-192. 118. Interviews in Shanghai with R, S, T, and U. 119. Zhongguo xiandai meishujia mingjian, vol. 1 (N.p., n.d. [Chinese Artists Association, 1984?]), p. 82. 120. The director of the consortium was an AWA official, Shen Tongheng. His name is not mentioned in Shanghai lianbuanhua administration after the consortium - -was reorganized in 1951 and 1952. 121. Interview with S. 122. Interviews with S and T. 123. Interviews with S. 124. Interview with R. 125. Interviews with T and V. 126. Interview with S. 127. Interviews with T and V. 128. Lu Yanshao published two long lianhuanhua in the mid-1950s; see Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhonggianqi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi” (Miscellaneous recollections of Shanghai serial picture work in the early and mid-1950s), in Lianhuanhua yishu, ser. no. 12 (1989, no. 4): 55. Cheng Shifa’s lianhuanhua include several Lu Xun short stories, including “Kong Yiji” and “The Life of Ah Q,” and the Ming novel The Scholars.

129. Interview with V. 130. Interviews with T and V. The director of this section was the printmaker Yang Keyang. Best known of his staff artists were Zhang Leping, Yu Yunjie, Zhao Yannian, Cai Zhenhua, and Li Binghong. 131. Li Lu, “Wushi niandai,” pp. 39—41. 132. Ibid., pp. 42, 45. 133. Interviews with R and T. 134. Interview with T. 135. Preliberation standards ranged between a few cents and fifty cents per page, according to R. Postliberation rates were several dollars per page, according to T. This anecdotal information is difficult to convert into meaningful statistics about differences in buying power. 136. Interview with T, whose family suffered greatly from having only one wage earner during the Cultural Revolution period. 137. Li Lu, “Wushi niandai,” p. 43. 138. Ibid., p. 42. 139. Jiang Weipu, “Zhongguo xin lianhuanhua yishu de sishinian,” p. 7. 140. Jiang Feng, “Sinian lai meishu gongzuo de zhuangkuang he quanguo meixie jinhou de renwu” (The situation of art work during the past four years and the current and future duties of the All-China Artists Association), MS 1954, no. 1, p. 6. A similar organization was simultaneously established in Beijing. 141. Interview with W.

434 NOTES TO PAGES 74-82 142. A traditionally trained painter, W, recollects that he was able to sell paintings in the early 1950s. Lin Fengmian was believed by Shanghai artists to have had a good overseas market. 143. Among important local art leaders were Lai Shaoqgi, Li Meng, and Shen Roujian. 144. China Reconstructs, July—August 1952, p. 32.

145. Mi Gu, “Peng Boshan choushi caimohua de xinchengjiu” (Peng Boshan views the new achievements in color-and-ink painting with hostility), MS 1955, no. 6,

pp. Io-11. 146. Interview with W. 147. Yu Feian, “Guohuajia de laodong zhi duoshao qian” (How much money is a guohua artist’s labor worth?), RMRB, Sept. 24, 1956. 148. Interview with his student, BC. 149. This opinion is often repeated. Mo Pu, for example, attributes the success of the work, in part, to the energy and attention of Jiang Feng; see “Nanyi mibu de shun-

shi,” pp. 334-335. |

150. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huibuashi (A history of modern Chinese painting) (Nanjing: Jiangsu meishu chubanshe, 1986), p. 207. 151. Ding, in a 1990 interview, could not remember the date or the reason for the viewing, which he did not consider noteworthy at the time. In view of the painting’s publicity blizzard of late September 1953, it may have occurred in September. Its publication coincided with the Second Congress of Literary and Art Workers, as well as with preparations for National Day on October 1. 152. On Wang Dongxing, see Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 651. 153. The photograph is reprinted in “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi,” p. 6. This source states that Zhou Yang was present, a claim that is not supported by the photograph and is disputed by Ding Jingwen. 154. In 1965 Jiang Qing responded to the question “Does the chairman view painting exhibitions?” in the negative. She is quoted by a Red Guard chronicle as saying, “The chairman has very little time. The chairman frequently looks at reproduction albums, even more than I do. He has many reproduction albums”; see Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 26. 155. RMRB, Sept. 27, 1953. It also appears as a color frontispiece to Wenyibao, ser. no. 95 (1953, no. 18), published Sept. 30, 1953. 156. “My Family,” China Pictorial, 1953, no. 12, p. 34. 157. Only the prominent ear of the third figure in visible. Chen Yun, head of the Finance and Economics Committee, is a possible identification. The clearly visible fourth figure has a long white beard and protruding eyes. Several such elderly men were prominent in government line-ups of the time, but published photographs do not enable us to distinguish between them. The two most likely identifications are Shen Junru and Chen Shutong, both of whom, like Guo Moruo, became vice-chairmen of the Political Consultative Committee. Photographs of them are published in RMRB, Oct. 10, 1949. 158. Hiroshige (1797-1858), Kinryuzan Temple at Asakusa (1856), in the “One

Hundred Famous Views of Edo” series. For one reproduction, see Richard Lane, Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print, Including an Illustrated Dictionary of Ukiyo-e (New York: Dorset Press, 1978), p. 250, no. 307. 159. Suggestion of Han Xin. 160. Howard Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), pp. 233-235.

NOTES TO PAGES 82~—91 435 161. China Pictorial, 1955, no. 5, back cover.

162. “Art of the Socialist Countries,” Peking Review, Dec. 9, 1958, p. 21; Zhonghua renmin gongheguo zhanpin mulu, no. 88. 163. The painting was exhibited in a retrospective show by CAFA faculty at the Chinese National Art Gallery in the summer of 1992, presumably because of its historical importance rather than aesthetic or ideological value. 164. Interview with P.

165. Jiang Feng, “Meishu gongzuo de zhongda fazhan,” reprinted in JFMSLJ, p. 92. 166. Liao, Xu Beihong (1987), p. 307. 167. Interview with Ai Qing, Beijing, 1990.

168. Seep. 34. 169. The painting is Prawns, reproduced in China Pictorial, 1953, no. 2, p. 16; reprinted in Andrews, “Traditional Painting in New China,” fig. 7. Beginning in his seventies, Qi added two or three years to his age; see Kaiyi Hsii and Fangyii Wang, Kan Qi Baishi hua (Ch’i Pai-shih’s paintings) (Taipei: Art Publishers, 1979), p. r1n.1. Prawns is not dated, but is signed as a work of his eighty-ninth year, which was probably his eighty-sixth year in Western reckoning, or 1949. 170. Part of Mao’s collection has been published in Mao Zedong guju cang shuhuajia zengpin ji (The Mao Zedong residential collection of gift works by calligraphers and painters) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1983). Qi Baishi was born in the same town as Mao, which may have increased the chairman’s interest in him.

171. Joan Lebold Cohen (New Chinese Painting, p. 19) has suggested that the stresses of thought reform led to his stroke and premature death. Chu-tsing Li (Trends, p. 98) mentions that the stroke followed Xu’s participation in land reform. 172. Yan Wenliang, Meishu yong toushi xue (Use of perspective in art) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1957).

173. The following account is based on interviews with X, one of the young painters who admired Yan’s painting. 174. Qian Bocheng, “Yan Wenliang xiansheng nianpu,” pp. 183-184.

175. Ibid., p. 185. 176. Letter from Hou Yimin to author, Dec. 1, 1986. 177. They include The Miner Becomes Manager of the Mine and The Fortunate Generation.

178. This information is taken from the following sources: Gong Chanxing, “Huajia Dong Xiwen nianbiao” (Chronology of the painter Dong Xiwen), Zhongguo meishu, 1979, NO. 2, pp. 16-17; Zhongguo xiandai meishujia mingjian, p. 68; Yang Mingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, xia, pp. 534-543; and Zhongguo meishuguan cangpinji (Collection of the Chinese National Art Gallery), vol. 1 (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1988), p. 29. The first two sources disagree on the chronological sequence of his education. 179. A classmate who later became an abstract expressionist painter abroad considered Dong a comparatively conservative artist. Interview with BD. 180. It is likely that the renewed enthusiasm for mural painting in the post-Mao era, in many cases championed by Dong Xiwen’s students, was not entirely based on ideological devotion to China’s national folk art. Between 1980 and 1985 mural painting, for some artists, provided an ideologically acceptable way to explore modern Western aesthetic ideas. The works of Yuan Yunsheng, Ding Shaoguang, and Jiang Tiefeng are good examples. See chapter 7.

436 NOTES TO PAGES 91-108 181. Liao, Xu Beihong (1982), p. 336/(1987), p. 288. 182. This account is based primarily on the biography in Yang Mingsheng (ed.),

Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, shang, pp. 352-355, and interviews. A thoughtful account of Li’s work may be found in Arnold Chang, Painting in the People’s Republic,

pp. 57-63. Josef Hejzlar’s brief account in Chinese Watercolors (London: Octopus Books, 1978), pp. 58—60, is useful as well. A number of Li’s paintings from the late 1940s and early 1950s are reproduced in Lubor Hajek, Adolph Hoffmeister, and Eva Rychterova, Contemporary Chinese Painting, trans. Jean Layton (London: Spring Books, 1961), pp. 130-153. A number of books have been published since the artist’s death, for example Li Keran shuhua quanji, shanshui juan (Complete collection of painting and calligraphy by Li Keran, landscape volume) (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Art Press, 1991). 183. One, a male figure study, has a faintly cubist flavor. The other, Expulsion from Eden, depicts a female nude with rather tubular legs and a snake, against a simplified landscape background. Reproduced in Yiba yishe jinian ji, pp. 94, 96. 184. I know of no color reproductions of this early work, which makes evaluating its relationship to contemporary European painting difficult. 185. Interview with E. 186. Reproduced in Shehui zhuyi guojia zaoxing yishu zhanlanhui, no. 223. 187. Yan Han, “Yi Taihangshan,” pp. 308-314.

188. Ibid., pp. 309-310. 189. Interviews with XZ. 190. For Gu Yuan’s contributions to this new style see Shirley Sun, Modern Chinese Woodcuts (San Francisco: Chinese Culture Foundation, 1979); Laing, Winking

Ou, p. 15. 191. Two of these unsigned prints, in the collection of Colgate University, were exhibited in a 1979 Chinese Culture Foundation exhibition as anonymous. See Shirley Sun, Modern Chinese Woodcuts, no. 40. They have been widely reproduced in China as Yan Han’s work. See Meishu congkan, no. 6 (Feb. 1979): 98. Yan has confirmed the attribution. 192. Interview with E. 193. Biographical materials from Shi Lu huihua shufa (Shi Lu painting and calligraphy), ed. Ping Ye (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1986), pp. iii—iv; Zhongguo yishujia cidian 3:460; Yang Mingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, xia, pp. 707— 715; and Shi Lu huiguzhan (Shi Lu: retrospective) (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute

for Promotion of Chinese Culture/Chinese Artists Association, 1987), n.p. | 194. Wang Zhaowen, “Zaizai tansuo” (Yet again, explore), in Shi Lu huihua shufa (Selected works of Shi Lu), ed. Ping Ye (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1983), n.p.

195. Shi Lu, “Nianhua chuangzuo jiantao—Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu wenxie meishu gongzuo weiyuanhui yijiuwuling nian xinnianhua gongzuo zongjie zhi yi” (Investigation of Nianhua—a summary of 1950 modern new year’s picture work at the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Literary and Art Association’s Art Work Committee), RMMS, vol. 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1, 1950): 30-31. 196. The other, Zhao Wangyun, will be discussed in chapter 5. 197. My view is based on the catalogue, which was carefully edited to reflect the goals of the art bureaucracy. An eyewitness account, which describes seventeen goodsized rooms filled with art, is considerably more favorable. See Derk Bodde, Peking Diary, 1948-1949: A Year of Revolution (New York: Fawcett, 1967), pp. 232-233. The exhibition was held at the Beiping National Arts College.

NOTES TO PAGES IT10—120 437

3. From Popularization to Specialization 1. See, for example, Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, pp. 239-242. 2. Jiang Feng had articulated this view in his 1946 talk, as we mentioned in our introduction. Articles reflecting similar points of view appeared throughout the fifties. See, for example, a translation of a Russian article by German Nedoshivin, “Xianshi zhuyi shi jinbu yishu de chuangzuo fangfa,” pp. 11-13. 3. Ai Qing, “Tan Zhongguohua” (On Chinese painting), Wenyibao, no. 92 (1953, NO. 15): 7-9.

4. Literally, “old drama revolution.” This particular cultural policy, which apparently mandated new lyrics for old plays and operas, has not, to my knowledge, been studied, although a good introduction to postliberation drama may be found in Bonnie S. McDougall, ed., Popular Chinese Literature and Performing Arts in the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1979 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984). 5. Ai Qing uses the traditional Chinese term shanshui for landscapes until this point, when he switches to a term usually used to describe Western landscape paintings.

6. Jiang Feng, “Lu Xun xiansheng yu Zhongguo de xinxing muke yundong,” Dp. 4.

7. For a description of the practice by the late Ming literati painter Dong Qichang, see James F. Cahill, The Distant Mountains: Chinese Painting of the Late Ming Dynasty, 1570-1644 (New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1982), pp. 120-123. 8. Merle Goldman has observed the same individualistic attitude in Ai Qing’s views of literature, which exempt the particularly talented (including himself) from constraints necessary for ordinary people. He was criticized for this view in the 1940s; see Literary Dissent, pp. 29-30. 9. “Zhongguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe dierci daibiao dahui tongguo liangxiang jueyi” (The Second Congress of Literary and Art Workers passes two resolutions), in Wenyibao, ser. no. 96 (1953, no. 19): 39. ro. Zhou Yang, “Wei chuangzao gengduo de youxiu de wenxue yishu zuopin er fendou—yijiuwusan nian jiu yue ershisi ri zai zhongguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe dierci daibiao dahui shang de baogao” (Struggle to create even more excellent works of literature and art—report on September 24, 1953, at the Second National Congress of Literary and Arts Workers), Wenyibao, no. 96 (1953, no. 19): 12.

rz. Ibid. 12. R.N. Carew Hunt, “Communist Jargon,” in Readings in Russian Civilization, ed. Thomas Riha (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 680-681. The term “socialist realism” first appeared in an editorial in the Soviet Literary Gazette of May 29, 1932. Hunt’s definition comes from the Large Soviet Encyclopedia. Laing discusses the styles of Chinese socialist realist painting in Winking Owl, pp. 2O0ff. 13. Laing recognized their importance in Winking Owl, p. 20.

14. Zhou Yang, “Wei chuangzao gengduo de youxiu de wenxue yishu zuopin er fendou,” p. 14; emphasis added. 15. Hunt, “Communist Jargon,” p. 680. 16. Zhou Yang, “Wei chuangzao gengduo de youxiu de wenxue yishu zuopin er fendou,” p. 12.

17. Ibid., p. rz.

438 NOTES TO PAGES I21~129 18. C. Vaughn James, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), p. 93. 19. Zhou Yang, “Wei chuangzao gengduo de youxiu de wenxue yishu zuopin er fendou,” p. 16; emphasis added.

20. Ibid. 21. See Goldman, Literary Dissent, for elaboration of the disputes. Yan Han, who presumably has not read Goldman, and who was close to Jiang Feng, believes that an important element in cultural conflicts of the 1950s was a systematic purge of Lu Xun’s disciples by the opposing faction. 22. In a 1990 interview, Ai Qing recalled that both he and his friend Jiang Feng

liked guohua, but that his own enthusiasm may have exceeded that of Jiang Feng. Nevertheless, the kind of art that administrators collected or hung as decorations in their homes and the art they advocated as public policy did not necessarily correspond. 23. Jiang’s speech was published in Wenyibao, no. 96 (1953, no. 19): 36—39; reprinted in the first issue of MS 1954, no. 1, pp. 5—8; and reprinted again in JFMSL), pp. 62—70.

24. Hu Ruosi’s The People of Xinjiang Donating a Horse to Marshall Zhu De is reproduced in RMRB, Sept. 20, 1953; Li Xiongcai’s Forest in Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, 1949-1959 (A decade of Chinese painting) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1961), no. 43; and Jiang Yan’s Examining Mama in Laing, Winking Owl, fig. 27. 25. Wang Zhaowen, “Mian xiang shenghuo” (Turn toward life), RMRB, Sept. 2.0, 1953, Pp. 3-

26. Schurmann, Ideology and Organization in Communist China, p. 318. 27. Some of these events are discussed in Goldman, Literary Dissent, pp. 87—105. Hua Junwu’s speech of November 24, 1951, “Eradicate Nonproletarian Thought from Art Work,” was considered a notable contribution to the Beijing rectification. See Zhongguo xiandai meishujia mingjian, p. 9. 28. MS 1954, no. 2, p. Io. 29. For a discussion of this phenomenon in guohua development, see Arnold Chang, Painting in the People’s Republic. 30. RMRB, Sept. 27, 1953. 31. Liushinian, p. 148. 32. MS 1954, no. 2, p. ro. 33. Cai Ruohong, “Kaipi meishu chuangzuo de guangkuo daolu” (Open up the wide road of artistic creation), MS 1954, no. 1, pp. 9-12. 34. Jiang Feng, “Sinian lai,” sec. 2, in JFMSLJ, pp. 66-67. 35. Jiang Feng, “Meishu gongzuo de zhongda fazhan” (The great development of art work), MS 1954, no. 10, p. 5.

36. Ibid. 37. Reproduced in MS 1954, no. 10, pp. 26-27. 38. Interview with AP. 39. Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhongqiangi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi,” p. 45. Comments are attributed to Kuang Yaming in Shanghai and Hu Qiaomu in Beijing. 40. A nationwide campaign to criticize the film Life of Wu Xun had a chilling effect on Shanghai publishers. Private firms that had published comic book versions of the popular movie were criticized by the staff of Beijing’s Serial Pictures. See Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhonggianqi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi,” p. 51. 41. Jiang Weipu, “Zhongguo xin lianhuanhua yishu de sishinian,” p. 8. 42. Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhonggianqgi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi,” p. 48.

NOTES TO PAGES 129-137 439 43. Ibid., p. 50. MS 1954, no. 11, refers to the editorial as that of July 15, 1954, but I have not found it. 44. Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhonggianqi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi,” pp. 48, 51.

45. Ibid., p. 50. 46. Jiang Weipu, “Zhongguo xin lianhuanhua yishu de sishinian,” p. 7. 47. Out of 766 titles published in 1955, 83 were antique-costume stories; see Li Lu, “Wushi niandai zhonggiangi Shanghai lianhuanhua gongzuo zayi,” p. 51.

48. Ibid. 49. See Liushinian, pp. 155-156; and Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 566. 50. The back cover of Lianhuanhua yishu, no. 12 (1989, no. 4), reproduces such works by Liu and Wu. 51. Many drawings were published, despite this drawback. One by Gu Bingxin even won a prize in the 1963 competition; see Ouanguo lianhuanhua huojiang zuopin xuan, 1963-1981 (Selections from prize-winning serial pictures) (Shenyang: Liaoning meishu chubanshe, 1986), n.p. 52. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. roo. 53. JFMSL], p. 375; Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 100. 54. Yishu yaolan, p. 28. 55. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. roo. 56. Interview with Ding Jingwen, Beijing, 1990. 57. MS 1955, no. 6, p. 20. 58. Interview with AA. 59. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. roo.

60. Ibid. 61. Between 1985 and 1989, the center published a weekly art newspaper, Zhongguo meishubao (Fine arts in China). 62. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. roo. 63. Interview with Z. 64. Yishu yaolan, p. 31. 65. Ibid., p. 30. Needless to say, contemporary historians of both Eastern European and Chinese art find this view of Chistiakov to be drastically oversimplified.

66. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 101; MS 1956, no. 12, p. 7. The national art colleges were increased from six to seven with the creation of the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts. 67. The affair was mentioned by Zhang Ding in his testimony, in “Jiang Feng shi meishujie de zonghuo toumu” (Jiang Feng is the art world’s chief arsonist), MS 1957, no. 8, p. 11; see also Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifan dang dui minzu chuantong de zhengce,” p. 19. The theorist criticized most vigorously for this approach was Li Zongjin. 68. Sometimes translated as the Central Academy of Industrial Arts or Central Academy of Handicrafts. 69. Interviews with P and BB. 70. It was entitled Save Good Seeds, Make Good Grain; see RMRB, Aug. 19, 1953, P. 3.

71. MS 1954, no. 2, p. 20. 72. Two other important teachers at Hangzhou were Li Zhenjian and Song Zhongyuan.

73. It is reproduced as one of the monuments of the decade in the 1959 anthology Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, no. 21.

440 NOTES TO PAGES 140-153 74. Interview with Zhu Jinlou, Hangzhou, 1986. 75. Zhu Jinlou, p. §2. 76. Interview with Fang Zengxian, Shanghai, 1986. 77. Yao is no longer bitter; he subsequently received strong support from Jiang Feng, but has gone on to work in oils.

78. Yishu yaolan, p. 31. My “Traditional Painting in New China,” p. 567, erroneously put this exhibition in Warsaw.

79. Ogonek, 1957. 80. A good example is Weng Rulan; see chapter 6. 81. MS 1954, no. 4, p. 49; Yishu yaolan, p. 29. 82. Interview with L. 83. This criticism was directed against artists who sought fame for their oil paintings rather than serving the people through popular art; see Jiang Feng, “Jianjue jinxing sixlang gaizao,” p. 46. 84. Jiang Feng, “Geya de fanginliie huthua” (Goya’s anti-invasion paintings), MS 1954, no. 3, pp. 43-44; Li Hua, “Deluokeluowa he ta de Xi’a dao de tusha” (Delacroix and his Massacre on the Isle of Scios), MS 1954, no. 3, pp. 45-46. 85. Yishu yaolan, p. 31. 86. Ibid. I have not seen issues of Meishu ziliao from this period. 87. German Nedoshivin (Nietuoxiwen), “Lun huihuazhong de dianxing wenti” (On the problem of the typical in painting), MS 1954, no. 1, p. 41. 88. Interview with YA. 89. Yishu yaolao, p. 29. 90. Jiang Feng, “Cong Sulian de meishu jianshe kan duiren de guanhuai” (Concern for the people seen in Soviet art construction), reprinted from MS 1957, no. 8, in JEMSL], pp. 80-88. 91. Sulian zaoxing yishu zhanlanpin mulu (Soviet Plastic Arts Exhibition catalogue) (Beijing, 1954), pp. 6-7. 92. Ai Zhongxin, “Sulian de youhua yishu” (Soviet oil painting), MS 1954, no.

II, p. 7. 93. John Clark and I independently compiled lists of artists trained by Soviet instructors. | am grateful to him for making his material available to me as I] revised this chapter. See his Materials on Painting and Other Fine Arts in the PRC, ms. 94. “Huanying Sulian youhua zhuanjia K.M. Maksimov” (Welcome the Soviet oil painting expert K. M. Maksimov), MS 1955, no. 3, p. 39. 95. According to Zhongguo xiandai meishujia mingjian, p. 179, Qin served as a creation cadre with the Tianjin Municipal Military Literature and Arts Department and later as a director of the Tianjin branch of the CAA. 96. MS 1957, no. 6, pp. 33, 49; nO. 7, p. 19; no. 8, pp. 47, 37.

97. Yuan Hao, MS 1957, no. 8, pp. 42-43; Ren Mengzhang, ibid., no. 6, pp. 19-20; Qin Zheng, ibid., pp. 16-18. 98. Youhua zuopin xuan (Selected oil paintings) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1958). The works of rightists were excluded from the publication.

99. MS 1954, no. 5, pp. 19-21. 100. Reproduced in MS 1955, no. 2, pp. 28-29.

101. The face of the central figure in the composition was cut out during the Cultural Revolution and was subsequently replaced by the artist. 102. Ren Mengzhang, “Sulian zhuanjia zheiyang zhidao wo jinxing biye chuangzuo” (The Soviet expert guided me in this way to execute my graduation creation), MS 1957, n0. 6, p. 20.

NOTES TO PAGES 1§3-164 441 103. Interview with BE. 104. Qin Zheng, “Nanku de licheng—chuangzuo suigan” (A difficult process— some feelings on creation), MS 1957, no. 6, p. 16. 105. Young Underground Workers, reproduced in MS 1957, no. 7, front cover. 106. MS 1957, no. 8, p. 42. For a reproduction, see ibid., p. 26. 107. Ren Mengzhang, “Sulian zhuanjia,” p. 19. 108. Marian Mazzone has argued convincingly in “China’s Nationalization of Oil Painting in the 1950s: Searching Beyond the Soviet Paradigm” (seminar paper, Ohio State University, March 1992) that nineteenth-century Russian realism, especially that of the Peredvizhniki, or Wanderers, was as important as Soviet socialist realism to the development of Chinese oil painting in the 1950s and 1960s. The Soviet view of the Wanderers as selfless nationalists of the working class, a concept rejected by Western art historians, was particularly compatible with Maoist ideology. My rather broad use of the term “socialist realism” is similar to that of Chinese writers of the period, who do not seem to have made particularly refined art historical definitions.

109. The picture, reproduced in MS 1955, no. 2, pp. 28-29, was a panorama four meters long and slightly less than one meter high.

110. Interestingly, Maksimov himself was impressed by the spontaneity of Chinese xieyi painting, particularly the work of Qi Baishi, and is said to have changed his style after his return to the Soviet Union. See [.1. Kuptsov, Konstantin Mefod’evich Maksimov (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1984), p. 37. | am indebted to Marian Mazzone for bringing this book to my attention, and to Gao Minglu for summarizing this passage.

111. RMRB, Aug. 16, 1953, p. 3. 112. Liushinian, p. 147; Laing, Winking Owl, p. 22. 113. Quanguo guohua zhanlanhui zuopin mulu (List of works in the National Guohua Exhibition) (Beijing: Art Workers Association, 1953). 114. MS 1954, no. 2, inside back cover. 115. Reproduced in MS 1955, no. 1, pp. 28-29; and Laing, Winking Owl, fig. 30.

116. See, for example, “Yinianlai Meishu bianji gongzuo de zhuyao quedian he cuowu” (The chief weaknesses and errors in the first year of Meishu editorial work), MS 1954, no. 12, pp. 5-6. 117. “Dierjie quanguo meishu zhanlan hui jijiang kaimu” (The Second National Art Exhibition prepares to open), MS 1955, no. 1, p. 6. 118. Dierjie quanguo meishu zhanlanhui (The Second National Art Exhibition) (exhibition brochure) (Beijing: Ministry of Culture, 1955), n.p. 119. Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 22-23. 120. MS 1955, no. 4, pp. 28-29. 121. MS 1955, no. 5, p. 27; Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, no. 38. 122. MS 1955, no. 1, p. 24; Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, no. 59. 123. MS 1955, no. 6, p. 24.

124. Listed in Dierjie quanguo meishu zhanlanhui, n.p. It was reproduced in RMRB, Sept. 20, 1953, p. 5. 125. MS 1955, no. 7, p. 34. 126. Hongxing zhitou chunyi nao (Spring noises on a blossoming branch), repro-

duced in MS 1955, no. 4, p. 27. , 127. Dierjie quanguo meishu zhanlanhui, n.p. 128. MS 1955, no. 7, p. 31. 129. News item, MS 1954, no. 4, p. 18.

442 NOTES TO PAGES 164-174 130. See the biographies of Shi Lu and Zhao Wangyun in Zhongguo yishujia cidian 3:461, 506. 131. News item, MS 1954, no. 4, p. 18. 132. MS 1954, no. 3, p. 19. Jerome Silbergeld (with Gong Jisui) has traced the evolution of the artists association in Sichuan in his Contradictions: Artistic Life, the Socialist State, and the Chinese Painter Li Huasheng (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993), p. 223n.36. According to his material, the Southwest Artists Association, newly founded in 1953, became the Chongqing branch of the CAA in 1954. In 1958 it was disbanded and replaced by four provincial associations, including the Sichuan Artists Association. 133. Reproduced in MS 1956, no. 6, pp. 32, front cover, 15, and 29. 134. fiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu zhanlanhui zhuanji (Catalogue of the Ministry of Education’s Second National Art Exhibition), vol. 2: Xiandai shubuaji (Collection of modern calligraphy and painting) (Shanghai: Commercial Press, n.d.), no. 141. 135. Reproduced in MS 1956, no. 7, front cover; and in Andrews, “Traditional Painting in New China,” fig. 6.

136. Dierjie quanguo guobua zhanlanhui, n.p. , 137. Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 24-25. 138. Hu Peiheng, MS 1956, no. 7, pp. 9-10; and Laing, Winking Owl, p. 25. 139. “Fazhan guohua yishu” (Develop the art of guohua) (editorial), RMRB, Oct. 30, 1956. 140. Interview with BF. 141. “Painting ina New Way,” China Reconstructs, May 1955, pp. 15-17. Several of the ink sketches were reproduced in MS 1954, no. 10, pp. 26-27. 142. Interview with Zhang Ding, Betjing, June 2, 1990. 143. Preface by the artists to the exhibition flyer “Li Keran, Zhang Ding, Luo Ming shuimo xieshenghua zhanlanhui” (Li Keran, Zhang Ding, and Luo Ming ink sketch exhibition), Sept. 1954. 144. Jiang Feng,“Meishu gongzuo de zhongda fazhan,” p. 6. 145. Guangdong sheng meigongshi (Guangdong Provincial Art Work Studio), “Guangzhou meishujie dui meixie lingdao he ‘Meishu’ yuekan de yijian” (The opinions of the Guangzhou art world on the CAA leadership and Art monthly), MS 1955, no. 1, p. 8.

146. “Xu Yansun shi guohuajie de youpai batou” (Xu Yansun is the gang leader of the rightists in the guohua world), MS 1957, no. 8, p. 16. 147. Interview with O. On to Urumchi, painted in 1954, is in the collection of the Chinese National Art Gallery. See Zhongguo meishuguan bufen meishu zuopin chenlie mulu, 1942-1978 (List of exhibitions: a portion of the Chinese National Art Gallery’s artworks) (n.p., n.d.), p. 5, no. 4. 148. Meishu shukan jieshao (Digest of art books and periodicals), no. 9: nianhua teji (special issue on new year’s pictures) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1955), pp. 15, 18, 19. Also see Laing, Winking Owl, p. 22. 149. Interview with Huang Zhou, Beijing, 1990. 150. See MS 1956, no. 2, pp. 30-31. 151. See MS 1956, no. 4, p. 36. 152. A good example is his An Old Wall in India, MS 1956, no. 4, p. 36.

153. The cooperative was run by Zhang Shouchen, who was later declared a rightist because of this activity. 154. Yu Feian, “Guohuajia de laodong zhi duoshao qian.”

NOTES TO PAGES 174-180 443 155. RMRB, Oct. 3, 1956, p. 4. 156. “Fazhan guohua yishu.” 157. An account in MS 1957, no. 6, p. 15, dates the State Council decision to June 1, 1956. 158. The Beijing institute was administered by the Ministry of Culture, and the Shanghai institute by the Shanghai Municipal People’s Committee. See MS 1957, no. 6, p. 15. 159. Jiangsu sheng guohua zhanlanhui (Jiangsu Provincial Guohua Exhibition) (exhibition brochure), Dec. 28, 1958—Jan. 11, 1959. 160. Zhou Yang, “Guanyu meishu gongzuo de yixie yijian” (Some opinions about art work), MS 1955, no. 7, p. 18. 161. This term referred to people who liked only Western art and wished to eradicate guohua. 162. MS 1955, no. 7, pp. 19-24.

p. 9. ,

4. The Politicization of Guohua

1. Jiang Feng, “Jianjue jinxing sixiang gaizao,” pp. 45-49. 2. Guangdong sheng meigongshi, “Guangzhou meishujie dui meixie lingdao,”

3. MS 1956, no. 1, p. 61. In 1957, Jiang Feng was accused of alternately castigating and using Cai Liang for his own purposes; see Ai Zhongxin, “Zheyang de yige ‘haoren’” (Such a “good man”), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 45. What these purposes might have been is not specified. Cai Liang had difficulties with job placement after graduation, but was eventually taken on by the Xi’an branch of the CAA. His colleagues in Xi’an are unable or disinclined to explain this event. 4. Goldman, Literary Dissent, pp. 114-115, 129-157. 5. Ibid., pp. 129-130. 6. Ibid., pp. 141, 145. 7. The most influential cartoons were reprinted in MS 1957, no. 6, p. 13; and NO. 7, Pp. 41-45. 8. Hu Yichuan, “Buhuo quansheng juebu shoubing” (Never withdraw troops short of total victory), MS 1955, no. 8, p. 13. 9. Li Qun, “Pipan Wen Zhaotong cuowu de yishu sixiang” (Condemn Wen Zhaotong’s erroneous artistic thought), MS 1955, no. 11, pp. 8-12. ro. Mi Gu, “Peng Boshan choushi caimohua de xinchengjiu,” p. ro. 11. Goldman, Literary Dissent, p. 139. 12. Mi Gu, “Peng Boshan choushi caimohua de xinchengjiu,” pp. 10-11.

13. Zhang Ding, “Guanyu guohua chuangzuo jicheng youliang chuantong wenti” (On the question of national painting creation inheriting the excellent tradition), MS 1955, no. 6, pp. 17-19. 14. “Jianyi ba Hu Feng cong wenyijie duiwuzhong qingxi chuqu” (We recommend cleaning Hu Feng out of the literary and art world), MS 1955, no. 6, p. 6.

15. Goldman, Literary Dissent, p. 159. :

16. Roderick MacFarquhar, The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 1: Contradictions Among the People, 1956-1957 (London: Oxford University Press,

444 NOTES TO PAGES 180~-190 1974), p. §2. This passage also appears in the Red Guard art periodical Meishu fenglei (Art storm), no. 3 (August 1967): 8. 17. MacFarquhar, Origins of the Cultural Revolution 1:52. 18. Goldman, “Mao’s Obsession with the Political Role of Literature and the Intellectuals,” in The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward, ed. Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek, and Eugene Wu (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 44.

19. Shuji Takashina, “Eastern and Western Dynamics in the Development of Western-Style Oil Painting During the Meiji Era,” in Shiji Takashina and J. Thomas Rimer, with Gerald D. Bolas, Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting (Tokyo: Japan Foundation/St. Louis: Washington University, 1987), pp. 2131.

20. Xia Baoyuan, an artist who studied with Yan Wenliang in the 1960s, believed that his teacher’s coloristic methods were very scientific. Interview, Shanghai, 1986.

21. Editor’s preface to “Lun yinxiang zhuyi” (Discussion of impressionism), by V.V. Stasov [Sitasuofu] (translated from the Russian), MS 1957, no. 2, p. 37.

22. Ibid., pp. 37-39. 23. “Yinxiang zhuyi” (Impressionism), MS 1957, no. 2, pp. 41-42. 24. JFMSL], xia, pp. 97-303.

25. “Jiang Feng shi meishujie de zonghuo toumu,” p. x1. It is probable that Zhou Yang’s comments were drafted as part of the Anti-Hu Feng campaign. 26. Zhu Jinlou, unpublished ms., 1978; and interview with YB. 27. Interview with YA. 28. Yishu yaolan, p. 28. 29. Interview with YB; and Zhu Jinlou, unpublished ms. 30. Interview with YA. 31. Cai Ruohong, “Guanyu ‘guohua’ chuangzuo de fazhan wenti” (On the problem of the development of guohua creation), MS 1955, no. 6, p. 14. 32. Interview with YA; and “Jiang Feng shi meishujie,” p. 14. 33. Yin Cheng, ““Zhengqian chifan’ yu hua fengjing” (“Feeding a family” and painting landscapes), MS 1957, no. 9, pp. 47-48. 34. “Fazhan guohua yishu.” 35. “Jiang Feng shi meishujie,” p. x1. 36. The rather complicated background to this campaign is discussed in MacFarquhar, Origins of the Cultural Revolution 1:184-217.

37. In a 1988 interview, Yan Han denied that Jiang Feng was personally involved in planning the event. Jiang attended only after being informed by Yan that it would occur. Interview conducted by Han Xin, October 1988. 38. MS 1957, no. 8, p. 6; Deng Ye, “Jiang Feng fandang jituan zai huadong meishu fenyuan,” p. 48. 39. Goldman, Literary Dissent, p. 197. 40. “Jiang Feng shi meishujie,” p. 11. 41. Interview with BG. 42. Zhu Jinlou, unpublished ms. 43. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102. 44. “Jiang Feng shi meishujie,” p. rr. 45. Ibid., p. 12.

46. Ibid.

NOTES TO PAGES 190-199 445 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid., p. 12. 49. Ibid., p. 11. 50. MacFarquhar, Origins of the Cultural Revolution 1:179, 193. 51. Ibid., pp. 192-217. 52. Deng Ye, “Jiang Feng fandang jituan zai huadong meishu fenyuan,” p. 17. 53. Han Xin interview with Yan Han, 1988.

54. Deng Ye, “Jiang Feng fandang jituan zai huadong meishu fenyuan,” pp. 16-17. 55. Ibid., p. 16. 56. Pan Tianshou, “Sheishuo zhongguohua biran taotai.” 57. “Jiang Feng shi meishujie,” p. 11. 58. Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifang dang dui minzu chuantong de zhengce,” p. 19.

59. Ibid., p. 20; Ye Qianyu, “Jiekai Jiang Feng fandang jituan de xueshu watyi” (Opening the academic cloak of the Jiang Feng antiparty group), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 35.

60. Ye Qianyu, “Jiekai Jiang Feng fandang jituan de xueshu watyi,” p. 35.

61. Ibid., p. 41; Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifang dang dui minzu chuantong de zhengce,” p. 19.

62. Li Keran, “Jiang Feng weifang dang dui minzu chuantong de zhengce,”

p. 19. .

63. Jiang Zhaohe, “Jiang Feng dui Zhongguohua xuwu zhuyi de guandian”

(Jiang Feng’s nihilistic point of view toward Chinese painting), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 36. 64. Ye Qianyu, “Jiekai Jiang Feng fandang jituan de xueshu wailyi,” p. 35. 65. Ai Zhongxin, “Zheyang de yige ‘haoren,’” p. 45.

66. Hua Junwu, “Jiang Feng fandang de fabao zhiyi—zongpai daji” (One of Jiang Feng’s antiparty secret weapons—factional attack), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 9. 67. Li Yu, “Ye tan ‘Pa cong he lai’” (More on “Whence comes fear”), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 12. 68. This comment was probably added for the benefit of the interviewer, a victim of the 1974 Black Painting Exhibition in Shanghai. See chapter 6. 69. Han Xin interview with Yan Han, 1988. 70. “Talk at the Supreme State Conference” (Oct. 13, 1957), in Union Research Institute, Unselected Works of Mao Zedong, 1957 (Hong Kong: Union Press, 1976),

1977), p. 488. ,

pp. 353-389. The speech also appears in Mao Zedong xuanji, vol. 5 (Beijing: n.p., 71. Others were Gao Zhuang, Feng Fasi, and Wang Bingzhao. See Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102. 72. Many such men were members of the Democratic Alliance. 73. See Link (ed.), Roses and Thorns, pp. 11-14. 74. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102.

75. Naranarayan Das, China’s Hundred Weeds: A Study of the Anti-Rightist Campaign in China [1957-1958] (Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1979), p. 90. 76. MS 1957, no. 9, pp. 10, 44. 77. “Jiangsusheng wenyijie jiefa pipan youpai fenzi Liu Haisu” (The literary and art circles of Jiangsu province expose and condemn the rightist Liu Haisu), MS 1957, no. 11, pp. 40-41. 78. Zhu Jinlou, unpublished ms.

446 NOTES TO PAGES 199-206 79. Interview with W. 80. Mao Zedong guju cang shubuajia zengpin ji, nos. 14—42, 46-47.

81. MS 1957, no. 8, p. 16. Other attacks on Ku may be found in Ge Man, “Lun Xu Yansun zhi xin” (On the mind of Xu Yansun), MS 1957, no. 9, p. 12; and Lu Ding, “Xu Aman dabu mihun zhen” (Xu Yansun schemes a great maze), MS 1957, no. 9, pp. 12~13. 82. Lu Ning, “‘Hunshui’ wei ‘moyu’” (Muddying the water to catch a fish), MS 1957, NO. 9, p. 13.

83. Interview with AE. 84. Interview with YC. Pang’s alleged crimes were described in MS 1957, no. 8, p. 8.

5. The Great Leap Forward and Its Aftermath 1. Interview with JJ. The exhibition of Lin Fengmian’s works took place in 1963. See Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 51-§2. 2. Parris Chang, Power and Policy in China, 2d ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1978), p. 104.

3. Ibid., pp. 107-108, 110~121. 4. Ibid., pp. 122-130. 5. Ibid., pp. 125-129, 147-148. 6. Ibid., pp. 145-146. 7. Ibid., p. 108. 8. Among other representatives were listed Wang Geyi (1896-1988?) and Feng Zikai (1898—1975), both from the Shanghai Chinese Painting Institute, and Zhang Jinghu (1892-1967), a folk artist at the Beijing Crafts Research Institute who specialized in making figures out of colored dough.

9. “Xiangying Zhou Enlai zongli de haozhao, wei tigao yishu ziliang er nuli” (Respond to Premier Zhou Enlai’s call, work to raise artistic standards), by Members of

the Political Consultative Committee Wang Geyi, Wang Zhaowen, Feng Zikai, Ye Qianyu, Zhang Jinghu, Fu Baoshi, and Jiang Zhaohe, MS 1959, no. 5, p. 3. ro. Zhou Enlai, “Zai wenyi gongzuo zuotanhui he gushipian chuangzuo hutyi shang de jianghua” (Speeches at the Literature and Art Conference and Fictional Film

Creation Meeting, June 19, 1961), reprinted from Wenyibao, 1979, no. 2, in Zhou Enlai yu wenyi (Zhou Enlai and literature and art), vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1980), p. 10. 11. Zhou Enlai, “Guanyu wenhua yishu gongzuo liangtiaotui zoulu de wenti” (On the question of cultural and arts work walking with two legs) (May 3, 1959), in Zhou Enlai yu wenyi, pp. 5—6.

12, Preparation for the national exhibition, scheduled for October 1, 1959, was announced at a CAA meeting on February 14. See MS 1958, no. 3, p. 41. 13. For discussion of some aspects of this exhibition, see Laing, Winking Owl,

pp. 40-41. 14. Zhou Enlai, “Zai wenyi gongzuo zuotanhui,” pp. 9-31. Arnold Chang discusses this speech at length in Painting in the People’s Republic, pp. 17-21. 15. Some of Zhou’s points appear also in the Eight Articles on Literature and

NOTES TO PAGES 206-211 447 Art, which were then in draft form; see Byung-joon Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution: Dynamics of Policy Processes (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976), pp. 60-61. 16. Zhou Enlai, “Zai wenyi gongzuo zuotanhui,” p. 15.

17. An aborted attempt to rebut critics of the Ling’nan school and revive it appeared in the August 1957 issue of Meishu. With the acceleration of the Anti-Rightist

campaign, the school sank back into obscurity. See Huang Duwei, “Cong Hua’nan meizhan kan Ling’nan huapai” (A look at the Lingnan school in the South China Art Exhibition), MS 1957, no. 8, p. 44. A prominent historian of the school recalls that Kang Sheng called Guan Shanyue to Beijing in 1962 to discuss the need to reestablish the school, but subsequent events proved Kang’s gesture to be insincere; interview with BH.

18. Zhou, “Zai wenyi gongzuo zuotanhuil,” p. 21. 19. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 62; Liushinian, p. 201. 20. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 53-55.

21. Ibid., p. 61. 22. Ibid.; Liushinian, p. 201. 23. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 61. 24. JFNB, pp. 324-325; and interview with YA. 25. “Jiang Feng fandang jituan de liangge gugan—Yang Jiao, Zhang Shaofei” (Two mainstays of the Jiang Feng antiparty clique— Yang Jiao and Zhang Shaofei), MS 1957, no. 10, pp. 37-38. Zhang’s best-known work is Read a Thousand Characters, a 1944 literacy poster in the new nianhua style. See Zhongguo xinxing banhua wushinian xuanji, 1931-1981 (Selections of modern prints of China in the fifty years from 1931 to 1981) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1981), shang, no. 105. 26. “Yao cong zhege shili zhong xiqu jiaoxun” (We must learn a Jesson from this case), MS 1958, no. 1, pp. 8—10. 27. Interviews with AA, V, and P. 28. “Yige you yiyi de jiaoxue zhanlan” (A meaningful education exhibition), MS 1958, NO. 5, pp. 9-10.

29. Ibid. Interview with JJ. We will discuss Xu Kuang later in the chapter. Sun Kexiang, later known as Sun Ke, became editor of Zhongguohua in the 1980s.

30. “Ba xin jiaogei dang, ba yishu jiaogei renmin hongtou zhuanshen” (Give your heart to the party, your art to the people, be completely red and thoroughly expert), MS 1958, no. 5, pp. 11-12. 31. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102. 32. “Ba hongqi cha zai jiaoxueshang, ba xuexiao ban dao gongsheli” (Plant the red flags in education, move schools to the commune), MS 1958, no. 10, p. 14. 33. The following information is taken from a brochure about the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts entitled Guangzhou meishu xueyuan (n.p., n.d.).

34. At its founding in 1946, the academy was named Northeast Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts (Dongbei Lu Xun wenyit xueyuan), a name that suggests it was a branch of the Yan’an school, but in 1953 it was renamed the Northeast Art Academy (Dongbei meizhuan). 35. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102. Most of the artists and researchers were reassigned to the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute or to the CAFA art history department, leaving only a skeletal staff. Interview with Z. 36. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 102.

448 NOTES TO PAGES 211-216 37. “Beijing meishujia huoyue zai shisanling shuiku gongdi” (Beijing artists are active at the Ming Tombs Reservoir worksite), MS 1958, no. 6, p. 3. 38. Qi Su, “Meishujia he meishupin zai shisanling shuiku gongdi” (Artists and art workers at the Ming Tombs Reservoir worksite), MS 1958, no. 6, pp. 4—5. 39. MS 1958, no. 9, frontispiece. 40. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 22.

41. Ibid. 42. Ai Zhongxin, “Jiaoxue zhaji—zhongyang meishu xueyuan youhuaxi zai Shijingshan Moshikoucun shidian jiaoxue zhong de yixie tihui” (Notes on teaching—the CAFA oil painting department test site at Moshikou village, Shijingshan), Meishu yanjiu, 1960, no. I, pp. 3-7. 43. Interview with HH. 44. “Meishu jiaoyu lai yige dayuejin” (Art education gets a great leap forward), MS 1958, no. 3, p. 7. 45. Interview with IH, who claimed that all the students were worker, peasant, and soldier children; and EA, who was admitted by recommendation from the middle school. It has not been possible to obtain official enrollment figures to verify statistics supplied by Zhou, but they are plausible. Biographical information supplied by artists in Xi’an indicates that such policies may also have been in effect at regional art colleges. 46. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 22. 47. Announcement in Meishu yanjiu, 1959, no. 2, p. 109. 48. Interview with JH. 49. Several students who went to Yunnan inform us that they went voluntarily, convinced that it was a beautiful place to live and work, but when they arrived were not given the jobs they had been promised. Artists who were sent to the northeast or northwest, by contrast, considered their assignments a form of persecution. 50. Many other organizations that produced propaganda were similarly hard hit. Liu Binyan claims that People’s Daily, for example, had an extremely high proportion of rightists (lecture, Ann Arbor, 1990). 51. Interviews with HH and ML. MN recalls that party members were particularly affected by such movements, but that nonparty members passed their time more peacefully.

52. “Lu Xun meishu xueyuan zai buduan yuejin” (The Lu Xun Academy of Arts ceaselessly leaps forward), MS 1960, no. 7, pp. 45-47. 53. Sun Cixi, “Dangdai yingxiong de gousi he goutu” (The idea and composition of Contemporary heroes), MS 1960 (Oct.—Nov.): 38—41. 54. It also appeared on the cover of China Reconstructs, August 1960. SH} Sulian meishujia zuopin zhanlanbui—youhua, diaosu, banbua (Exhibition of Soviet artists’ works—oils, sculpture, prints) (Beijing: Zhonghua renmin gongheguo duiwai wenhua lianluo weiyuanhui, n.d. [1957]), n.p. 56. Earlier portraits of Mao were known to the young artists. The most notable of these was Luo Gongliu’s 1951 Speaking at the Rectification Movement Meeting, which was painted for the Museum of Revolutionary History. For a reproduction, see Gaoju Maozhuxi de weida qizhi shengli qianjin, meishu zuopin xuan (Victoriously advance raising high the great banner of Chairman Mao, selected artworks) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1977), n.p. Luo’s image was one of the first in which Mao is pictured in profile with his arm outstretched. Ellen Laing has associated this convention, which was widely emulated by subsequent Chinese artists, with the iconography of Lenin; see Winking Owl, pp. 65-66.

NOTES TO PAGES 216-221 449 57. Zhu Jinlou informed us that plans to implement such a program had been discussed at Hangzhou in 1956, but were interrupted by the Anti-Rightist campaign; 1nterview, Hangzhou, 1990. 58. This system was not adopted by the academies in Guangzhou or Sichuan; interview with UU. 59. Other studios in Shanghai were run by Meng Guang and Ren Weiyin, a professor who returned to Shanghai from the Lu Xun Academy in Shenyang; interviews with MO, MQ, and AL. 60. Chinese students at the Repin Art Academy were assigned to studios in their third year. Of the three painters who matriculated in 1954, for example, Quan Shanshi and Xiao Feng were assigned to one professor’s studio, Lin Gang to another. 61. This studio was set up under direction of the Japanese-trained Wang Shikuo, who withdrew in order to complete his monumental drawing Bloody Clothes for the Museum of Revolutionary History. 62. The following analysis is taken from Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 62-64.

63. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 25. One of Xu’s few surviving works, painted in 1926, is reproduced in Tao Yongbai (ed.), Zhongguo youhua, pl. 11. 64. Ai Zhongxin, “Huajia Dong Xiwen de chuangzuo daolu he yishu suyang” (The creativity and artistic accomplishments of the painter Dong Xiwen), Meishu yanjiu, 1979, no. 1, p. 58.

65. The date has not been published, but all printmaking students we interviewed reported entering their studios in this year. 66. One version of his forty-eight knife strokes is reproduced in Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu (A look at mainland art from overseas) (Taibei: Yishujia chubanshe, 1987), pp. 247-248. 67. Interviews with HH and JJ. 68. Her classmate ML described the drawing program in similar terms. 69. Interview with EA.

70. Yang Mingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, shang, p. 165. A number of different versions of Li Kuchan’s unhappy career are in circulation. One, recounted by the artist to Joan Lebold Cohen and recorded in New Chinese Painting, p. 20, attributes his job placement to a visiting American. Others blame his problems on Jiang Feng’s policies toward guohua. Jiang Feng’s defenders believe that some of the harsh treatment Li is said to have suffered was a normal part of his responsibilities as a faculty member, including taking his turn to buy movie tickets for the students.

71. Interview with JJ. |

72. Interviews with HH and AA. 73. The students included Wang Huaiqing, Huang Guanyu, Hu Yongkai, Fu Jingshan, and Zhang Hongtu. Teachers were young, and included Lu Chen, Sun Zixi, Du Jian, Zhao Youping, and Wang Dejun. 74. Interviews with KK and LL. 75. In a 1986 interview, Huang Yongyu identified a student who entered the academy in 1959 and was assigned to his studio in 1961 as his best student. 76. Cai Ruohong, “Fangxiang yiding daolu biguang” (The direction is determined but the road should be broad), MS 1962, no. 2, p. 43. 77. Other participants were CAFA artists Ma Changli, Li Huaji, Liang Yulong, and Ge Weimo; Xin Mang, a cadre from the creation studio at the People’s Art Press; Liu Qing from the army; Gu Zhujun from Tianjin; Li Renjie from Sichuan; Xiang

450 NOTES TO PAGES 222~227 Ergong from Guangdong; Wei Lianfu from Manchuria; Tuo Musi from Inner Mongolia; Wu Yongnian; Dong Gang; and Fu Zhigui from Xi’an; and Yun Qicang from Hubei. 78. Interviews with D, DA, and DB. 79. Zhang was featured as Tintin’s friend Chang in Hergé’s classics The Blue Lotus (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984) and Tintin in Tibet (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975). Zhang, who was Hergé’s classmate and friend at art school in Brussels, helped research and execute the two volumes, which are filled with local color and autobiographical de-

tails. Le Lotus bleu was first published in a Belgian magazine in 1934-1935. Both works have been reissued in English translation. 80. Zhang Chongren, interview, Paris, 1990. 81. “Tan shuicai hua” (On watercolor painting), MS 1962, no. 5, pp. 61-69. 82. Other guohua teachers were Tang Yun, Yu Zhicai, and Ying Yeping.

83. “Meixie xiang fenhui he meishujia tichu changyi” (The artists association brings forth a proposal for branch associations and artists), MS 1958, no. 4, p. 5. Zhou Enlai’s 1959 warnings against the practice indicate that, in actuality, the old and the weak were required by zealous bureaucrats to engage in excessively strenuous work.

See Zhou Enlai yu wenyi, pp. 7-8. ,

84. MS 1958, no. 8, p. 4o. 85. China Reconstructs 7, no. 11 (Nov. 1958): 17. 86. MS 1958, no. 8, p. 40. 87. Ibid. 88. “Jiajia shige huhu hua” (Every home a poem, every household a painting), MS 1958, no. 9, p. 28. 89. This important phenomenon was discussed by Ellen Laing in Winking Owl, pp. 31-32, and in “Chinese Peasant Painting, 1958-1976: Amateur and Professional,” Art International 27, no. 1 (Jan.—Mar. 1984): I-12. 90. Peking Review, Sept. 23, 1958, p. 18.

, 91. One such album, exhibited in October 1990, is in the Nanjing Museum. 92. MS 1958, no. 4, p. §. 93. MS 1959, no. I1, p. 51. 94. For mention of the ill effect of this policy on industry and agriculture, see Parris Chang, Power and Policy in China, p. 106. 95. “Shoudu zhongguohua jie juxing dayuejin chuangzuo zhanlan” (The capital’s Chinese painting circles hold a Great Leap Forward creation exhibition), MS 1959, no.

I, p. II. 96. “Meixie Shanghai fenhui zhiding 1958 nian guihua” (CAA Shanghai branch sets 1958 plan), MS 1958, no. 4, p. 22. 97. “Shanghai meishujia zai yuejin” (Shanghai artists are leaping forward), MS

1958, no. 4, p. 16. |

98. MS 1958, no. 4, p. 23. There was a proliferation of organizations referred to as “preparatory committees” during this period. Most of them seem to have operated as full-fledged cultural institutions, even though formal approval of their existence had not yet been bestowed by the central authorities. 99. “Da yue jin” (The Great Leap Forward), MS 1958, no. 5, p. 19. 100. MS 1958, no. 8, p. 40.

ror. MS 1958, no. 5, p. 19. 102. Ibid. 103. Hua Junwu, “Qinianlai de huiwu gongzuo (1953—1960)” (Seven years of association work), MS 1960, nos. 8—9, p. 12. 104. Ibid. New branches were formally established in Shandong (MS 1959, no. 8,

NOTES TO PAGES 227—230 451 p. 50) and Heilongjiang (MS 1959, no. 1, p. 35). By 1960, branches existed in Jiangxi (MS 1959, no. 12, p. 14), Xinjiang (MS 1960, no. 1, p. 41), Qinghai, Guangdong, and Guangxi (ibid., p. 43), Hubei (MS 1960, no. 2, p. 35), and Anhui (MS 1960, no. 3, p. g). Areas with well-publicized art activities but no mention of local branches are Gansu and Liaoning (MS 1960, no. 1, pp. 41-42). 105. Among such examples are Zhang Fagen, an oil painter who rose from an editorial position to become vice-chairman of the Anhui branch of the CAA (interview); and Shi Lu, who became chief of the Xibei huabao (Northwest Pictorial) publishing house in about 1951 and in 1954 was selected as vice-chairman of the Xi’an branch. Li Shaoyan, who worked at Xinhua ribao (New China daily) in Sichuan became chairman of the Sichuan branch. 106. Hua Junwu, “Qinianlai de huiwu gongzuo,” p. 12. 107. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 27.

| 108. Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 31-32; interview with MP. 109. Xi Xiaopeng, “Chonglou guangxia weiwei daguan” (Splendid buildings make a grand sight), MS 1959, no. 12, pp. 39—44. Planning for the museum displays alone took more than seven months. Based on different Chinese sources, Wu Hung included the Chinese National Art Gallery in his List of Ten Great Buildings, “Official Space to Public Space: The Chinese Art Gallery,” Columbus, Ohio, October 9, 1993. According to Wu, no official list exists; presumably, more than ten new buildings were planned at the time. 110. The first exhibition at the new Chinese National Art Gallery opened on May 23, 1962, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Yan’an Talks. See “Quanguo meishujie relie jinian Mao Zedong tongzhi ‘Zai Yan’an wenyi zuotanhuishang de jianghua’ fabiao 20 zhounian” (National art circles ardently commemorate the twentieth anniversary of publication of Comrade Mao Zedong’s “Yan’an Talks on Literature and Arts”), MS 1962, no. 4, p. 4. 111. Laing, Winking Owl, p. 92n.9. 112. Xi Xiaopeng, “Chonglou guangxia,” p. 39. Much of the vast area of the palace compound consisted of unroofed courtyards, so was presumably excluded from this calculation. 113. Interviews with M, O, BI, and BJ. 114. Xi Xiaopeng, “Chonglou guangxia,” p. 39. 115. Hua Junwu, “Qinianlai de huiwu gongzuo,” p. 13. 116. Discussion of the commission appears in Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue, “Wanfang gewusheng zhong tantan women chuangzuo ‘Jiangshan ruci duojiao’ de diandi tihui” (Discussions, amid the sounds of song and dance everywhere, of realizations made while creating This Land So Rich in Beauty), MS 1959, no. 10, p. 14; and Guan Zhendong, “Qingman guanshan—Guan Shanyue zhuan” (Feeling fills the passes and mountains—a biography of Guan Shanyue), RMRB, overseas edition, Aug. 2—3, 1989. Fu and Guan record the project as lasting about two months. Guan Zhendong claims that the revised version was made in about two weeks. On such statistical questions we will defer to Fu and Guan’s nearly contemporary account. 117. MS 1959, no. I2, p. 40. 118. The poem, written in 1936, appears in many collections, including the bilingual Mao Zedong Poems (Beijing: Commercial Press, 1976), pp. 46-49. 119. If the painting did not appear so labored, it might be equally possible that their claim was false modesty, since public deference to party authority was advisable. A Shanghai painter claims that during the late Cultural Revolution period it became standard practice for artists to make obvious and easily correctable formal mistakes so

452 NOTES TO PAGES 230-241 that the party officials would not come up with more difficult compositional or political suggestions for revisions. Interview with X. 120. Mao Zedong Poems, pp. 46-49. 121. Fu Baoshi huaji (Nanjing: Jiangsu meishu chubanshe, 1985), pl. 57. Guan’s painting has been studied by Arnold Chang, Painting in the People’s Republic, pp. 5157; and by Ellen Laing, Winking Owl, chap. 4 passim, and pp. 77-78. 122. Guan Zhendong, “Qingman guanshan,” Aug. 2, 1989. 123. Ibid., Aug. 3, 1989. 124. The album, owned by the Nanjing Museum, was exhibited at the museum in October 1990. 125. The work was exhibited in the Second National Art Exhibition of 1955; see Dierjie quanguo meishu zhanlanhui, no. 210. 126. James Cahill makes a similar but more elaborate argument for Western influence in seventeenth-century painting in Compelling Image. For the Japanese influence on Guan and fellow artists of the Lingnan school, see Croizier, Art and Revolution. 127. Unfortunately, signs of previous repairs and the buckling of the painting evident in the fall of 1990 testify to the fact that, tough as it is, Chinese paper is less suitable than canvas to the stresses of prolonged public exposure. 128. Cohen, New Chinese Painting, pp. 25-26, refers to this trend. x29. Julia K. Murray’s research has shown that early Southern Song emperors commissioned many illustrations to literary texts that might support their claims to dynastic legitimacy. For one example of Murray’s work, see “Ts’ao Hstin and Two Southern Song History Scrolls,” Ars Orientalis 15 (1985): 1-29. Many depictions of auspicious natural phenomena, intended as comments on the virtuous rule of the current emperor, have been produced since Han times. For a study of an early phase in this development, see Wu Hung, The Wu Family Shrine: The Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989).

130. See Laing, Winking Owl, p. 36, for further material about the painting’s symbolism.

131. A well-known artistic example is the recorded portrait of the official Xie Kun, who was depicted by the portraitist Gu Kaizhi in a Jandscape setting. The most useful study of this tradition is by Shou-chien Shih, “The Mind Landscape of Hsieh Yu-yu,” in Images of the Mind: Selections from the Edward L. Elliott Collections of Chinese Calligraphy and Painting at the Art Museum, Princeton University, ed. Wen C. Fong (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1984), pp. 237-254. For a literary text referring to Xie Kun, see Liu I-ch’ing, A New Account of Tales of the World, trans. Richard Mather (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1976), pp. 253-254. 132. See, for example, Barbara Novak, Nature and Culture: American Landscape and Painting, 1825-1875 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). 133. His painting for the Great Hall of the People was entitled Watering Horses at the Yan River; see Shi Lu buiguzhan, “Nianbiao” (Chronology), n.p. 134. One can indeed see the influence of Shitao, the seventeenth-century individualist, in Fighting in Northern Shaanxi. It is most notable in the brushwork of the mountain contours, but may have affected the overall composition as well. Nevertheless, such influence is quite faint, and it is not a very significant element in the work as a whole.

135. Biographical material from Yang Mingsheng (ed.), Zhongguo xiandai huajia zhuan, xia, pp. 464—471. 136. Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 599.

NOTES TO PAGES 241-254 453 137. Interview with Jin Shangyi. The work was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. According to an incomplete list in the Red Guard periodical Meishu fenglei, no. 1 (1967): 10, the exhibition planning committee included Qian Junrui, Deng Tuo, and Qi Yanming. 138. Meishu fenglei, no. 1 (1967): 10-12. 139. The painting was exhibited at the Museum of Revolutionary History during the fall of 1990. 140. For Ellen Laing’s excellent discussion of the political significance of the Red Guard attack on this painting in 1967, see Winking Owl, pp. 38-39. 141. Meishu fenglei, no. 1 (1967): 10-14. 142. Qualitative considerations Jead us to reject the claim by Yang Mingsheng

that Luo’s training at the National Hangzhou Arts Academy was irrelevent to his development. Moreover, Yang’s implication that Luo had never painted in oils before executing Tunnel Warfare is incredible. Luo’s 1951 Mao Zedong Presenting the Rectification Report, exhibited at the Museum of Revolutionary History in the fall of 1990, displays great technical skill. For Yang Mingsheng’s view, see Zhongguo xiandat huajia zhuan, xia, p. §93. 143. Reproduced in James Cahill, Distant Mountains, pls. 41-44; and in Osvald Siren, Chinese Painting: Leading Masters and Principles, 7 vols. (New York: Ronald Press, 1956-1958), vol. 6, pls. 67-72. 144. Interviews with BJ, BI, and BK. 145. The information in this section is taken largely from Jiang Weipu, “Zhongguo xin lianhuanhua yishu de sishinian,” pp. 9-14; Wu Zhaoxiu, “Yiwei didi daodao de lianhuanhuajia” (A true serial picture artist), in Lianhuanhua yishu, ser. no. 11 (1989, no. 3): 55-69; OQuanguo lianhuanhua huojiang zuopinxuan; and interviews with AP, S, and R. 146. Attributed to Zhang Zeduan, this highly detailed handscroll is in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing. See Zhongguo lidai huihua, Gugong bowuyuan canghuaji (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1981), 2:60—61.

147. “Jiangsu sheng zhongguohua zhanlanhui zaijing zhanchu” (The Jiangsu province Chinese painting exhibition is displayed in the capital), MS 1959, no. 1, p. 9. 148. D.W. Fokkema, Literary Doctrine in China and Soviet Influence, 1956—-

1960 (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), pp. 196-202. Fokkema argues that Zhou Yang obscured the Soviet underpinnings of the “union of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism” in order to urge a more Chinese approach to literature. While such an approach was politically appropriate during a period when China deviated from Soviet economic models, one of its primary side effects was a more positive evaluation of classical Chinese poetry. 149. The date of the exhibition is from Fu Baosht huaji, nianpu, n.p. 150. Ouyang Huilin, “Jiangsu zhongguohua de ‘Bathua qifang, tuichen chuxin’ (Jiangsu Chinese painting’s “Hundred flowers bloom at once, weed out the old to bring forth the new”), MS 1959, no. 1, p. 2. 151. Fu Baoshi, “Zhengzhi guale shuai, bimo jiou butong—cong Jiangsu sheng zhongguohua zhanlanhui tanqi” (With politics in command, brush and ink are different—comments inspired by the Jiangsu province Chinese painting exhibition), MS 1959, no. 1, pp. 4-5. 152. For discussion of such projects at the courts of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, see Maxwell Hearn, “Document and Portrait: the Southern Tour Paintings of

Kangxi and Qianlong,” Phoebus (Tucson) 6, no. 1 (1988): special issue entitled “Chinese Painting Under the Qianlong Emperor.”

454 NOTES TO PAGES 254-261 153. QOtan Songyan huaxuan (Selected paintings of Qian Songyan) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1984), no. 1. 154. Jiangsu sheng guohua zhanlanbui. 155. Fu Baoshi, “Zhengzhi guale shuai, bimo jiou butong,” p. 5. 156. Fokkema, Literary Doctrine, p. 199. 1§7. Fu Baoshi, “Zhengzhi guale shuai, bimo jiou butong,” p. 5. 158. Fu Baoshi huaji, 1958, as referred to in Fu Baoshi huaji (1985), nianpu, n.p. 159. Interview with MR. 160. Speech by Yu Jigao, Jiangsu Painting Institute, October 21, 1990, and interview with Wu Linsen, Nanjing, 1990. 161. Fu Baoshi huaji (1985), nianpu. 162. MS 1960, no. 5, p. 55. 163. Interview with MR. 164. Fu Baoshi buaji (1985), nianpu. 165. Among Fu Baoshi’s early art historical writings on Ming and Qing painting are Shitao nianpu gao (Draft chronology of Shitao, 1936), Shitao congkao (Study on Shitao, 1937), Datizi tihua shiba jiaobu (Collated and annotated inscriptions on paintings by Shitao, 1937), Shitao hualun zhi yanjiu (Research on Shitao’s painting theory, 1937), Shitao shengzu kao (A study of Shitao’s dates, 1937), and Zhongguo Mingmo minzu yiren zhuan (Biographies of late-Ming nationalist artists, 1939). List from Fu Baoshi huaji (1985), nianpu.

166. See Cahill, Compelling Image, pp. 146-183. See also Cahill’s sources (p. 236n.9), including the pioneering article on the Nanjing school by Aschwinn Lippe, “Kung Hsien and the Nanking School,” Oriental Art, n.s., 2, no. I (1956): 3-113 4, no. 4 (1958): 3~14; and William Ding Yee Wu, “Kung Hsien (ca. 1619-1689)” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1979). For Gong Xian’s political concerns, which were an additional aspect of his appeal to Fu Baoshi, see Liu Gangji, Gong Xian (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1962); and Jerome Silbergeld, “Political Symbolism in the Landscape Painting and Poetry of Kung Hsien (c. 1620-1689)” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1974). 167. Fu Baoshi huaji (1985), nianpu.

168. Xiao Ping, Ya Ming’s biographer, records that the Jiangsu Provincial Painting Institute was founded in 1957, with Ya Ming as vice-director. In fact, the institute was not formally established until several years later. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that Ya Ming played a key role in administering the as yet unofficial but very active organization, probably functioning for all practical purposes as its vice-director. See Ya Ming Hua Ji (Nanjing: Jinling shuhua she, 1982).

169. Reproduced in MS 1959, no. 1, p. 23; and in Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanjt, pl. 95; and discussed in Andrews, “Traditional Painting in New China,” pp. §70-§71. 170. The museum accession number, 12.886, indicates that the painting was acquired in 1912. 171. MS 1956, no. 2, p. 15. 172. The painting’s full title is Yingxi huolang tu (Playing Children and Peddler).

It is reproduced, with discussion by Sherman E. Lee, in Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting: Collections of the Nelson Gallery—Atkins Museum, Kansas City, and The Cleveland Museum of Art, ed. Sherman Lee and Wai-kam Ho (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), no. 35. For a good study of Li Song, see Ellen Johnston Laing, “Li Sung and Some Aspects of Southern Sung Figure Painting,” Artibus Asiae 37, nos. 1-2 (1975): 5-38.

NOTES TO PAGES 262~—267 455 173. For a list of known paintings by Li Song, see James Cahill, An Index of Early Chinese Painters and Paintings: Tang, Sung, Yuan (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 119-120. 174. Modern Paintings in the Chinese Style, supplement to China Reconstructs, September 1960.

175. Siren, Chinese Painting, vol. 3, pls. 11-15. 176. “Yanzhe wuchan jieji de yishu daolu yongmeng qianjin” (March boldly forward on the road of proletarian class arts), MS 1960, no. 7, pp. 41-44. 177. MS 1960, no. 7, pp. 45-54. 178. MS 1961, no. 4, p. 63. 179. Speech delivered on June 19, 1961; in Zhou Enlai yu wenyi, p. 15. 180. “‘Shanhe xinmao’ guanzhong yijian zhailu” (Excerpts from opinions of viewers to “New Look of Mountains and Rivers”), MS 1961, no. 4, p. 64. 181. The term is xinging shuchang, to have ease of mind; ibid., and Zhou Enlai yu wenyi, p. 5 (text of a speech delivered to arts leaders on May 3, 1959). 182. Ellen Laing considers the poetic quality to be one of the most important critical concepts of the period; see Winking Owl, pp. 40-47. 183. Yu Feng, “Kan ‘Shanhe xinmao’ huazhan suiji” (Notes on viewing the exhibition “New Look of Mountains and Rivers”), MS 1961, no. 4, p. 63; and “‘Shanhe xinmao’ guanzhong yijian zhailu,” ibid., p. 64. 184. Ellen Laing has discussed examples of Yan’an prints of the mid-1940s, such as those of Gu Yuan: “through simplifying the technique, reducing the number of lines used, and clarifying the composition, Gu Yuan devises a picture of great impact and directness of method” (Winking Owl, p. 15).

185. Li describes Ren as the chief secretary of the Leftist Alliance in 19308 Shanghai.

186. Ya Ming has similarly described the Nanjing leadership as good and as having somewhat deflected the impact of the Anti-Rightist campaign on Nanjing guohua painters. 187. The officers seem to have been printmakers as well. Li Shaoyan served as vice-chairman and, later, as chairman. Niu Wen was, for a time, head of the branch secretariat and vice-chairman. Wu Fan and Li Huanmin both served as vice-chairmen. See biographies in Zhongguo xinxing banhua wushinian, xia, pp. 24, 30, 34. 188. He stated that artists were actively encouraged by the leaders to make art, which was considered a revolutionary activity in itself. Through a concentration on talent, mutual help, and competition, local art was improved. Moreover, money was never a problem. Interview with MS. 189. “Zai hongzhuan jiehe de daolu shang qianjin” (Advancing on the road to the unity of red and expert), MS 1960, no. 7, pp. 53-54. 190. Twelve artists from the print group attended the meeting, and several others were model workers at the local level. 191. “Zai hongzhuan jiehe de daolu shang qianjin.” 192. One suspects that this statistic reflects Great Leap Forward amateurs, who may not have been important to the group’s long-term development. 193. The volume that I have seen is actually titled Sichuan banhua xuan, ed. Sichuan shinian wenxue yishu xuanji bianji weiyuan hui (Editorial Committee for Selections from Ten Years of Sichuan Literature and Art) (Chongqing: Sichuan People’s Press, 1960). 194. “Zai hongzhuan jiehe de daolushang gianjin.” 195. Some additional material on Li Shaoyan’s career may be found in Silbergeld,

456 NOTES TO PAGES 267-277 Contradictions, pp. 24, 25, 64. Other Sichuan printmakers appear as part of Silbergeld’s study of Sichuan guohua.

196. Li’s brother had studied at the Shanghai Art Academy, but his subsequent unemployment convinced the younger man to learn a more practical profession.

197. Biographical details from interview, 1986; and from Zhongguo xinxing banhua wushinian, xia, p. 34.

198. One knowledgeable source claims that he was director of the provincial propaganda department; interview with K. 199. The Southwestern Artists Association was founded in 1953 and the Sichuan

Artists Association in 1954; interview with MS. Jerome Silbergeld, whose source appears more complete, describes a period between 1954 and 1958 when the association was called Chongging Branch of the CAA, before it relocated to Chengdu and became the Sichuan Artists Association; see Contradictions, p. 223n.36. 200. They include Song Guangxun, who worked there from 1951 to 1954. Wu Fan also worked as an editor. Harriet Mills first brought the importance of the publishing houses as training grounds for Communist art administrators to my attention. 201. This style appears to have been widespread in the late forties and early fifties. 202. See Sichuan banhua xuan, ed. Chinese Artists Association, Sichuan Branch, and Sichuan Art Press (Chengdu: Sichuan Art Press, 1981), nos. §, 11, 22, 37, 61, 96. 203. Ibid., no. 27. This work has been published in Zhongguo xinxing banhua, xia, no. 274, as a work of 1960. 204. He was a member of the art work team of North China United University, as were classmates at CAFA, such as Wen Lipeng and Zhang Tongxia. 205. Interviews with MS, MT, and MU; Zhongguo xinxing banhua wushinian, xid, p. 34. 206. Li Shaoyan showed me a battered copy of Sulian banhua ji (Soviet prints), a reprint of Lu Xun’s compilation published by Chenguan (Dawn) Publishing in Shanghai

in 1949. The Lu Xun book was clearly very influential in the late forties and early fifties.

207. Wu Fan banhuaxuan (Selected prints of Wu Fan) (Chengdu: Sichuan Art Press, 1985), n.p. 208. See ibid. for reproductions. 209. Also reproduced and discussed in Laing, Winking Owl, pl. 5 and p. 17; and Silbergeld, Contradictions, pp. 172-173. 210. Laing, Winking Owl, p. 17.

211. Beidaihuang banhua sanshinian (Thirty years of Beidahuang prints) (Harbin: Heilongjiang People’s Press, 1988), p. 4. This source quotes an April 8 Politburo document describing the goals of the relocation program. 212. Ding Lihuai, “Guangyao de yishu daolu” (A brilliant artistic path), reprinted from RMRB, Nov. 11, 1960, in Beidaihuang banhua sanshinian, p. 49. The author was a party committee secretary for the Peony River Agricultural Reclamation Bureau at the time he wrote. 213. Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, p. 4. 214. Among the rightists who were sent to Beidahuang were the writers Ding Ling

and Ai Qing. Rightist artists included the former director and vice-director of the Northeast Academy of Art, Yang Jiao and Zhang Xiaofei; military artists Zhang Qinruo and Xu Jiecheng; a pioneer of Soviet-style propaganda painting, Hu Kao; a staff printmaker for Beijing People’s Publishing House, Zhang Lu; the traditional painter Huang Miaozi; the cartoonist Ding Cong, originally deputy editor of China Pictorial,

NOTES TO PAGES 277~—279 457 and Yin Shoushi, originally chief secretary of the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute. See

Zhang Zuoliang, “Heitu tieli kedao—beidahuang banhua sanshinian manyi” (Black soil, iron plow, woodcut knife—informal recollections of thirty years of Beidahuang prints), in Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 61-62; and Chao Mei, “Beidahuang banhua chuqi de chuangzuo huodong” (Creation activities in the early period of Beidahuang prints), reprinted from Wenshi ziliao (Materials on cultural history), in Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 76-77. 215. Zheng Kangxing, who was involved in establishing these cultural policies, attributes the success of the group to contributions of specific administrators. The initial inquiries were initiated by Wang Yuyin, the Agricultural Reclamation Bureau party committee vice-secretary and political department chief. Permission was granted by personnel and propaganda officials of the Agricultural Reclamation Ministry in Beijing. Policies were put into effect under the direction of Ding Lihuai, then culture and education secretary for the Agricultural Reclamation Bureau’s party committee. Zheng himself was vice-director of the party committee propaganda department for the Peony River Agricultural Reclamation Bureau. See Zheng Kangxin, “Zhuhe Beidahuang banhua sanshinian” (Best wishes after thirty years of Beidahuang prints), in Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 54-55. 216. Zhongguo xiandai meishujia mingjian, p. 289.

217. Chao Mei banhua (Prints by Chao Mei), preface by Gu Yuan (Harbin: Heilongjiang People’s Press, 1982), n.p.; and Zhang Zuoliang, “Heitu tieli kedao,” p. 63.

218. Art activity in other media was also taking place, but it never received the recognition accorded the printmakers. Photographs taken of the artists in their studio in 1959 show walls covered with socialist realist oil paintings; see Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 8—9. Moreover, artists who arrived in Beidahuang included some well-

known artists in other media, such as the guohua painter Yin Shoushi, who had served | as chief secretary of the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute. Hao Boyi, Zhang Zuoliang’s protégé, worked in oils during his early years in Heilongjiang. See Zhang Zuoliang, “Heitu tieli kedao,” pp. 61, 64. 219. Chao Mei, “‘“Beidahuang’? chuangkanhao fengmian jishi” (Records of the cover of Beidahuang Pictorial’s inaugural issue), reprinted from Beidahuang Pictorial, 1984, no. 2, in Beidahuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 92-96. 220. Unless otherwise noted, the chronology below is taken from Beidabuang banhua sanshinian, pp. 4-13. 221. Zheng Kangxing, “Zhuhe Beidahuang banhua sanshinian,” p. 54. 222. Banhua, ser. no. 16 (Apr. 2.4, 1959, no. 2): 24. 223. Banbua, ser. no. 18 (Aug. 24, 1959, no. 4): 37. 224. Shinianlai banhua xuanji (Selected prints of the past decade) (Shanghai: People’s Art Press, 1959), no. 159. 225. They included Zhang Lu, Hao Boyi, Yin Shoushi, Xu Jiecheng, Zhang Qinruo, Du Hongnian, and Xu Leng.

226. “Xinxin xiangrong de dongbei sansheng meishu chuangzuo” (Flourishing artistic creation in the three northeastern provinces), MS 1959, no. 9, p. 33. 227. Zhang Zuoliang, “Heitu tieli kedao,” p. 70. 228. Zheng Kangxing, “Zhuhe Beidahuang banhua sanshinian,” p. 52.

229. Zheng Kangxing describes borrowing money to pay the cultural workers salaries in ibid, p. 55.

230. Opinions from the symposium were published in Guangming ribao on De-

458 NOTES TO PAGES 279-287 cember 13, 1960, along with Wang Zhaowen’s speech, entitled “Zhengfu huangyuan” (Control the wilderness). 231. The exhibition, which opened August 30, 1961, was entitled “Prints from

the Peony River Reclamation District.” | 232. Beidahuang banhuaxuan (Selected prints from Beidahuang) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1962).

233. One source estimates that by 1978, 25 to 35 percent of the population of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, and Qinghai provinces comprised recent migrants and their children; see Frederica M. Bunge and Rinn-sup Shinn, China: A Country Study (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981), p. 62. 234. Banhua, ser. no. 16 (Apr. 24, 1959, no. 2): 3. 235. Russian and Soviet Painting: An Exhibition from the Museums of the USSR Presented at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Fine Arts Museums

of San Francisco (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art/Rizzoli International, 1977), Pp. 127.

236. A young woman from Sichuan reportedly made her decision to go to Heilongjiang upon reading the first issue of Beidahuang Pictorial. 237. Preface to Shi Lu zuopin xuanji (Selected works of Shi Lu), ed. Ping Ye (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1983), sec. 3.

238. The Xi’an branch of the CAA was the forerunner of the current Shaanxi branch of the CAA.

239. This biography is taken from Ling Hubiao, “Zhao Wangyun shengping jilue” (Brief biography of Zhao Wangyun), Duoyun, no. 13 (1987): 151-158; and idem, “Zhao Wangyun nianbiao” (Chronology of Zhao Wangyun), in Meishu tongxun, special issue entitled “Zhao Wangyun xiansheng jinian wenji” (Anthology to commemorate Zhao Wangyun) (Shaanxi: CAA Shaanxi Branch, 1987), pp. 52—59, unless otherwise noted. 240. Zhao Wangyun, Zhao Wangyun saishang xiesheng ji (Sketches from the border) (n.p., 1934); James E. Sheridan, Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yu-hsiang (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), pp. 273-274, records that Zhao and Feng collaborated on at least two such books. Sheridan (p. 361) mentions one I have not seen: Zhao Wangyun nongcun xiesheng ji (Tianjin, 1934). 241. Ling Hubiao, “Zhao Wangyan nianbiao,” p. 53.

242. His work unit was part of the Cultural Section of the Northwest Military Administrative Committee.

243. Provincial cultural bureaus were extremely important. They transmitted orders from the Ministry of Culture in Beijing as well as from their provincial governments.

244. Twenty-four pictures were published in Zhao Wangyun Shi Lu Aiji Xieshenghua xuanji (Sketches of Egypt by Zhao Wangyun and Shi Lu) (Xi’an: Chang’an Art Press, 1957).

245. For a chronology of his career, see Shi Guo’s contribution in Shi Lu Huiguzhan, n.p. 246. Even Wang Zhaowen later described this work as “immature”; see “Tansuo

zaitansuo” (Explore and explore), MS 1963, no. 6, pp. 8-12. This essay also serves as the preface to Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, which, though originally printed in 1964, was never distributed because of political questions. 247. Ling Hubiao, in the volume he edited, Shi Lu xuehualu (Shi Lu’s record on studying painting) (Xi’an: Shaanxi People’s Art Press, 1985), p. 75, states that Shi Lu

NOTES TO PAGES 287-298 459 was interested primarily in Western forms of art until after his trips to Egypt and India, an opinion that Shi Lu’s extant works would confirm. 248. He was identified as chairman of the Xian branch of the CAA in MS 1958, no. 8, p. 40.

249. “Jiaqiang wenyi xiuyang, tigao chuangzuo zhiliang—zuotanhui jiyao” (Strengthen literary and arts cultivation, raise creation standards—conference proceedings), MS 1959, no. 9, pp. 10-12. 250. Shi Lu, “Gaoju Mao Zedong wenyi sixiang de gizhi; pandeng wuchan jieji yishu de gaofeng” (Raise high the banner of Mao Zedong’s thought on literature and art, climb the peak of proletarian art), MS 1960, no. 4, pp. 7-10.

251. This appears to target exposé literature, such as that by the rightists Liu Binyan and Wang Meng. 252. Fokkema, Literary Doctrine, 1965. 253. Reproduced in Shi Lu xuehualu, unnumbered plate. 254. “Xinyi xinging—xXi’an meixie zhongguohua yanjiushi xizuozhan zuotanhui jilu” (New meaning, new feelings—proceedings of the conference about the Xian CAA Chinese Painting Research Center’s exhibition of studies), MS 1961, no. 6, pp. 21-29. 255. Reproduced in MS 1961, no. 6, p. 33. 256. Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu zhanlanhui zhuanji, vol. 2, no. 102. 257. Interview, Beijing, 1990. Also see “He Haixia nianbiao,” Zhongguohua yanjiu, no. 5 (Sept. 1988): 64.

258. “He Haixia nianbiao,” p. 64. 259. Shi Lu xuehualu, pp. 45-46. 260. “Xinyl xinging,” p. 27. 261. Wang Zhaowen, “Zaizai tansuo,” sec. 4. Wang gives no source for this statement, but an article by Yan Lichuan, “Lun ‘Ye, guai, luan, hei’—jian tan yishu pinglun wenti” (A discussion of “Wild, weird, chaotic, and black”—-and on problems in art criticism), MS 1963, no. 4, pp. 20—24, is one example. 262. Wang Zhaowen, “Zaizai tansuo,” sec. 4. 263. A 1964 figure in this style is reproduced in Shi Lu huiguzhan, no. 8. 264. Interviews with MV and MW. Lawrence Wu is currently studying his art and insanity. 265. Interview with MX. 266. Ouanguo meishu zhanlanhui—jinian Mao Zedong tongzhi zai Yan’an wenyi

zuotanhui shang de jianghua fabiao ershi zhou nian, 1942-1962 (National Art Exhibition—in commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Comrade Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talks on Literature and Arts) (exhibition checklist) (Beijing: Ministry of Culture/CAA, 1962). 267. MS 1962, no. 4, p. 56. 268. See Laing’s discussion of this exhibition, Winking Owl, pp. 51-52; and “Lin Fengmian huazhan guanzhong yijian zhailu” (Excerpts from the opinions of viewers to the Lin Fengmian exhibition), MS 1963, no. 4, pp. 37-38.

269. Dong Xiwen, “Huahui de secai wenti” (The problem of color in painting), MS 1962, no. 2, pp. 21-27. 270. Wu Guanzhong, “Tan Fengjinghua” (On landscape painting), MS 1962, no. 2, pp. 27-28. 271. Li Shu [pen name of Li Shusheng], “Woguo zuizao de jiwei youhua jia” (Our nation’s earliest oil painters), MS 1962, no. 4, pp. 68—69. 272. The following biography is largely taken from Sun Meilan, “Li Keran nian-

460 NOTES TO PAGES 299-309 biao” (Chronology of Li Keran), Duoyun, no. 7 (Nov. 1984): 123-126. See Chu-tsing Li, Trends, pp. 136-141, for another discussion of his work. 273. They are (as cited in Sun Meilan, “Li Keran nianbiao,” p. 25) “Tan yishu shijian zhong de kugong” (On the hard work of artistic practice), RMRB, Apr. 1960; and “Shanshui hua de yijing” (The conceptual realm of landscape painting), RMRB, June 1960.

274. Anumber of his paintings were reproduced in MS 1959, no. 9. 275. Anexample is Ferry at Yangshuo, reproduced in MS 1959, no. 5, p. §3. 276. MS 1959, no. 9, p. 26.

277. Du Zhesen, “Li Keran he ta de yishu fengge” (Li Keran and his artistic style), Meishu yanjiu, 1990, no. 1, p. 7. 278. Interviews with NA, W, and MM. 279. The following biographical discussion is based on the research of Dai Xiaojing, “Yanyu gongyang taoxie jiangshan: Wu Hufan zhuanliie” (Nurtured by clouds, painting fine streams and mountains), Duoyun, no. 10 (May 1986): 138-160. 280. Huang was his maternal first cousin. 281. MS 1956, no. 6, p. 36. 282. The work was displayed in a retrospective exhibition of Wu’s painting held in Shanghai in the fall of 1981. 283. Interview with Cheng Shifa, Shanghai, 1990. 284. Interview with MM. 285. See Christoph Harbsmeier, The Cartoonist Feng Zikai: Social Realism with a Buddhist Face (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1984). 286. Interview with MM.

287. The date given here was supplied by a participant in the program. A published account refers to an effort conducted in “1961 and after”; see Wu Xiu, “Beijing huayuan sanshinian” (Thirty years of the Beijing Painting Institute), Zhongguohua yanjiu, no. 5 (Sept. 1988): 94. Academically trained graduates of CAFA, CAAC, and Beijing Arts College (Beijing yishu xueyuan, an institution that was disbanded soon after) made up the younger staff members of the Beijing Painting Institute. 288. Interview with EA. 289. Wu Xiu, “Beijing huayuan sanshinian,” p. 94. 290. Spence, Search for Modern China, pp. 590-596. 291. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 173-177. 292. Yan Lichuan, “Lun ‘Ye, guai, luan, hei,’” pp. 20-24. 293. I have not matched these two titles with known works, although further research might identify them with reproductions listed in Ellen Johnston Laing, An Index to Reproductions of Paintings by Twentieth-Century Chinese Artists, Asian Studies Program, publication no. 6 (Eugene: University of Oregon, June 1984). 294. “Lin Fengmian huazhan guanzhong yijian zhailu.” 295. Interview with JJ. 296. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103. 297. This school originated in the art department of Beijing Normal University. The department was transferred to the newly established Beijing Normal College of Arts in 1956. Six years later, in 1962, the schoo] name was simplified to Beijing Arts College. See Zhang Anzhi huaji (A collection of paintings by Zhang Anzhi) (Beijing: Guoji wenhua chubanshe, 1991), pp. 112-115; and, with a slightly different rendering

of the school names, Anne Farrer, with Michael Sullivan and Mayching Kao, Wu Guanzhong: A Twentieth-Century Chinese Painter (London: British Museum, 1992), pp. 41-43.

NOTES TO PAGES 309-316 461 298. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 161. 299. Ibid., p. 173. 300. Ibid., p. 161. 301. Interview with NC. The works were exhibited in 1964. 302. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103.

303. Although former students described CAFA as an “experimental site,” it is difficult to see how CAFA activities differ from rectification campaigns conducted in other cultural units in Beijing, some of which were run by the same officials who organized the CAFA rectification. See Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 173-181. The difference, if one existed, might be the way in which students were urged to attack the leaders. Student activism, of course, foreshadows the Cultural Revolution, but was an important part of the Anti-Rightist campaign and earlier rectification movements. 304. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 25-26. 305. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 214. 306. Interviews with JJ and AN. 307. Interview with BB and OO. 308. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 26. 309. Information from H. 310. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 26. 311. Ibid. 312. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 177, citing RMRB, June 4, 1967, and Guangming ribao, June 2, 1967. 313. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 28. 314. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103. 315. Interview with HH.

. 6. The Cultural Revolution v, Some Western historians, such as Maurice Meisner, use the term “Cultural Revolution” to refer to the period between 1966 and 1969 only; see Mao’s China: A History of the People’s Republic (New York: Free Press, 1977), pp. 311-339. We follow the convention used by historians in China, as exemplified by Gao Gao and Yan Jiagi, Wenhua dageming shinianshi (A history of the decade of the Cultural Revolution) (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Press, 1986), that it refers to the last ten years of Mao Zedong’s life. An English version of Gao and Yan’s book, Yen Chia-chi and Kao Kao, The Ten-Year History of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, was published in Taiwan in 1988 by the Institute of Current China Studies and is cited in some of the references to follow.

2. Interview with I, who reports having helped his teacher destroy the paintings. The washboard method of destroying paintings was used by other terrified artists who feared that burning them would attract attention. See Guan Liang hutyi lu (Guan Liang’s reminiscences), ed. Lu Guanfa (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 1984), pp. 116-117. 3. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huibuashi, p. 287.

4. Land reform teams used techniques such as hanging landladies by their thumbs and summary executions of landlords as part of their “thought reform.” Interviews with H and WW.

383. ]

462. NOTES TO PAGES 316-319

5. An outline history of this period appears in Meisner, Mao’s China, pp. 360—

6. Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 58—61, summarizes doctrinal questions we will not

discuss here.

7. Hong Yung Lee has argued that the Cultural Revolution can “be best described as Mao’s attempt to resolve the basic contradictions between the egalitarian view of Marxism and the elitist tendencies of Leninist organizational principles”; see The Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: A Case Study (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), p. 3.

8. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 28-29. It is rumored that this very thorough chronology was compiled by professional art historians from CAFA. Some analysts, including Gao Gao and Yan Jiaqi, date the beginning of the Cultural Revolution to an attack published by Yao Wenyuan on November 10, 1965, against the play The Dismissal of Hai Rut. This event was reportedly masterminded by Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao against proponents of mild liberalization. See Yen and Kao, Ten-Year His-

tory, pp. 2-II. ,

9. For reproductions of this work see Laing, Winking Owl, fig. 60. 1o. For discussion of the two conflicting documents see Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 198-202. 11. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 29; Yen and Kao, Ten-Year History, p. 17. 12. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, pp. 210-211, 313-316. 13. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 29. 14. Ibid. 15. Yen and Kao, Ten-Year History, p. 20. 16. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 29. 17. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 215; Meisner, Mao’s China, p. 312. 18. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 219.

19. Ibid., pp. 219-220. 20. Meisner, Mao’s China, p. 313. 21. Ibid., p. 314. This event was commemorated by many Red Guard paintings. One such anonymous guohua, executed in a style derived from that of Jiang Zhaohe or Li Qi (see figs. 50 and 66), was probably painted by an art student at CAFA or one of the major art academies. See China Reconstructs, 1968, no. 2, front cover. 22. Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 207. 23. RMRB, Sept. 12, 1966, as summarized in CNRP, no. 139, p. 2. 24. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 27. 25. Interview with the artist, Beijing, 1990. 26. Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 63-64, cites attacks on Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Jiang Feng, Shao Yu, Wo Zha, Huang Miaozi, Ye Qianyu, Zhang Ding, Hu Kao, Zhang Guangyu, Zhang Zhengyu, Yu Feng, Ding Cong, Wu Zuoren, Guo Weiqu, Pan Tianshou, and Chen Banding. 27. RMRB, Jan. 11, 1967, as summarized in CNRP, no. 154, pp. 4—5. For further discussion of the charges against Huang, Cai, and Hua, see Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 63-64. 28. Other key images of the movement were model operas, developed under Jiang Qing’s supervision, and propaganda photographs. See Jiang Qing’s own photographs, published under her pseudonym, Jun Ling, in China Pictorial, 1971, nos. 7-8, PP. 3, 22-23, 4I.

NOTES TO PAGES 319-325 463 29. Interview with a member of the East Is Red painting team (XX). A color photograph of Jinggang Mountain Red Guard making a room-size poster appears in China Pictorial, 1967, no. 11, p. 16. Groups bearing this name were found at other institutions, including Qinghua University, Beijing Normal University, and the Being Conservatory of Music; see Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, pp. 210212, 21§—-217.

30. At least three of the students who participated have become successful painters in China and abroad; interview with LL. 31. Interview with QQ. 32. An excellent discussion of the debate, with emphasis on the pro-bloodlines

faction, may be found in Gao Gao and Yan Jiagi, Wenhua dageming shinianshi, pp. ro1—106. Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, pp. 68-84, analyzes the complex political undercurrents to the debate on class origin.

| 33. Laozi yingxiong zi haohan; laozi fandong zi hundan; translation modified from Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, p. 72. 34. Gao and Yan, Wenhua dageming shinianshi, p. 103. 35. Interview with HH. Both CAFA and the Central Academy of Music are located in central Beijing, not far from Tiananmen Square, and make convenient staging areas for mass mobilizations. 36. Interview with HH.

37. Sing Tao Daily, Nov. 16, 1966, as summarized in CNRP, no. 147, pp. 6-7.

38. Meisner, Mao’s China, p. 316; Ahn, Chinese Politics and the Cultural Revolution, p. 228.

39. Laing, Winking Owl, p. 65, lists several 1967 exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai, including “Long Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line,” “The January Revolution,” “Long Live Mao Zedong’s Thought,” “The Red Sun,” and a Red Guard exhibition at People’s Art Press. 40. Information supplied by H. 41. Interview with AA.

| 42. Interviews with HH, AA, and OO. Drawing the nude human figure, another important part of the curriculum, had already been banned as part of the Socialist Education Movement of 1965. The records on this are somewhat confused. Strong efforts to ban the practice were made in July 1965, on the grounds that it isolated students from the workers, peasants, and soldiers. The Meishu fenglei account (no. 3 [1967]: 28) states that the controversy was presented to Mao, who deemed the practice

acceptable in spite of its drawbacks. Wang, Wang, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 104, report that it was banned in 1965. The question became moot once the schools were closed.

43. Those who did not join the movement, referred to as the xiaoyaopai (carefree faction), passed their days idly with their hobbies, in specialized self-study, or en-

gaged in other private amusements after their schools closed. Many children were left | unsupervised after their parents were taken away. 44. For photographs of some such groups, see China Reconstructs, 1967, no. 2, p. 7. 45. Interview with KK.

46. Interview with WX. :

47. Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, p. 165. 48. Although they undoubtedly survive in private hands, Red Guard periodicals

464 NOTES TO PAGES 326-332 from other Beijing arts groups have not yet come to light. The two competing factions at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts are reported to have each published its own newspaper. 49. See chapter 2, note 32, for the source of this name.

50. Meishu fenglet, no. 1 (1967): I. 51. Ibid., p. 3. 52. Ibid., p. 5. 53. Ibid., pp. 18-19. The painting is reproduced in MS 1965, no. 2. 54. Meishu fenglei, no. 1 (1967): 12-13. 55. Ibid., p. 20. I have not seen Meishu zhanbao, if copies survive. 56. Ibid., pp. 20-21. 57. The group was referred to as Erliutang; ibid., p. 21. See also Laing, Winking Owl, p. 63. 58. The Wenshiguan system protected old scholars of exceptional talent. For discussion of artists who worked in the Wenshiguan, see Silbergeld, Contradictions, pp. 59-63; and Sullivan, Chinese Art in the Twentieth Century (forthcoming rev. ed.). 59. Meishu fenglei, no. 2 (1967): 5—8. 60. Ibid., p. 24. 61. Ibid., p. 24. 62. For the formation of the new art group, see ibid., outside pages; for Zhou Yang, see no. 3, p. 33. 63. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 33. 64. Interview with KK. 65. RMRB, Mar. 3, 5, 1967, reported that ten thousand Red Guard representatives assembled in the Great Hall of the People on February 22 to form a Peking University and College Red Guard Congress; summarized in CNRP. Zhou Enlai attended the event, which reportedly united three groups of revolutionary Red Guard; see “Congress of Red Guards Formed in Peking,” South China Morning Post, Mar. 3, 1967, as reproduced in CNRP. 66. See Hong Yung Lee’s excellent discussion of these battles, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, pp. 204-222. 67. Interview with KK. 68. Wang, Wang, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103. 69. Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, pp. 222-229.

70. The most gruesome example combines the political with the personal. According to a classmate, one CAFA graduate who worked at the National History Museum and his wife, a musician, joined different political factions. When the graduate became involved with another woman, his wife threatened to report his personal and political activities. He responded by murdering her and their baby and was subsequently executed himself.

71. South China Morning Post, May 16, 1967, as reported in CNRP, no. 170; Lee, Politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, p. 217.

72. Interviews with HH and QQ. 73. Interview with AA. 74. CNRP, no. 160, p. 5. 75. South China Morning Post, Feb. 24, 1967, as reproduced in CNRP, no. 159. The report is attributed to the Peking correspondent of the Sankei Shinbun. 76. The attribution to Weng Rulan was made by former colleagues and classmates and has been verified by the artist. It has been widely reproduced in the West. See

NOTES TO PAGES 332-339 465 Chi Hsin, Teng Hsiao-ping—a Political Biography (Hong Kong: Cosmos Books, 1978);

Rius and Friends, Mao for Beginners (New York: Pantheon Books, 1980); and the front cover to China Spring, no. 21 (Mar. 1985).

77. The version reproduced here was given to Weng Rulan by Nathan Sivin, who received it free with a book purchase. 78. Interview with the artist, Philadelphia, 1987. 79. Her painting, Goodbye, Uncle Peasant, is reproduced in Zhong-Su shaonian ertong tubua xuanji (Selected Chinese and Soviet youth and children’s paintings) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1956), p. 4.

80. Some students seem to have been admitted irregularly, because the former director, Ding Jingwen, reports that the standard curriculum for the Soviet program was seven years and for the Chinese version four years; interview, 1990. The two artists we mention here attended for six and five years, respectively. 81. it is possible that the curriculum changed between the two artists’ tenures at CAFA, but its general outlines seem to have remained constant. 82. Interview with LL. 83. Stanley Karnow, Mao and China: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 242; Union Research Institute, CCP Documents of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966—1967 (Hong Kong: Union Press, n.d.),

pp. 31-32. 84. Karnow, Mao and China, pp. 326-331, describes a Red Guard inquisition on April 10, 1966, at which she was forced to wear the infamous garments.

85. See Gao Gao and Yan Jiaqi’s discussion of the origins and demise of the United Action Committee (Liandong), Wenhua dageming shinianshi, pp. 101-119. 86. Karnow, Mao and China, pp. 257-258. 87. Gao Gao and Yan Jiagi, Wenhua dageming shinianshi, p. 119. 88. “Art that Serves Proletarian Politics,” China Reconstructs, Feb. 1968, p. 25. 89. Ibid., pp. 18—20, 25. Also see Laing, Winking Owl, p. 65. go. Information supplied by H.

g1. Interviews with CL and LL. Ellen Laing’s version, based on published sources, generally agrees with eyewitness accounts; see Winking Owl, pp. 67-70. 92. Interviews with CL and BK. At least two English-language versions of an article by Liu Chunhua appeared in the fall of 1968: “Singing the Praises of Our Great Leader Is Our Greatest Happiness,” Chinese Literature, 1968, no. 9, pp. 32-40; and “Painting Pictures of Chairman Mao Is Our Greatest Happiness,” China Reconstructs 17, no. 10 (Oct. 1968): 2—6. In the former (p. 32), he lauds the painting of portraits: “What workers, peasants, and soldiers and young Red Guards in their hundreds of millions keenly want is that brushes and paint should be used to delineate the noble image of our great leader Chairman Mao.” He further makes an explicit comparison (p. 39) between Jiang Qing’s model ballets and his oil painting, since both use a foreign art form to serve China. 93. A photograph of this peculiar spectacle, which took place at the Peking Foreign Languages Printing Press, was reproduced on the back cover of China Reconstructs

17, no. 10 (Oct. 1968). Liu’s painting is reproduced on the front cover of the same issue.

94. Actually, its widespread reproduction on objects for daily life, such as mirror backs, and on billboards made it familiar to people with no interest in art. 95. A number of different reproductions of the painting have been mentioned to me in interviews, but I have not had access to most of them.

xuan. :

466 NOTES TO PAGES 340-34 5

96. Long March has been destroyed, but it is reproduced in Jin Shangyi youbua

97. Interview with ND. Reproduced in China Pictorial, July 1967, front cover. 98. The clouds and mist in the background of the painting were a source of conflict among the exhibition organizers, some of whom felt that bright sunlight was more appropriate to the image of Mao Zedong. The highlit face and fist eventually sufficed. Interview with CM. 99. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi, p. 294. 100. Interviews with X and WW. ror. Interview with SS and X. One anecdote is alleged to have been overheard at a public telephone station but sounds suspiciously like a joke. A local functionary was instructed to take down the portrait of Chairman Mao. He reported to his superior in some agitation that the “portrait of Chairman Mao was invited but won’t come down (ging bu xialai|”—that is, it was too firmly attached to be removed without damage. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi, p. 294, use the same terminology, however.

| 102. Interview with NE.

103. Meisner, Mao’s China, p. 335. 104. My information about this show is sketchy. According to Shanghai artists, an exhibition of the same title was held in Shanghai. Although Ellen Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 64-65, has outlined some of the major exhibitions of the period, the limited

| documentation on this activity makes it difficult at present to understand fully its dynamics. Participants in important exhibitions who are willing to discuss them are often unable to recall when they occurred. Moreover, the factionalism of the period led to increasingly splintered activity. For example, most artists with personal knowledge of the Anyuan exhibition were associated with the Sky faction and are unfamiliar with many activities of the Earth faction. Surprisingly, former Red Guard artists often have no knowledge of exhibitions prominently published in English-language propaganda publications. 105. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103; “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 28. 106. Interviews with KK and RR. 107. Interview with LL. For this artist, the forbidden style was pointillism. 108. According to the artist in a 1990 interview, he later gave the set of twelve paintings to a friend. Ten leaves ended up for sale in a bookstore, where the album was

purchased by an American scholar who informed us that he obtained the album in Hangzhou. The collector later consigned it to an auction at Sotheby’s, where it was purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. See Sotheby Parke Bernet, “Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Modern and Contemporary Chinese Paintings” (sale catalogue), New York, March 12, 13, 1981, lot no. 328, for a reproduction of the whole.

109. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi,” p. 28; Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103; interview with OO; and information from H. In a paper entitled “Painting by Candlelight During the Cultural Revolution: An Examination of Cheng Shifa’s Album Series at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” delivered at Cornell University on April 3, 1993, Shelley Drake Hawks argues persuasively that this and similar works contained hidden expressions of defiance and

protest.

110. A key site was Mao’s birthplace at Shaoshan, which was written up in China Reconstructs 17, no. 8 (Aug. 1968). A large oil painting is visible in a photograph of the exhibition hall.

NOTES TO PAGES 345-358 467 111. Photographs and paintings of Bethune are reproduced in China Pictorial, 1967, no. 6, pp. 4—5, among other places.

112. The revolutionary heroes genre of literature was not a creation of the Cultural Revolution, but its artistic manifestation flowered during the mid-1960s. See Robert Rinden and Roxanne Witke’s study of the Hongqi piaopiao collection, which was published between 1957 and 1961, in The Red Flag Waves: A Guide to the Hung-ch’i p’iao-p’iao Collection, China Research Monographs, no. 3 (Berkeley: University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, Aug. 1968). 113. Yishu yaolan, p. 36. 114. Interviews with AL, X, and NF. 115. Interview with AL.

116. Interview with AL. ,

117. These labor camps were set up in response to Mao Zedong’s instructions issued on May 7, 1966. See Jack Chen, Inside the Cultural Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1975). According to K.S. Karol, the first announcement of this institution appeared in the People’s Daily on October 5, 1968, and immediately led to an exodus of cadres to the countryside; see The Second Chinese Revolution, trans. Mervyn Jones (New York: Hill & Wang, 1974), pp. 338-339. 118. Interviews with X. 119. Liu Borong’s gouache painting was entitled The Eleven Young Heroes of Huang Shan. He was asked to convert it into a large oil painting in 1972 for the national exhibition. A graduate of the Shanghai Art College, Xia Baoyuan, was enlisted to help. They painted two versions, one for Beijing and one for Shanghai. Interview with FF. 120. Interview with AL.

121. The three Shanghai graduates were Wei Jingshan, Shao Longhai, and Qiu Ruimin; the young professors were Quan Shanshi, Cheng Shouyi, Wu Guoting, and Lu Hongren. 122. Interviews with X, FF, and HZ. 123. This information comes from an official who served as her subordinate. She is more commonly believed to be a niece of Mao Zedong, as reported in Laing, Winking Owl, p. 73. 124. Interviews with AB and AC.

125. See above, p. 345. Participants in a meeting Zhang organized on May 19, 1968, with Jiang Qing and Yao Wenyuan criticized Pan Tianshou and the previous ZAFA administration. Current publications refer to a Gang of Four in the art world consisting of Wang Mantian, Zhang Yongsheng, Jiang Qing, and Yao Wenyuan. See Yishu yaolan, p. 36; and Laing, Winking Owl, p. 64n.38. Zhang was imprisoned after Jiang Qing’s demise.

126. Interview with AI. 127. Liu was criticized by Jiang Qing; see Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 26. 128. Interview with AG. 129. Published in English as The New Generation, China Pictorial, 1972, no. 7, P. 35. 130. This “scientific” manner was emulated by artists in the late seventies who depicted the Four Modernizations.

131. Qin is the traditional name for Shaanxi, wen stands for wenhuaju (Cultural Bureau), and mei stands for meishu chuangzuozu (Art Creation Group). Laing, Winking Owl, p. 171, lists Qin Wenmei as an individual artist. Qin Wenmei, according to participants, did not have a large permanent staff of artists, but organized local talent as necessary for specific projects. Among the most notable participants were Zhan Beixin,

468 NOTES TO PAGES 361-368 a 1953 CAFA graduate trained by Maksimov, and Liu Wenx1, a guohua painter who had

studied with Fang Zengxian in Hangzhou.

132. MS 1976, no. 1, pp. 24-25. 133. Interviews with EA and AQ. 134. Works from this exhibition are widely reproduced. Selections appear in Zhongguo huaxuan: yijiu gisan nian quanguo lianhuanhua zhongguohua zhanlan zuopin (Selected Chinese paintings: works from the 1973 National Serial Picture and Chinese Painting Exhibition) (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1974). For the works mentioned, see nos. 46, 44, and 42. 135. Interview, Xi'an, 1990. 136. This account is based on recollections of an official who organized the exhibition. 137. Interviews with X, AG, and AF. 138. The artist is Wang Lan, Shen’s wife, subsequently a member of the printmaking faculty at the Lu Xun Academy of Art in Shenyang.

139. Liu Chunhua fared better. At the time of this writing, he is director of the Beijing Chinese Painting Institute, and now paints in the traditional media. 140. Shen Jiawei, “Suzao fanxiu qianshao de yingxiong xingxiang—youhua ‘Wei women weida zuguo zhangang’ chuangzuo guocheng” (Modeling the heroic image of

the antirevisionist advance guard—the process of creating the oil painting Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland), Meishu ziliao, no. 9 (July 1975): 32-36. The editors of this magazine, published by Shanghai People’s Art Press, were anonymous, but Shanghai artists believe that they were associated with the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou.

141. Ibid., p. 34. 142. “Xuexi “‘santuchu’ chuangzuo yuanze—buduan tigao chuangzuo zhiliang” (Study the creative principle ‘the three prominences’—ceaselessly raise creative standards), Meishu ziliao, no. 3 (Oct. 1973): 34-35. According to Laing, who first discussed in English the three prominences as applied to painting, the earliest articulation of the theory appeared in 1968; see Winking Owl, p. 72. 143. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103. 144. Ibid., p. 104. 145. Ellen Laing was the first English-language writer to discuss the Hotel School and Black Painting exhibitions, respectively; see Winking Owl, pp. 85~87. The Jiang Qing—Zhou Enlai conflict that Laing describes dominated Chinese literature on the subject as early as 1977. The term “Hotel School,” however, seems to have been coined by Hong Kong or foreign writers. 146. “Pi heihua shi jia, cuan dang gie guo shi zhen” (To criticize black painting is false, to usurp the party and nation is true), by the Art Research Center of the Literary and Arts Research Institute, MS 1977, no. 2, p. 7. 147. Shen Roujian, “Zhou zongli yongyuanhuo zai yiwan renmin xinzhong” (Premier Zhou lives forever in the hearts of a billion people), MS 1977, no. 2, p. 16. 148. Ye Jian, “Yongxin xian’e de yichang naoju” (An intentionally evil drama), reprinted from Shaanxi ribao, June 10, 1978, in MS 1978, no. §, p. 15.

149. Ibid., pp. 14-16, 35-36. 150. Interview with AH. 151. The movement against Zhou Enlai and his opening to the West also incorporated attacks on Western “bourgeois classical music,” especially that of Beethoven and Schubert; see Spence, Search for Modern China, pp. 636-637. See also Richard C. Kraus, “Arts Policies of the Cultural Revolution: The Rise and Fall of Culture Minister

NOTES TO PAGES 368—379 469 Yu Huiyong,” in William A. Joseph, Christine P.W. Wong, and David Zweig, New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 230-232. 152. “Pi heihua shi jia,” p. 7. Speculation on the authorship is based upon the article’s by-line, Art Research Institute, where one of Gao’s most active assistants worked. 153. Interview with Al.

154. The catalogue entitled Zhongguohua that I have seen was acquired by Han Xin during the black painting exhibition and was actually published by the China National Light Industrial Products Import and Export Corporation, Shanghai Arts and Crafts Branch, n.d. 155. Reproduced in Laing, Winking Owl, fig. 98, and discussed p. 85.

156. Shen Roujian, “Zhou zongli yongyuanhuo zai yiwan renmin xinzhong,” p. 16. 157. Interview with AJ. 158. See Laing, Winking Owl, p. 86, for an excellent discussion of the painting’s possible meaning. 159. Interview with AL. 160. “Pi heihua shi jia,” p. 8. 161. Interview with AK. 162. See, for example, Shen Roujian, “Zhou zongli yongyuanhuo zai yiwan renmin xinzhong”; and Ye Jian, “Yongxin xian’e de yichang naoju.” 163. “Pi heihua shi jia,” p. 8.

164. Shen Roujian, “Zhou zongli yongyuanhuo zai yiwan renmin xinzhong,” p. 16. 165. Ye Jian, “Yongxin xian’e de yichang naoju,” p. 35. 166. See Laing, Winking Owl, pp. 85-87. 167. Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 643.

7. The Transition to “Artistic Democracy” 1. Spence, Search for Modern China, pp. 646-648. 2. Ibid., p. 643.

3. Gao Jingde, “Jianchi meishu lingyu de wenyi geming; buxu wei heihua fan’an” (Resolutely maintain the literary and arts revolution in the art world; it is not permitted to reverse the black painting cases), MS 1976, no. 1, pp. 11-12.

4. MS 1976, no. 3, pp. 30-31, 46. Other artists included Wan Qingli, Lou Jiaben, Xu Xi, Lu Chen, Lei Dezu, and Ye Xin.

5. MS 1976, no. 4, pp. 40-42. 6. Interview with AH. Richard C. Kraus, in “Arts Policies of the Cultural Rev-

olution,” analyzed the career of Yu Huiyong, who became Minister of Culture in 1975. Among the many parallels between the worlds of art and music are Yu’s promotion of national music during the Anti~Hu Feng campaign, pp. 221-222. 7. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huibuashi, p. 309.

8. Oingzhu zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jianjun. wusht zhounian: Meishu zuopinzhanlan tulu (Pictorial catalogue of the Art Exhibition to Celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army) (Beijing: n.p., 1977). 9. MS 1977, no. 1, front cover.

470 NOTES TO PAGES 379-386 10. MS 1977, no. 2, front cover. Both works were exhibited in the February national exhibition, oil painting section; see Quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan tulu (zhongguohua, youhua) 1977: Relie gingzhu Hua Guofeng tongzhi ren zhonggong zhongyang zhuxi, zhongyang junwei zhuxi, relie qingzhu fencui ‘sirenbang’ cuandang douquan yinmou de weida shengli (Catalogue of the National Art Exhibition [guohua and oil painting]: ardently celebrate Comrade Hua Guofeng’s appointment as central party chairman and chairman of the Central Military Committee and ardently celebrate the great victory of smashing the “Gang of Four’s” plot to usurp the party and take power) (Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Art Press, 1978), cat. nos. 19 and 35. It. Quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan tulu (zhong guohua, youhua): Relie qgingzhu Hua Guofeng, front cover, and oil painting sec., cat. no. I. 12. The work, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, was painted in 1977 by Zhan Beixin, Huang Natyuan, Tai Tianjin, and Liu Wenxi. For a reproduction, see MS 1977, -

no. I, p. I7. 13. Interviews with IY and IZ. 14. QOingzhu zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jianjun wushi zhounian. 15. Interviews with AL, AM, and X. 16. See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, 1985-1986 (Contemporary Chinese art) (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 1991), p. 26. Unfortunately, this interesting tome was published too late for it to make substantial contributions to

this book. Gao Minglu has also outlined his group’s ideas in “Zhongguo dangdai meishu sichao” (Trends in contemporary Chinese art), Xiongshi meishu, no. 216 (1989): 90-99. 17. For discussions of the quasi-official and unofficial exhibitions, see Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu, pp. 317-329. Such summaries of interview material are important because Meishu rarely reported these sorts of activities. Chen’s chronology of the quasi-official exhibitions differs slightly from other versions I have obtained, but his reportage is the most comprehensive available. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan are also useful sources for this material (see Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi, pp. 308-316), as is Cohen, who discusses many of the exhibitions in the course of her biographies of individual artists. 18. These events are mentioned in Julia F. Andrews, “Wang Yani and Contemporary Chinese Painting,” in Yani: The Brush of Innocence, ed. Wai-ching Ho (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1989), pp. 46—47. 19. Ellen Johnston Laing’s article “Zhongguo de ‘yuegui’ yishu yu ‘fandui’ yishu” (“Deviant” and “dissident” art in the People’s Republic of China), Jiuzhou yuekan (Chinese culture quarterly) 2, no. 2 (Jan. 1988), contains a detailed analysis of the difference between intentional and accidental opposition to official policies. 20. Interview with X. Chen Yingde dates the exhibition to 1978 and writes that it included works not recalled by two participants. 21. Interview with X. 22. [Shen] Jiawei (pseud.), “Han Xin giren gihua” (Han Xin, the man and his art), Metyuan, ser. no. 37 (1987, no. 4): 42. 23. Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu, pp. 319-320; Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huibuashi, p. 312; Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, p. 690. 24. Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu, pp. 327-329.

25. Jiang Feng, “Xinchun huazhan” (New spring painting exhibition), in JEMSL], pp. 126-127.

NOTES TO PAGES 386-396 471 26. Jiang Feng, “Wenyi xuyao minzhu (Literature and Arts Require Democracy),” reprinted from RMRB, Feb. 20, 1979, in JFMSLJ, pp. 139-142. 27. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 104. 28. Meishu fenglei, no. 1 (1967): 14-15.

29. MS 1977, no. 3, pp. 24-25, 28-29. 30. See his article on Feng Xuefeng, “Budan shi weile aishang—huainian wuchang jieji geming zuojia Feng Xuefeng” (Not only for sadness—mourning the proletarian revolutionary writer Feng Xuefeng), in JFMSLJ, pp. 163-166, which complains about the erroneous case against Feng, but not about the party. 31. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 104. 32. See Cohen, New Chinese Painting, pp. 76-81, for a further discussion of the group; and for Chen Danging, see pp. 103-104. 33. MS 1979, no. 3, pp. 3-5. 34. MS 1979, no. 10, p. 5. 35. In a 1980 article about his work, the artist describes the two most important influences on his graduation picture as the Dunhuang murals and a set of seventeenthcentury woodcuts, Chen Hongshou’s Bogu yezi. See Yuan Yunsheng, “Bihua zhi meng” (The mural dream), Meishu yanjiu, 1980, no. 1, p. 5. We assume, based on stylistic affinities with his work, that Yuan was most interested in the early Dunhuang murals (similar to the one we reproduce in fig. 33), which share with Chen Hongshou’s prints a figure style in which human forms are elongated for aesthetic or psychological effect. 36. Yuan is explicit about his abstraction and manipulation of form for expressive purposes. Yuan interpreted the water-splashing festival itself as an expression of humanity’s pursuit of and yearning for freedom and happiness. See “Bihua zhi meng,” D. 7.

37. For some examples of Art Deco—influenced Shanghai commercial art, see Minick and Jiao, Chinese Graphic Design, pp. 152-153. Such work is the most likely source for the languorous outline-and-color styles of the 1980s, though the details of its survival and revival have not yet been explored. 38. See chapter 2, note 31. 39. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu,” p. 103. 40. Meishu fenglei, no. 3 (1967): 28. 41. Interviews with the artist, Los Angeles, 1985 and 1987. 42. Interviews with Jiang, Los Angeles, 1987; and with Yuan, New York, 1987 and 1988. For Jiang, see Cohen, New Chinese Painting, pp. 73-74; for Yuan, p. 43. 43. Some critics, including Gao Minglu, refer to this as “critical realism” ( pipan xtanshi zhuyi). See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, p. 691.

44. Their work was first exhibited in Chongqing in October 1979 as part of the Sichuan Provincial Exhibition to Commemorate the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic, and some pieces appeared in the National Art Exhibition to Commemorate the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, held at the Chinese National Art Gallery in February 1980. See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, p. 691. 4§. Spence, Search for Modern China, p. 611. 46. For a reproduction, see MS 1980, no. 1, p. 22; Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, p. 36. 47. Gao Xiaohua, “Weishemme hua Wei shemme?”. (Why paint Why?), MS 1979, NO. 7, Pp. 7.

48. “Feng” (Maple), adapted from a short story by Cheng Yi, illustrated by

472 NOTES TO PAGES 396-402 Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, Lianhbuanhuabao, 1979, no. 8, inside front cover, pp. 1-2, 35-37, back cover. ~ 49. Cheng Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, “Guanyu chuangzuo lianhuanhua ‘Feng’ de yixie xiangfa” (Some thoughts on creating the lianbuanhua “Maple”), MS 1980, NO. I, pp. 34-35.

50. I have been influenced in this reading of the work by Jane Debevoise’s brownbag talk on contemporary Chinese painting given in 1982 at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. See also Cohen, New Chinese Paint-

ing, p. 106; and my brief essay “The Peasant’s Pen: Some Thoughts on Realism in Modern Chinese Art,” Search, Research, and Discovery in the Arts (Columbus, Ohio) 8 (Autumn 1987): 6-9. 51. See chapter 2, note 32.

52. This account is based on interviews and the version published by Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu, p. 331; and Li Peng and Yi Dan, Zhongguo xiandai yishushi, 1979-1989 (A history of Chinese modern art) (Changsha: Hunan Art Press, 1992), pp. 70-72. The latter was received too late to consult for other material. 53. Wang Keping’s estimate has not been independently verified. 54. Interview with VV. The account in Li Peng and Yi Dan, Zhongguo xiandai yishushi, pp. 70-72, refers to the painter Liu Xun as the official with whom the xingxing artists negotiated, but fails to mention hoodlums. 55. See Cohen’s excellent discussion of this event and the subsequent rise and fall of the group’s reputation in official circles, in New Chinese Painting, pp. 59-63. 56. Interview, Being, 1986. 57. The female artist Li Shuang was later arrested for cohabiting with a French diplomat.

58. Contemporary documentation on the avant-garde movements of the mid1980s is summarized in Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi.

59. See above, p. 24. Also see Jiang Feng, “Huihua shang liyong jiu xingshi went.” 60. Chu-tsing Li, Trends, p. 231. 61. Perry Link (ed.), Roses and Thorns, pp. 1-41; Stubborn Weeds, pp. 1-30. Richard C. Kraus, “Arts Policies of the Cultural Revolution,” discusses effects of control in that period. See esp. pp. 224-235. 62. Examples of writers and artists who have suffered for their work can, of course, be found in the West. It might be interesting to compare the psychological effects on the artist or writer of being attacked by privately organized hate groups in the United States or Europe with those of being attacked by the Communist party bureaucracy in China. Even if similarities are found, as they probably would be, it ts

important to keep in mind that the legal and social basis of such attacks are fundamentally different. Such cases are far fewer in the West and generally reflect isolated abuses or failures of our system, rather than the systemic control under which artists in

China labored. |

63. Division of Chinese artists into “generations” became popular among Chinese critics in the mid-1980s. Deng Pingxiang, one of the first to write about this question, defined them as follows: third-generation artists were between twenty and thirty years of age and had emerged after 1976; the second generation entered the art world in the 1950s; and artists of the first generation had become famous before 1949. See his

“Lun disandai huajia” (On third-generation artists), Meishu sichao, no. 1 (Apr. 5, 1985): 3. Several months later, Gao Minglu refined Deng’s definition of the third gen-

NOTES TO PAGES 402-403 473 eration by describing it as consisting of rusticated youth (middle school graduates sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, thus slightly older than twenty to thirty years) or those who entered art academies in 1977. He goes on to define the conceptual and stylistic differences between the third generation and a newly identified fourth generation, those who entered the art academies in 1981 and 1982. See Gao Ming (pseud.), “Dangdai huihuazhong de qunti he geti yishi” (Group and individual consciousness in contemporary painting), Zhongguo meishu bao, 1985, no. 9, p. 1. Wel Qimei, graduate studies director at CAFA, similarly contrasts the work of the fourth generation, which he described as artists in their twenties, with that of the third generation in “Xin yi dai” (The new generation), Zhongguo meishu bao, 1985, no. 16, p. I. 64. Some of these works were exhibited at CAFA in the fall of 1990. 65. Perhaps a new phase will emerge after his prolonged hospitalization. 66. Li Keran’s death in late 1989, however, is considered by most of Beijing’s art world to be the tragic result of political pressure. He collapsed during an unannounced visit from officials investigating the 1989 student demonstrations, to which Li had donated a particularly fine painting. 67. Wai-kam Ho, “Aspects of Chinese Painting from 1100 to 1350,” in Lee and Ho, eds., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting, p. xxv.

List of Chinese Names and Terms

A Lao f] 2, b. 1920, a.k.a. Lao Xianhong ## # Ai Qing 43%, b. r9 10, né Jiang Haicheng ies Ai Zhongxin * 4%, b. 1915 Axi FJ ##, a Yunnanese people

Bai’e xibua hui A $875 B@ White Swan Western Painting Club Bai Xueshi 82% 41, b. 1915

Bai Yan A #, b. 1921 bangongting #08 administrative office Banpo, Shaanxi *£ 3X, BR 7a

Bao Jia fain, b. 1933 baoxiang #{ (® precious image

Northern Granary

Beidahuang, beidacang 1, K ¥, At K& Great Northern Wasteland, Great Beidahuang huabao At XK i ER Beidahuang Pictorial Beidahuang wenyi At K wi 3C 8K Beidahuang Literature and Arts Beidaihe, Hebei Jt YA , fA] AE

Beihai gongyuan Att % Gal Beihai park

Beijing zhongguohua yanjiubui It PS @ Beijing Chinese Painting Research Association

bimo # brush and ink , Bixian #64 (&k Bi county, Jiangsu

Cai Liang 43%, b. 1932 475

476 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS

Cai Yi 4, b. 1906

Cai Ruohong # #4, b. 1910, a.k.a. Zhang Zaixue FFB Cai Yuanpei #7038, 1868-1940 Cai Zhenhua ##g3%, b. 1912 caimohua #22 color-and-ink painting Cao Dali Bi#%z, b. 1934 Chang Shuhong # #%%, b. 1904

Chang Youming #288, b. 1925 Chao Mei 5.98, b. 1931 Chen Banding bR-E T , 1876-1970

Chen Bo fii

Chen Boda BRA i, b. 1905 | Chen Danging BRAT, b. 1953 Chen Dayu [RA 44, b. 1912 Chen Hongshou SR #ikz , 1598-1652 Chen Pei SR ii, b. r912 Chen Qitong [ii #058

Chen Shouyi R57 #, b. 1944 : Chen Shuliang RAL3E, b. r901 Chen Shutong SK AA] , 1876-1966

Chen Tiegeng SR BiH , 1908-1969, a.k.a. Chen Kebo [RE A, Chen Yaotang [RG #

Chen Yan’ning [R17 , b. 1945 Chen Yanqiao BRIE, 1911-1970 Chen Yi PRA, 1901-1972 Chen Yifei PRI IR , b. 1946

Chen Yiming [RE 59, b. 1950 Chen Yun Sk 2, b. 1905

Chen Zhifo [i 2 8, 1886-1962 Chen Zunsan {if @ = , b. 1929

Cheng Conglin #23, b. 1954 Cheng Li #222, b. 1941

Cheng Shifa f+ %%, b. 1921

Chistiakov if t# a] &, Pavel Petrovich, 1832-1919

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 477 chuangzuo &Il{F creation

chuangzuo shi BYE studio chuban zongshu i tke General Publishing Bureau Chunchao #4) Spring Tide Chundi huahui #3) @ Spring Earth Painting Club Cixian, Hebei && 8%, 7a) dt

Cui Zifan #0, b. 1915 cun #& texture strokes

Dagongbao KZ *k

Dai Ze RZ, b. 1922 Datong, Shanxi A/a), 4 daxieyi K #8 = loose, expressive style Dazhong meishu chubanshe K&R F¥ tha tH hick Masses Art Press

Dazhong tubua chubanshe KRH SH itt Masses Pictorial Press Deng Lin Sh, b. 1941 Deng Shu &f js}, b. 1929

Deng Tuo 884 , 1911-1966 Deng Xiaoping 86/J\#, b. 1904 Deng Ye SB8F, b. 1924 dianxing 3% #! the typical

diaolan ii i spider plant

Ding Bingzeng TJ tk, b. 1927 , Ding Cong JH, b. 1916 Ding Jingwen J #22, b. 1914, a.k.a. Lao Ding 4 T

Ding Lihuai T 9

Ding Ling T #i, b. 1909 | Ding Shaoguang J #A3t, b. 1939

Dongbei Lu Xun wenyi xueyuan BACB sc ASE Northeast Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts Dongbei meizhuan #4t32 8% Northeast Art Academy

Dong Biwu ci, 1886-1975 Dong Gang uff], b. 1928

Dong Xiwen # 7X, 1914-1973 , Dongfang fandian #77 8R1 Oriental Hotel ,

478 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS , Dongfang meishu zhuanke xuexiao #7j ¥ ths BBS Be Oriental Art Academy

Donghaixian # #8 Donghai county, Jiangsu | Du Fu #£ i, 712-770 Du Hongnian #:¥6 4, b. 1928 Du Jian §r#, b. 1933 Du Zhesen ft@ &, b. 1943 Dunhuang #/@, Gansu duo, kuai, hao, sheng & {R14 more, faster, better, cheaper

erliutang Tit Fan Shaoyun #42, né Fan Haolin #@%&, b. 1880

Fang Ganmin FE, 1906-1984 |

Fang Jizhong AWE, b. 1923 | Fang Zengxian 77846, b. 1931 Feng Fasi (575 9%, b. 1914

Feng Xuefeng (2G lé , 1903-1976

Feng Yuxiang (i, 1882-1948 Feng Zhen #§H, b. 1931

Feng Zikai #! ta, 1898-1975 fengjing Jf landscape, as in European landscape painting Fu Baoshi (#7824, b. 1904 Fu Wenshu (4 20 a, b. 1924 Fu Xiaoshi (@/JsG, b. 1932

Fu Zhigui (#48, b. 1931 Fuchun River & #/L, Zhejiang furong ®@ hibiscus

gaizao Ks remold Gao Chao & i, b. 1927 Gao Gang (fa, 1902-1954 Gao Hong mal, b. 1924

Gao Jianfu 4) 2, 1879-1951 Gao Jingde & sn Gao Minglu & 4m, b. 1949 Gao Qifeng fm LIA , 1889-1933

Gao Xiaohua ’) #, b. 1955

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 479 Gao Zhuang fm #£, b. 1905

Gaoyang, Hebei Si, iJ dt Ge Pengren & WG, b. 1941 Ge Weimo B#EX, b. 1930

Gu Bingxin BAS, b. 1923 Gu Kaizhi Fats 2, ca. 345-406 Gu Mu 4%, b. 1914 Gu Qun RFF, b. 1928

Gu Yuan 47, b. r919 Gu Zhujun Bit A , b. 1933

Guan Liang fi, b. 1900 Guan Shanyue fAiU A, b. r91r2 Guang Jun KR ®, b. 1939

Guang Tingbo BEM, b. 1938

Guo Moruo SRF, b. 1892 Guo Shaogang 2h #3, b. 1932

Guo Weiqu 3) #, b. 1908 guocuihua BYE painting of the national essence guohua (X= national painting Guohuayuan (8 Gé National Painting Institute Guoli Beiping yishu zhuanke xuexiao BAi7 AL BAG BEL SK National Beiping Arts College

Guoli Hangzhou yizhuan Bix t)\| 4H National Hangzhou Arts Academy Guoli meishu xueyuan [Bi i723 fi BE National Art Academy Guomindang Bd —&# Nationalist Party

Ha Ding "7, b. 1923 Han Heping ## #14, b. 1932 Han Wudi % Hi , 156-87 B.C. Han Xin #32, b. 1955

Hangzhou yizhuan }.)\\ 43 Hangzhou Arts Academy Hao Boyi #8(A #é, b. 1938 He Haixia {*] ##28, b. 1908

He Kongde fa] FL i, b. 1925

He Long #176 , b. 1896-1969

480 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS

He Tianjian fi Xk tt, 1891-1977

He Youzhi & KH, b. 1922 | Heilongjiang 23 fe (. Hong Bo #£#&%, 1924-1985 hong zhuan «L148 red brick

hong zhuan *..& red and expert

Hongweibing zhandou chengji zhanlan &. fi BX BH fA Exhibition of Accomplishments of the Red Guard Hou Bo {& i hou wenge (£30 # post—Cultural Revolution Hou Yimin fe —K, b. 1930

Hu Feng #4 Bl, b. 1903 | Hu Kao #44, b. 1912 Hu Man #i#, b. 1904

Hu Peiheng Afi , 1889-1962 Hu Qiaomu 8B A, 1912-1992 Hu Ruosi 1% &, b. 1916 Hu Yichuan #4—JI|, b. r910 Hu Yongkai #8751, b. 1948 Hu Yuzhi #@ 2, 1896-1986 Hua Guofeng #6 £%, b. 1921 Hua Junwu # 4 ik, b. 1915 Hua shan #£(1) Mt. Hua, in Shaanxi

Hua Tianyou #4 Hk, 1901-1986

huabao # *%k pictorial magazines | Huabei wenyi gongzuotuan #é ft 3c #4 (EE North China Literature and Arts Work Team

huaben = painting model Huadong renmin chubanshe #2 A FHA hwitk East China People’s Press

Huadong renmin meishu chubanshe #8 # A RE is Hii East China People’s Art Press

Huadong yizhuan i of ERB East China Arts Academy Huaihai “£78, in Anhui

Huaisu #€ #, 725-785 Huang Binhong #4 #L, 1865-1955

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 481

Huang Gongwang HAY, 1269-1354 Huang Guanyu it &, b. 1945 Huang Lisheng #77 4:, b. 1940

Huang Miaozi mf, b. 1913 Huang Natyuan Jo dR, b. 1931 Huang Rui BR, b. 1955 Huang Shanding Milz, b. r910

Huang Yanpei 238 , 1878-1965

Huang Yongyu xk, b. 1923 Huang Zhou %&, né Liang Huangzhou ## 8, b. 1925 huazhong &f& genre of painting

Huthua yanjiu suo @ 3 3A Painting Research Center

Huizong fa , 1082-1135 Huolangtu Eble] Peddlers Huxian 8%, Shaanxi bk 7G Jia tm pseudonym for Ai Qing

painting ,

Jiajia shige huhu hua RR FH AS Every home a poem, every household a Jiang Feng 7L#, r910—1982 Jiang Handing (L377, 1903—1962 Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) #7) 4G, 1887-1975 Jiang Qing {L#, 1914~1992 Jiang Tiefeng #§ 3%, b. 1938

Jiang Yan 427%, 1919-1958 Jiang Zhaohe ##3k #1, 1904-1986

Jiangshan ruci duohei iL knit & 3 This land so black , Jiangshan ruci duojiao iL Wott 48 This land so rich in beauty Jie Fu $) #& pseudonym for Jiang Feng

Jiefang ribao fit hie 8 #& Liberation Daily

Jiefangjun huabao {it ji BR Liberation Army Pictorial Jimao xin $3 €.{& Urgent Letter

Jin Lang 4 if, b. r915

Jin Shangyi #7 iz, b. 1938 , Jin Xunhua 4 di #

482 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS

Jin Ye 4, b. 1913 , Jin-Cha-Ji @ #4 Shanxi, Chahar, Hebei |

Jin-Sui ribao EKA Jin-Sui Daily , Jinggang shan # fall] Mt. Jinggang, in Jiangx1

Jinling & (Nanjing) Jun Ling (#48 pseudonym for Jiang Qing Kang Sheng FR4:, b. 1898-1975

Kang Shiyao i tt, b. r921 Kangzhan huakan tS Fil Resistance Pictorial keai *} & lovely

Kong Boji L484, b. 1932

Lai Chusheng 2% #64, 1902-1975 | Lai Shaoqi #€Y #, b. 1915 Langya shan jg (4) Mt. Langya, in Hebei

Laozi yingxiong er haohan, laozi fandong er hundan €¥ RUER GE,

, FH) 52 If the father’s a hero, the son’s a real man; if the father’s a counterrevolutionary, the son’s a bastard

Lei Dezu & #8, b. 1942 Li Bing 4 iX, b. 1949

Li Binghong 4% 8, b. 1913 Li Chaoshi ##8-£, 1898-1971 Li Honggang 4 41M) character in “Maple”

Li Hu 4}, 1918-1975 Li Hua ###, b. 1907 Li Huay 444. &, b. 1931

Li Huanmin #4, b. 1930 Li Huanzhi #%% 2, b. 1919

Li Jishen 4, 1886-1959 Li Jun 4288, b. 1931

Li Keran #4] 4, 1907-1989 Li Kuchan # 7 i#, 1898-1983 LiLu #&, b. 1921 Li Qi 2H, b. 1928 Li Qun F#, b. 1912 Li Renjie 4 (2 #, b. 1934

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 483 Li Ruinian #4 hiiF, 1910-1985 Li Shan 4 ##, b. 1926

Li Shaoyan #3, b. 1918 Li Shuang 22%, b. 1955

Li Shuangshuang # # # heroine of Li Shuangshuang Li Song # #4, b. 1932, né Li Songtao #}# Li Tianxiang # Kiff, b. 1928

Li Xian’nian #47, 1909-1992 Li Xiongcai RHE Y, b. rg11 Li Xiushi 4 # HH, b. 1936

Li Yiran 427K , Li Zhaobing 27k iA

Li Zhenjian ##E, b. 1922 Li Zisheng #*#% &, b. 1919

Li Zongjin EZ, 1916-1977 Liang Yulong 22 #€, b. 1922 lianhuanhua #32 comic strips, serial pictures, or graphic novels Lianhuanhua bao Bik Si Serial Pictures Lianlian shudian 3% BE Joint Book Store Liao Jingwen Ba? 3c, b. 1923

Liao Mosha Bik, b. 1907 Lin Biao #{i%, 1907-1971 Lin Boqu #*K1AR , 1885-1960

Lin Fengmian ff BER, 1900-1991

Lin Mohan # i | Lin Gang i, b. 1924 Lingnan 44 1

linmo {ii to copy exactly Liu Bingjiang 2 # iL, b. 1937 Liu Binyan 3) @ iE, b. 1925

Liu Borong 3) #4, b. 1952 Liu Chunhua 4! #2 , b. 1944

Liu Haisu i ¥§3€, b. 1896 }

Liu Hulan i) ig

484 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS

Liu Jiyou Ze], b. 1918 Liu Jucheng #1) Fa i

Liu Kaigu 2 faa, b. 1904 Liu Qing #7, b. 1929 Liu Shaoqi 2l| 14}, 1898-1969 Liu Wei #4, in Beijing Liu Wei 2 4, in Hangzhou Liu Wenxi il 3c 76, b. 1933

Liu Yaozhen Z\f#H, b. 1946

Liu Yulian 2 8, b. 1948

" Liu Zhiming #1) 45 Liu Zijiu ZF A, 1891-1975 Lou Jiaben #3 A, b. 1941 Lou Shiyi #5 ®, b. 1905

Lu Chen vt, b. 1935 Lu Danfeng Hi Ft #H, character in “Maple”

Lu Dingyi f# 7 —, b. 1906 Lu Guoying [4 BY %&

Lu Hongren RHC , b. 1927 Lu Meng & 3, b. 1915

Li Sibai B#iS, 1905-1972 Li Xiaguang 4 #236

Lu Xun 43h, 1881-1936 Lu Xun meishu xueyuan it & ts bt Lu Xun Art Academy Lu Xun yishu xueyuan % WAge he Lu Xun Academy of Arts

Lu Xun wenyi xueyuan isc SE Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts

Lu Yanshao fi, b. 1909 Lida ik A, Liaoning Luo Gongliu #é LI, b. 1916 Luo Ming #€£4, b. 1912 Luo Pan #4 , b. 1929 Luo Ruiging «hin JG), 1906-1978

Luo Zhongli #€7 12, b. 1948 Luwan Ja # a district in Shanghai

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 485

Ma Changli ii Fl, b. 1931 Ma Desheng ‘5 f#7E, b. 1952 Maksimov % ti 76 SX , Konstantin M., b. 1913

Mao Dun #/& pseudonym of Shen Yanbing

Mao Zedong £2 # , 1893-1976

meishu ®t art

Meishu lt Art Meishu zhanbao % tis B¥k Art War

Meishu zuotan lt HX Discussions on Art Meiyan suo itt Art Research Center meiyu 3% aesthetic education Meng Guang mC, b. 1921 Mi Fu *7fi, d. 1107 Mi Gu K€, b. 1918, né Zhu Wushi KS 4G

minzu huibua Kye = national painting Minzu meishu yanjiu suo IK tit HE FLAT National Art Research Center

minzubua JRE national painting minzuhbua Fett. nationalization

Mo Pu f, b. 1915 Nanniwan [vei neibu W#h “internal,” restricted Ni Yide {it fa #2 , 1902-1969

nianhua “a: new year’s pictures Niu Wen 4 32, b. 1922 Ouyang Yugian fk ba ¥ ff

Pan Tianshou # K#, 1898-1971 Pang Tao ligt#, b. 1934

Pang Xunqin fii 3k, 1906-1985

Peng Bin 3, b. 1927 Peng Boshan % #91 Peng Dehuai 57 (218 , 1898-1974 Peng Zhen #% HB, b. 1902

pubian * im universal

Qi Baishi Ff 41, 1863-1957, né Qi Huang ffi

486 CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS

Qi Benyu KA Qi Gong 34, b. 1912 Qi Su FAK

Qi Yanming F¥ #4, 1907-1978 Qian Junrul BR Fin, 1908-1985 Oian Men #iiP4 Front Gate, Beijing

Qian Shizhi #34 2 Qian Songyan #8 #348, 1899-1985

Qian Xiaodai BRA, 1912-1964 - Qianjunbang * Bis

Qin Dahu BX, b. 1938 Qin Shihuang #8 S, r. 221-206 B.C. Qin Wenmei 4% Shaanxi Cultural Bureau Art Creation Group (pseud.) Qin Zheng #iE, b. 1924 Qin Zhongwen #41 x, 1895-1974 gingbu xialai %§7< F 2% will not descend

gipat AIK vigor

Qiu Ruimin fh Fa, b. 1944 Oiyue + A July Qu Shunfa # IIR #

Quan Shanshi #14, b. 1930 Ounzhong meishu tH RX iht Popular Art

Rao Shushi # #4 , b. 1901 Ren Baige (£8 & Ren Mengzhang {£ #3, b. 1934 Ren Weiyin (£4 = Ren Xiong {£ FB, 1823-1857

Ren Yi (£8, 1840-1895

Renmin meishu Rit People’s Art Renmin meishu chubanshe \ 3% tii Wi hit People’s Art Publishing House Rongbaozhai 4€ #4 4%

Sha Fei #9F, 1912-1950 Sha Jitong #4 fa], d. 1942, a.k.a. Chen Zhengxu [i IE Ba Sha Kefu > ®] K, 1905-1961

CHINESE NAMES AND TERMS 487

Shang Husheng flvé“t, b. 1930

Shanghai meishu zhuanke xuexiao Lisi Zh Bk, also referred to as Shanghai meizhuan Lit ®% Shanghai Art Academy Shanghai yizhuan | #28 Shanghai Arts College Shanghai xinhua yishu zhuanke xuexiao Lis # # Bfit BB BK Shanghai New China Arts School Shanghai yiba yishe yanjiu suo _L¥— / ik tt FAT Shanghai Eighteen Art Society Research Center

Shao Dazhen #B AK, b. 1934 Shao Longhai Ab M##, b. 1943

Shao Yiping 4h—¥F, 1910-1963 : Shao Yu ab, 1919-1992 Shen Jiawei 7 on, b. 1948 Shen Junru /£ 49% , 1875-1963 Shen Roujian (2 2ZE, b. 1919 Shen Tongheng 7 [Al @, b. 1914

Shen Yanbing 7X Eitk, 1896-1981

Sheng Yang Bis, b. 1931 Shenzhou xuehui if)\ 22@ Shenzhou Scholarly Society Shi Lu @4&, 1919-1982, né Feng Yaheng (42 &

Shi Zhan jie, b. 1912

shida jianzhu +X ten great buildings shidaixing Iki f 2 [ial [Fi] FE ——- (ed 2 ae HE HT 9 GF EB (Remembering Comrade Sha

512 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Jitong [Chen Zhengxi]—a prematurely broken young artist). MS 1983, no. 2, pp. 22—23.

Nedoshivin, German Je ve iim, Medd f"}. “Xianshi zhuyi shi jinbu yishu de chuangzuo fangfa” JN) Git Ee he HE A BA GHG 1) BIE Fy HE (Realism is the creative method of the

progressive artist). Translated from the Russian. RMMS, no. 4 (Aug. 1950): 1113.

——— /@ PE fi xc. “Lun huihuazhong de dianxing wenti” iin feed fy LM et (On the problem of the typical in painting). Translated from the Russian. MS 1954, no.

I, pp. 41-90. Ni Yide (#6 @. “Tantan hua lingxiuxiang” % 28 iF Wal (®@ (A chat on painting portraits of leaders). Meishu zuotan, no. 1 (Nov. 18, 1950): 3.

Ouyang Huilin ba SK. “Jiangsu zhongguohua de ‘Baihua gifang, tuichen chuxin’” TL fk oP ted Ey “1S fe PF ite, HEB Wr” (Jiangsu Chinese painting’s “Hundred flowers

bloom at once, weed out the old to bring forth the new”). MS 1959, no. 1, pp. 2-3. Pan Tianshou #% Ks. “Sheishuo zhongguohua biran taotai” aé teh BY BE A MK (Who says Chinese painting must die out?). Meishu yanjiu, 1957, no. 4, pp. 22— 24.

Pang Xunqin jfém@3e. “Ta dailaile Yan’an zuofeng” fh ize f HEE) (He brought with him the Yan’an work style). In JFMSLJ, shang, pp. 373-374. Reprinted from Meishujia tongxun, 1982, no. 4. “Pi heithua shi jia, cuan dang qie guo shi zhen” HEME JE (RK, ee MER (To criticize black painting is false, to usurp the party and nation is true). By the Art Research Center of the Literary and Arts Research Institute. MS 1977, no. 2, pp. 7-9, 21. Qi Su ASR. “Meishujia he meishubing zai shisanling shuiku gongdi” = fli 3 #AN3E fig Fe 4 -- == BE 7K Jef th (Artists and art workers at the Ming Tombs Reservoir worksite). MS 1958, no. 6, pp. 4-5. Qian Bocheng £%(4 $k. “Yan Wenliang xiansheng nianpu” 64 sc BR 4G /E * @% (Chronol-

ogy of Yan Wenliang). In Yan Wenliang Gi sc#P, edited by Lin Wenxia, pp. 145190. Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 1982. Oian Songyan huaxuan Hs ft; dt 3 (Selected paintings of Qian Songyan). Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1984. Qin Zheng #7. “Jianku de licheng—chuangzuo suigan” 4} 7 (7 Fe RE— Al (ERK (A difficult process—some feelings on creation). MS 1957, no. 6, pp. 16-18. Oingzhu zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jianjun wushi zhounian: meishu zuopinzhanlan tealea Vissi bt DBL AL Ae Dike Bet BE of Sl ES s/h De Med BR (Pictorial catalogue of

the Art Exhibition to Celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army). Beijing: n.p., 1977.

Qiu Sha #4. “Shenchen de dahai—ji Lin Fengmian xiansheng” (UCI A t—iid RK JBI Ae: (A deep, dark sea—records on Lin Fengmian). Xin meishu (New art), ser. no. 31 (1988, no. 1): 53-55. Quanguo guohua zhanlanhui zuopin mulu 4 BAM it he BE @ (Esk FL @R (List of works in

the National Guohua Exhibition). Beijing: Art Workers Association, 1953. OQuanguo lianhuanhua huojiang zuopinxuan, 1963-1981 4 ASHER AE MEME (EUR 1963-1981 (Selections from prize-winning serial pictures). Shenyang: Liaoning Art Press, 1986.

“Quanguo meishujie relie jinian Mao Zedong tongzhi ‘Zai Yan’an wenyi zuotanhuishang de jianghua’ fabiao 20 zhounian” @ (M2 lj MAAC A EE ie ALE ‘HE HE BE BO BE LY iG? BE A205 4 (National art circles ardently com-

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gingzhu fensui ‘sirenbang’ cuandang duoquan yinmou de weida shenglt =

SE sliy (/E h Hie bal Bk (ch BE, a): PA mE Ae) EE PRP REM, PRES ETRE, SA 7S TOUS WE“ LA PE” TA AE HE BE 9 (EE AK HB (Catalogue of the National

Art Exhibition [guohua and oil painting]: ardently celebrate Comrade Hua Guo-

feng’s appointment as central party chairman and chairman of the Central Military Committee and ardently celebrate the great victory of smashing the “Gang of Four”’s plot to usurp the party and take power). Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Art Press, 1978.

Ren Mengzhang (: #54. “Sulian zhuanjia zheyang zhidao wo jinxing biye chuangzuo” ek ih BE ACS BE YR ER HE 7 HE BIE (The Soviet expert guided me in this way to execute my graduation creation). MS 1957, no. 6, pp. 19-20. Renmin meishu \ '% 4 (People’s art) [RMMS], nos. 1-5. Journal of the All-China Art Workers Association, edited by Wang Zhaowen and Li Hua, Beijing, 1950. Renmin ribao JA. A #k (People’s daily) [RMRB}. “Shanghai meishujia zai yuejin” | if 3 (lg BH HE HEME (Shanghai artists are leaping forward). MS 1958, no. 4, p. 16. ““Shanhe xinmao’ guanzhong yijian zhailu” ‘(lI 7a] #73’ HAR Re GLB Lk (Excerpts from

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Plastic Arts from Socialist Countries: list of exhibited works from the People’s Republic of China). N.p., 1958. [Shen] Jiawei ( (4) $413 (pseud.). “Han Xin qiren gihua” Wise HA SLs (Han Xin, the man and his art). Metyuan, no. 37 (1987, no. 4): 42. Shen Jiawei 7 34. “Suzao fanxiu gianshao de yingxiong xingxiang—youhua ‘Wei women weida zuguo zhangang’ chuangzuo guocheng” 5th Jz ( BMS fy RET Be vee EE Sy ER AN" EAC BL IB Sik ed” Gl (EB (Modeling the heroic image of the anti-

revisionist advance guard—the process of creating the oil painting Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland). Meishu ziliao, no. 9 (July 1975): 32-36.

Shen Roujian #2¢8%. “Zhou zongli yongyuanhuo zal yiwan renmin xinzhong” je] AQUI a SBE HE WE AY A Ete (Premier Zhou lives forever in the hearts of a billion people). MS 1977, no. 2, pp. 15-16, 33—34. Shi Lu 474. “Gaoju Mao Zedong wenyi sixiang de gizhi; pandeng wuchan jieji yishu de gaofeng” (3 $e TEE He sc PATE ANY Be tn 5 EE AE EB BA I PIER «(Raise high the banner of Mao Zedong’s thought on literature and art; climb the peak of proletarian art). MS 1960, no. 4, pp. 7-10. ———., “Nianhua chuangzuo jiantao—Shaan-Gan-Ning bianqu wenxue meishu gongzuo weiyuanhui yijiuwuling nian xinnianhua gongzuo zongjie zhi yi” “3! All (E

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Zhong-Su shaonian ertong tuhua xuanji PRL = i S lel Be & (Selected Chinese and Soviet youth and children’s paintings). Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1956. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan huadong fenyuan zhongguohuaxi shixing fenke jiaoxue

jihua” PR iy She ROK APMESRAT DARKS it el (The Chinese painting department of the East China campus of CAFA puts into practice a specialized instruction plan). MS 1957, no. 12, p. 8. “Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianshi” $23 @j Be fH # (A brief history of the Central Academy of Fine Arts). Mimeo. March 1990.

“Zhongyang meishu xueyuan jianyuan sanshiwunian jishi? PRfj @RBR= + #.4¢ 42H (Record of the thirty-five years since establishment of the Central Academy of Fine Arts). Meishu yanjiu, 1985, no. 1, pp. 3-18.

Zhou Enlai J] A. “Guanyu wenhua yishu gongzuo liangtiaotui zoulu de wenti” feel WS 30 (LA ff LE PR BR EK 9 ERA (On the question of cultural and arts work

walking with two legs) (May 3, 1959). In Zhou Enlai yu wenyi 1:5—8. Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press, 1980. Reprinted from Wenyi yanjiu, 1979, no. I. ——. “Zai wenyi gongzuo zuotanhui he gushipian chuangzuo huiyi shang de jianghua” #Ex AT (ER Re MKS FH BIE @ ALM Hah (Speeches at the Literature and Art Conference and Fictional Film Creation Meeting, June 19, 1961). In Zhou Enlai yu wenyi 1:9—31. Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press, 1980. Reprinted from Wenyibao, 1979, no. 2.

——. Zhou Enlai shuxin xuanji AK 238 (Selected letters and writings of Zhou Enlai). Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian chubanshe, 1988. ———. Zhou Enlai xuanji J BARES (Selected works of Zhou Enlai). Vol. 1. Beijing: People’s Publishing, 1980.

——.. Zhou Enlai yu wenyi Ji) 3K a 3c 24 (Zhou Enlai and literature and arts). Vol. 1. Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press, 1980.

Zhou Yang /4l#. “Guanyu meishu gongzuo de yixie yijian” RAW it LFA HSA (Some opinions about art work). MS 1955, no. 7, pp. 15-18. ———. “Wei chuangzao gengduo de youxiu de wenxue yishu zuopin er fendou— yijiuwusan nian jiu yue ershisi ri zai zhongguo wenxue yishu gongzuozhe dierci

daibiao dahui shang de baogao” |A Bllié #669 AD cB Ait (Fain BI——

RAS EA AL TOR EPR RSA LER RBOIKRRABLORE (Struggle to create even more excellent works of literature and art—report on September 24, 1953, at the Second National Congress of Literary and Arts Workers). Wenyibao, ser. no. 96 (1953, no. 19): 7-16. Zhu Boxiong and Chen Ruilin 418 KE, PREG RK. Zhongguo xibua wushinian (1989-1949)

ch Be po + ce (Fifty years of Western-style painting in China). Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1989.

Zhu Jinlou #4. “Guanyu nianhua chuangzuoshang de ‘danxian pingtu’ wenti” eel WS TE SS Bl (FE _E 09 “SER” Fel A (On the problem of “single outline and flat color” in new year’s picture creation). Meishu zuotan # fig HE ZS, no. 3 (Feb. 28, 19§1): 8.

———. “Guanyu zhongyang meishu xueyuan huadong fenyuan de jiaoxue zhong-

520 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY zhong” lh WS ee SE Os Se HE OR 2 es AB GME (Various things on the teaching at the East China campus of the Central Academy of Fine Arts), a speech given on

April 27, 1951, at the East China Department of Culture. Meishu zuotan

3€ hy AB BE, no. 4 (June 1951): 2 ,

—__——. “Shanghai xinnianhuazhan yu qunzhong yijian” _& Yi Sy OE SE Fe BER GL (The Shanghai New Nianbua Exhibition and the opinions of the masses). RMMS, vol. x, no. 2 (Apr. 1, 1950): 39-42.

_____.. “Zai Huadong wenhuabu zhuban benyuan xinnianhua guanchahui shang de

baogao” #£ 28 # 3c 1k WE ABE EIR @ LA KS (Report presented at the viewing of our college’s new nianhua sponsored by the East China Department of Culture). Meishu zuotan, no. 1 (Nov. 18, 1950): 5.

Illustrations

References

The following is a list of additional references and abbreviations cited in the illustrations: Bo Songnian, Zhongguo nianhua shi (Shenyang: Liaoning Art Press, 1986) Chao Mei banhua (Harbin: Heilongjiang People’s Press, 1982) China Pictorial [CP] (Beijing, 1951—)

China Reconstructs [CR] (Beijing: China Welfare Institute, 1952-1989) Chinese Literature [CL] (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 195 1—) Fu Baoshi huaji (Nanjing: Jiangsu Art Press, 1985) Gaoju Mao zhuxi de weida gizhi shengli qianjin: meishu zuopin xuan (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1977) Jiang Feng meishu lunji [ ]FMSL]] (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1983) Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu zhanlanbui zhuanjt, vols. 2-3 (Shanghai: Commercial Press, n.d.) Meishu [MS] (Beijing: Chinese Artists Assoctation, 195 4—)

Shi Lu zuopin xuanji (Beying: People’s Art Press, 1983) Shinian zhongguo huibua xuanji, 1949-1959 (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1961) Sichuan banhua xuan (Chongaing: Sichuan People’s Press, 1960)

Tao Yongbai, ed., Zhongguo youbua, 1700-1985 (Nanjing: Jiangsu Art Press, 1988) Xu Beihong sumiao (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1980) Xu Beihong youhua (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1984) Zhongguo meishuguan cangpinji, vol. 1 (Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1988)

Zhongguo xinxing banhua wushinian xuanji, 1931-1981 [ZGXXBH] (Shanghai:

Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1981) 521

522 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures Note: For dimensions, if known, height precedes width. , 1. Jiang Feng, Kill the Resisters, 1931, woodblock print, 14 cm X

17.7 cm, location unknown (ZGXXBH, no. 5). 14 2. Hu Yichuan, To the Front, 1932, woodblock print, 20 cm X 27 cm,

location unknown (ZGXXBH, no. 5). 15 3. Jiang Feng, cover design for Iron Horse Prints, 1936, no. 1, wood-

block print, location unknown (JFMSLJ, no. 11). 17 4. Anonymous, Protect the Border District, ca. 1940, polychromatic

woodblock print, Bo Songnian collection (Bo Songnian, p. 180). 20

unknown (JFMSLJ, no. 24). 21 5. Jiang Feng, Studying Is Good, 1942, woodblock print, location

no. 154). 2.5 6. Wang Shikuo, Reform the Hooligans, 1947, polychromatic woodblock print, 16.5 cm X 25.4 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (ZGXXBH,

7. Hong Bo, Joining the Army, 1947, polychromatic woodblock print,

21 cm X 17.5 cm, location unknown (ZGXXBH, no. 150). 2.6

sumiao, no. 74). 30 8. Xu Beihong, Drawing of a Woman, 1924, charcoal and white chalk on paper, 50 cm X 39 cm, Xu Beihong Memorial Museum (Xu Beihong 9. Xu Beihong, The Sound of the Flute, 1926, oil on canvas, 80

cm X 39 cm, Xu Beihong Memorial Museum (Xu Beihong youbua, no. 2). 31 10. Xu Beihong, Tian Heng and His Five Hundred Retainers, 19281930, oil on canvas, 198 cm X 355 cm, Xu Beihong Memorial Museum

(Xu Beihong youbua, no. 33). 32

11. Xu Beihong, The Old Man Who Moved the Mountain, 1940, ink and color on paper, Xu Bethong Memorial Museum (Liao Jingwen, Xu

Beihong yisheng, n.p.). 32 12. Jiang Zhaohe, Refugees, 1943, ink and color on paper, Central Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition Hall (Zhongguo meishu, no. 9 [1984], n.p.). 33 13. Dong Xiwen, Liberation of Beijing, 1949, ink and color on paper,

location unknown (Metshu zuopin xuanji [Beljing: n.p., 1949], p. 37). 39

12). 47 14. Yan Han, Down with Feudalism, 1948, woodblock print, 28

cm X 37 cm, location unknown (ZGXXBH, no. 179). 40 15. Lin Fengmian, Autumn Beauty, color and ink on paper, location

unknown (Lin Fengmian huaji, no. 4). 46

16. Guan Liang, Cutting Firewood at West Mountain, 1927, oil on canvas, 46.7 cm X 53.2 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Tao Yongbai, no.

17. Fang Ganmin, Melody in Autumn, 1934, oil on canvas, location unknown (Tao Yongbai, no. 27). 48 18. Huang Binhong, Landscape of Shu, dedicated to Wang Bomin,

1948, ink and light colors on paper, private collection. 51 19. Liu Haisu, Oianmen in Beijing, 1922, oil on canvas, 64 cm X 80

cm, location unknown (Tao Yongbai, no. 8). 54

1982], no. 90). 55

20. Yan Wenliang, Autumn in Changfeng Park, 1972, oil on canvas, 37 cm X 25 cm, location unknown (Yan Wenliang (Shanghai: Xuelin Press,

ILLUSTRATIONS 523 21. Hou Yimin and Deng Shu, Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the CCP, 1951, ink and color on paper, new year’s picture, location unknown

(CP 1952, no. I, n.p.). 59 (CP 19§2, no. I, n.p.). 60

22. Li Keran, Model Workers and Peasants at Beihai Park, 1951, ink and color on paper, new year’s picture, 111 cm X 169 cm, location unknown 23. Yan Han, The Bride Speaks, 1951, ink and color on paper, new

year’s picture, location unknown (CP 1952, no. 1, n.p.). 6I 24. Anonymous, The Capital’s Forbidden City at the New Year, late Qing dynasty, woodblock print, Yangliuqing new year’s picture, 58 cm X 105 cm (Zhongguo meishu quanji: huihuabian, vol. 21: Minjian nianhua

[Beijing: People’s Art Press, 1985], pl. 53). 62

25. Lin Gang, Zhao Guilan at the Heroes Reception, 1951, ink and color on silk, new year’s picture, Central Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition

Hall (courtesy of the artist). 63 26. Ye Qianyu, May All the Nationalities Unite, 1951, new year’s

picture, location unknown (Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, p. 21). 64 27. Luo Gongliu, Tunnel Warfare, 1951, oil on canvas, 138 cm X

167.5 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Tao Yongbai, pl. 52). 66 28. The Serial Illustrated Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Lianhuan tubua san guo zhi (Shanghai: Shijie shuju, n.d.], vol. 1, fasc. 1, p. 15a), Gu

Bingxin collection. 70 29. Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, 1952-1953, oil on canvas, 230 cm X 400 cm (CP 1953, no. 10, pp. 20-21; see also Wenyibao,

no. 95 [1953, no. 18]). 78

Yongbai, pl. 67). 83 30. Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, revised ca. 1955 (Tao

31. Copy by Zhao Yu and Jin Shangyi after Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, 1972, with revisions ca, 1980, oil on canvas, Museum of

Chinese Revolutionary History. 85

collection of the artist. 89 32. Han Xin, Landscape, 1972, gouache on paper, 11.8 cm X 8 cm,

pl. 6o). 92 33. Cave 249, Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, Gansu, Western Wei period, polychromatic mural, detail (Zhongguo meishu quanji: huihua bian, vol. 14: Dunhuang bibua, shang (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Art Press, 1988], 34. Dong Xiwen, Kazak Herdswoman, 1948, oil on canvas, 163

cm X 128 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Tao Yongbai, no. 48). 93

vol. 2, no. 24). 95 35. LiKeran, Landscape of Xuzhou, ca. 1937, oil painting ( Jiaoyubu dierci quanguo meishu zhanlanhui zhuanyi (Shanghai: Commercial Press, n.d.], 36. Anonymous, Door Guardian, Hebei province, one of a pair,

polychromatic woodblock print, new year’s picture, Bo Songnian collection. 98 37. Yan Han, Protect Our Homes, 1939-1940, pair of woodblock

Historical Museum. 99

prints, published by Lu [Xun Literature and] Arts Woodcut Team, Chinese

38. Yan Han, Portrait of Peng Dehuat, 1941, monochromatic wood-

block print, collection of the artist. , 100 39. LiShaoyan, The Fourth Division in Northwestern Shanxi, 1946, from The 120th Division (Eighth Route Army) in Northern China series,

524 ILLUSTRATIONS no. 23, monochromatic woodblock print, collection of the Chinese Artists

Association, Sichuan Branch. LOL 40. Gu Yuan, Protect Our People’s Troops, 1944, hand-colored wood-

block print, collection of the artist. | 1O2

41. Yan Han, 1944, polychromatic woodblock prints, pair of new year’s prints (see Bo Songnian, p. 187). Left: Win the War of Resistance, Chinese National Art Gallery (reproduction from the artist’s collection); right: Army and People Cooperate, Colgate University, Picker Art Gallery,

Gift of Prof. and Mrs. Theodore Herman, Acc. no. 81.25. 103 42. Shi Lu, Down with Feudalism, 1949, woodblock print,

31.§ cm X 22 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (ZGXXBH, no. 197). LO7 43. Shi Lu, Mao Zedong at the Heroes Reception, 1946, woodblock

print, location unknown (Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, pl. 75). 108 44. Qt) Baishi, Frogs, 1951, ink on paper, 103.5 cm X 34.4 cm, Chinese

National Art Gallery (Zhongguo meishuguan cangpinji, no. 2). 116 45. LiKeran, West Lake, Hangzhou (Santan yinyue), 1953, ink on

paper, location unknown (MS 1954, no. 10, p. 26). 128 46. Cheng Shifa, illustration for Kong Yiji, after a short story by Lu

Xun, 1956, lianhuanhua, ink and color on paper (CL 1972, no. 12, p. 6a). 131 47. Ding Bingzeng and Han Heping, illustrations for Railroad Guerrillas, 1956-1958, vol. 4, lianhuanhua, ink on paper, 16.5 cm X 21.5 cm

(reprinted Shanghai People’s Art Publishing, 1978). 132

48. Ye Qianyu, illustration for Midnight, after a short story by Mao Dun, ca. 1956 (Jiging renjian—Ye Qianyu chatu suxie manhua xuan

(Tianjin: People’s Art Press, 1985]). 138 49. Jiang Zhaohe, Selling Thread, 1937, ink on paper, 84.5 cm X 47

cm, location unknown (Zhongguo meishu, no. 9 [1984]: n.p.). 139 50. Jiang Zhaohe, Telling Uncle Soldier My Grades, 1953, ink and color on paper, 78.6 cm X 56 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Zhongguo

meishuguan cangpinji, no. 6). I4I

no. IO, n.p.). 143 51. Fang Zengxian, Every Grain Is Hard Work, 1955, ink and color on paper, 105.6 cm X 65.2 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (CL 1977, 52. Zhou Changgu, Two Lambs, 1954, ink and color on paper, 79.3 cm X 39.3 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Zhongguo meishuguan

cangpinji, no. 7). 144 53. Shi Lu, Beyond the Great Wall, 1954, ink and color on paper, 91.6 cm X 130 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Shi Lu shubua ji (Beijing:

People’s Art Press, 1990], pl. 2). 146 54. Quan Shanshi, Study of a Woman, ca. 1956, oil on canvas,

collection of the artist. I51

55. Konstantin Maksimov, Dawn at Zhengyang Gate, location unknown (MS 1957, no. 4, p. 2.9). 154 56. Qin Zheng, Home, 1957, oil on canvas, location unknown (MS

1957, no. 6, p. 21). 156 57. Wang Dewei, Heroic Sisters, 1957, oil on canvas, 188 cm X 124.5 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (MS 1957, no. 7, p. 29). 157 58. Wu Zuoren, Portrait of Ot Baishi, 1954, oil on canvas,

113.5 cm X 86 cm, location unknown (Tao Yongbai, pl. §6). 158

ILLUSTRATIONS 525

collection of the artist. 159 59. Ai Zhongxin, Melting Snow, Forbidden City, 1947, oil on canvas,

60. Ai Zhongxin, The Red Army Crosses the Snowy Mountains, 1957, oil on canvas, 100 cm X 210 cm, Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military

Museum (Tao Yongbai, pl. 57). 160 61. Guan Shanyue, Newly Opened Road, 1954, ink and color on paper, 177.8 cm X 94.3 cm, location unknown (MS 1955, no. 5, p. 27). 163 62. Pan Tianshou, Corner of Lingyan Gully, 1955, ink and color on

paper, location unknown (MS 1956, no. 6, p. 5). 165 63. Wu Hufan, Mountain Peaks in Mist, 1956, ink and color on paper,

location unknown (MS 1956, no. 6, p. 36). 167

collection of the artist. 171 guan cangpinjt, no. 13). 173 64. Zhang Ding, Landscape Sketch, 1954, ink and color on paper,

65. Huang Zhou, Snowstorm on the Steppes, 1955, ink and color on paper, 73.4 cm X 117 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Zhongguo meishu66. Li Qi, Mao at the Ming Tombs Reservoir Site, 1958, ink and color

on paper, 74 cm X §6 cm, location unknown (MS 1959, no. 2, p. 21). 212 67. CAFA Middle School Faculty, Contemporary Heroes, 1960,

guohua (Gaoju Maozhuxi de weida gizhi shengli qianjin, n.p.). 214 68. Jin Shangyi and Wu Biduan, Mao Zedong with the People of Asia,

Africa, and Latin America (CR, Aug. 1960, front cover). 215 69. Huang Yongyu, New Sound in the Forest, 1954, polychromatic woodblock print, 36.8 cm X 25.2 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Zhong-

guo meishuguan cangpinji, no. 50). 219 70. Du Jian, Advancing Among Swift Currents, 1963, oil on canvas, 220 cm X 332 cm, formerly Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History

(reported destroyed; Tao Yongbai, pl. 82). 222 71. Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue, This Land So Rich in Beauty, 1959,

ink and color on paper, Great Hall of the People (CP 1972, no. 4). 229 72. Fu Baoshi, The West Wind Blows Red Rain, 1956, ink and color

pl. 62). 239 on paper, 45.7 cm X 48.3 cm, Fu family collection (Fu Baoshi huaji, pl. 44). 233 73. Zhan Jianjun, Five Heroes of Mount Langya, 1959, oil on canvas, 200 cm X 185 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Tao Yongbai, 74. Wang Shikuo, Bloody Clothes, 1959, charcoal on paper, Museum

of Chinese Revolutionary History (Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, pl. 13). 240 75. Jin Shangyi, Mao Zedong at the December Conference, 1961, oil on canvas, 155 cm X 140 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History

(Tao Yongbai, pl. 74). 242

76. Bao Jia and Zhang Fagen, The Huai-Hai Campaign, 1961, oil on canvas, 150 cm X 320 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Tao

Yongbai, pl. 73). 2.43

pl. 71). 244 77. Quan Shanshi, Death Before Surrender, 1961, oil on canvas,

233 cm X 127 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Tao Yongbai, ,

78. Hou Yimin, Liu Shaogi and the Anyuan Coal Miners, 1961, oil on canvas, formerly Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (reported

destroyed; MS 1961, no. 4). 245

526 ILLUSTRATIONS

collection. | 248 79. He Youzhi, illustrations for Great Change in a Mountain Village, 1963, vol. 3, lianbuanhua, ink on paper, Shanghai People’s Art Press

80. He Youzhi, illustrations for Li Shuangshuang, lianhuanhua, ink on

paper, Shanghai People’s Art Press collection. 250 8x1. Zhao Hongben and Qian Xiaodai, illustrations for Monkey Beats the White-boned Demon, lianhuanhua, ink on paper (from a deluxe reproduc-

tion by Shanghai People’s Art Press, n.d.). 252 82. Collective painting, People’s Commune Dining Hall, 1958, guobua, location unknown (MS 1959, no. I, p. 22). 255

fig. 96). 256 83. Qian Songyan, On Furong Lake, 1958, ink and color on paper, 108 cm X 64.5 cm, location unknown (Shinian zhongguo huihua xuanji, 84. Fu Baoshi, Ode to Yuhuatai, 1958, ink and color on paper,

60 cm X 105 cm, location unknown (Fu Baoshi huaji, pl. 54). 258

85. Gong Xian (1619-1689), Mountains and Clouds, leaf from a six-leaf landscape album, ink on paper, 22.2 cm X 43.7 cm, Metropolitan

Museum of Art, New York, The Sackler Fund, Acc. no. 69.242.17. 2.58 86. Attributed to Emperor Huizong (1082-1135), copy after Zhang Xuan, Court Ladies Preparing Newly Woven Silk, handscroll, ink and color on silk, 37 cm X 145.3 cm (courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Chinese

and Japanese Special Fund, Acc. no. 12.886). 261 87. Li Song (fl. 1190-1265), The Knickknack Peddler, dated 1212, album leaf, ink on silk, 24.1 cm X 26 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art,

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund, Acc. no. 63.582. 262 88. Ya Ming, Steel Mill, 1960, album leaf, ink and colors on paper,

27.8 cm X 40.1 cm, collection of the artist. 264 89. Niu Wen, The East Is Red, the Sun Is Rising, 1959, monochromatic woodblock print, 36 cm X 34.5 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Asso-

ciation, Sichuan Branch. 266 90. Li Shaoyan, Old Street, New Look, 1958, polychromatic woodblock print, 24.2 cm X 38.3 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Association,

Sichuan Branch. 2.69 91. Li Huanmin, Weaving a Rug, 1952, woodblock print, 27.5 cm X

Branch. 271 Branch. 275

19 cm (Sichuan banhua xuan, fig. 57). 270

92. Li Huanmin, Golden Road, 1963, polychromatic woodblock print, 54.3 cm X 49 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Association, Sichuan 93. Xu Kuang, Awaiting the Ferry, 1959, polychromatic woodblock

print, 40.3 cm X 33 cm (Sichuan banhua xuan, fig. 3). 2.73 94. Wu Fan, Planting Season, 1957, polychromatic woodblock print,

35.2cm X 16 cm, collection of the artist. 274 95. Wu Fan, Dandelion, 1959, polychromatic woodblock print, 54.6 cm X 36.5 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Association, Sichuan

96. Wu Fan, A Small Bus Station, 1964, polychromatic woodblock

print, 34.6 cm X 16.3 cm, collection of the artist. 276 97. Chao Mei, Black Soil Steppe, 1960, polychromatic woodblock

print, 36.2 cm X 26.4 cm, location unknown (Chao Mei banhua, no. 5). 280

ILLUSTRATIONS 527 98. Valentyn Lytvynenko, Ode to Hunting, linoleum print, 37 cm X

47 cm (Banhua 16 |Apr. 1959]: n.p.). 281 99. Chao Mei, Apricot Orchard, 1962, polychromatic woodblock

print, 58.5 cm X 43 cm, location unknown (Chao Mei banhua, no. 25). 283 100. Shi Lu, On the Road to Nanniwan, ca. 1960, ink and color on paper,

67 cm X 67 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, pl. 4). 290 101. Zhao Wangyun, Returning Herder in an Autumnal Forest, 1961, ink and color on paper, 46.8 cm X 69 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery

(Zhongguo meishuguan cangpinji, no. 29). 291

102. He Haixia, Yumen Gorge on the Yellow River, 1959, guohua, ink and color on paper, location unknown (Modern Paintings in the Chinese

Style, supplement to CR, Sept. 1960, n.p.). 2.92 103. Shi Lu, Going Upstream at Yumen, 1961, ink and color on paper,

25). 295

location unknown (Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, pl. 6). 292

Shanghai Museum of Art. 294 104. Xugu, Squirrel, 1895, album leaf, ink and color on paper,

105. Shi Lu, Spring Shoots, 1973, album leaf, ink and color on paper, 35.3 cm X 45.8 cm, location unknown (Zhongguo shubua, no. 4 [Feb. 1980]:

106. Li Keran, Morning Mist in a River City, 1959, guohua, location unknown (MS 1959, no. 9, p. 26). 300 107. Li Keran, Rain on the Li River, 1962, guohua, location unknown

(MS 1963, no. 1, p. 62). 301

Painting. 304 108. Wu Hufan, Celebrate the Success of Our Atomic Bomb Explosion, 1965, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, Shanghai Institute of Chinese

109. Gerald Zhixing Young, Warriors of the People (The War in the

South), 1965, hand-colored woodblock print, collection of the artist. 312 110. Anonymous, Chairman Mao’s Heart Beats as One with the Hearts of the Revolutionary Masses, ca. 1967, oil painting, location unknown (CR,

Feb. 1968, p. 22). 322 no. I, pp. 24-25). 323 111. Hou Yimin, Deng Shu, Jin Shangyi, Zhan Jianjun, Luo Gongliu, Yuan Hao, and Yang Lin’gui, We Must Implement the Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the Finish, 1972, oil on canvas, location unknown (MS 1976,

Sun Jingbo. 325 112. The One-Ton Cudgel (Qianjunbang), broadsheet, no. 1, Feb. 15, 1967, published by the Yunnan Red Art Rebels Liaison Station, collection of

113. Sun Jingbo, “Struggle with words, not with weapons,” 1967, poster, published by the Studio of the Yunnan FLAC United Struggle Team

artist. 334 cover). 340

and Yunnan Red Art Rebels Liaison Station, collection of the artist. 326 114. Jiang Tiefeng, “Proletarian Cultural Revolution Painting Exhibi-

tion,” 1967, poster, collection of Sun Jingbo. 327 115. Weng Rulan, “A Crowd of Clowns,” 1967, poster, collection of the

116. Liu Chunhua, Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, ca. 1967, oil on canvas, location unknown (reported damaged) (CR 1968, no. 10, front 117. Jin Shangyi, Chairman Mao at Lu Shan, 1966, oil on canvas,

location unknown (CL 1968, no. 9, p. 40a). 341

528 ILLUSTRATIONS 118. Cheng Shifa, Views from Diancong Mountain, “Leaning Pine Tree,” album leaf, ink and color on paper, 24.1 cm X 17.7 cm (courtesy

poster. 348 artist. 352 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Acc. no. 1981.76.K). | 344 119. Yi Zhong (Chen Yifei and Xu Chunzhong), “Chairman Mao’s Red Guard Study the Model Revolutionary Youth, Comrade Jin Xunhua,” 1969,

Pp. 35). 356 120. Sun Jingbo, A New Axi Song, 1972, oil on canvas, collection of the

121. Tang Muli, Milk Maid, 1971, oil on canvas (CP 1972, no. 7, 122. Tang Muli, Acupuncture Anesthesia, 1972, oil on canvas,

165 cm X 229 cm (photo courtesy of the artist). 357

123. He Kongde, Gutian Meeting, 1972, oil on canvas, 186 cm X 360 cm, Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Museum (Gaoju Maozhuxi de

weida qizhi shengli gianjin, n.p.). 361

124. Shaanxi Municipal Art Creation Group, The Hearts of Yan’an’s Children Turn Toward Chairman Mao, 1973, ink and color on paper (Guowuyuan wenhuazu meishuzuopin zhengji xiaozu, ed., 1973 “OQuanguo lianbuanhua, zhongguohua zhanlan,” Zhongguohua xuanji (Beijing:

People’s Art Press, 1974], pl. 1; see also CL 1974, no. 3, p. 112). 363 Shen Jiawei, Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland, 1974, oil on125. canvas, collection of the artist. 365 126. Yan Han, Spider Plant, 1972, polychromatic woodblock print,

collection of the artist. 369 127. Shi Lu, Mount Hua, 1972, ink on paper, courtesy ‘of Cemac Ltd.

(Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, pl. 61). 370

128. Li Keran, Landscape of the Pure River Li, 1975, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, 100 cm X 69 cm, location unknown (Zhongguobua,

1980, no. 76; see also Mingjia hanmo, no. 4 [1990]: 108). 371 129. Pang Xunqin, Still Life, 1973, oil on canvas, 61 cm X 50 cm,

Chinese National Art Gallery (Tao Yongbai, pl. 98). 372 130. Cheng Shifa, Girl and Deer (dedicated to James Cahill), 1973, ink

and color on paper, James Cahill, Berkeley, California. 375 131. Peng Bin and Jin Shangyi, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, 1977, oil on canvas, 226 cm X 270 cm, Chinese National Art Gallery (Quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan tulu [Zhongguohua youhua] 1977 (Tianjin: Tian-

jin People’s Art Press, 1978], front cover and no. 1x). 380 132. Han Xin and Wei Jingshan, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease,

1978, oil on canvas, formerly Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio, Shanghai. 381 133. Liu Yaozhen and Han Xin, Hua Guofeng at Yangqu, 1977, oil on canvas, Chinese National Art Gallery (Oingzhu zhonguo renmin jiefangjun

wushi zhounian: meishu zuopinzhanlan tulu (Beijing: n.p., 1978], n.p.). 383 134. Yuan Yunsheng, Water Splashing Festival, 1979, acrylic on canvas

mural, Beijing International Airport. 391

p. I). 395

photo courtesy of the artist). 393 135. Gao Xiaohua, Why?, 1979, oil on canvas (MS 1979, no. 7, p. 20;

136. Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, “Maple,” lianhuanhua, 1979, after a short story by Zheng Yi (Lianhuanhuabao, 1979, no. 8,

ILLUSTRATIONS 529 137. Luo Zhongli, Father, 1980, oil on canvas, 240 cm X 165 cm,

Chinese National Art Gallery (Tao Yongbai, pl. 116). 397 138. Wang Keping, Idol, 1979, wooden sculpture, location unknown

(photo courtesy of the artist). 399 Plates Following Page 200

1. Dong Xiwen, The Founding of the Nation, revised ca. 1967, oil on canvas, 230 cm X 400 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Gaoju Maozhuxi de weida qgizhi shengli gianjin, n.p.).

2. He Kongde, A Letter from Home, 1957, with later repairs, oil on canvas, collection of the artist.

3. Shi Lu, Fighting in Northern Shaanxi, 1959, ink and color on paper, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Shi Lu zuopin xuanji, pl. 3).

4. Luo Gongliu, Mao Zedong at Jingang Shan, 1962, oil on canvas, 150 cm X 200 cm, Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (Tao Yongbai, pl. 59).

5. Ya Ming, Peddlers, 1958, ink and colors on silk, 78.5 cm X 212 cm, collection of the artist. 6. Li Huanmin, Tibetan Girl, 1959, woodblock print, 42.5 cm X 23.5 cm, collection of the Chinese Artists Association, Sichuan Branch.

7. Li Keran, Ten Thousand Crimson Hills, 1963, ink and color on paper, Chinese National Art Gallery (MS 1963, no. 6, p. 62).

8. Lu Yanshao, Landscapes After the Poems of Du Fu, 1962, album leaf, ink and color on paper, collection of the artist.

9. Wu Hufan, Twin Pines and Layered Green, 1959, hanging scroll, ink and color on paper, Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting.

10. Tang Xiaohe and Cheng Li, Follow Closely Our Great Leader Chairman Mao, Ride the Wind, Cleave the Waves, Fearlessly Forge Ahead, 1972, oil on canvas, collection of the artists. ti. Chen Yifei and Wei Jingshan, The Taking of the Presidential Palace, 1977, oil On canvas, 335 cm X 466 cm, Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military Museum (Tao Yongbai, pl. 92). 12. Wu Fan, Plum Blossoms and Tire Tracks, 1980, woodblock print, 41 cm X 39.5 cm, collection of the artist.

Index

Italicized page numbers refer to illustrations.

A Lao, 64 All-China Federation of Literary and Arts CirAdmonitions of the Instructress to the Ladies cles. See FLAC

of the Palace, 263 amateur artists, 124; in Cultural Revolution,

aesthetic education (metyu), 27, 28. See also 347, 353, 359, 362, 378; in exhibitions,

art education 359, 362, 397; unofficial exhibition, 397

Ai Qing: as art student, 421n.27; Communist anatomy, 144, 190 takeover role, 22, 34, 86; and guohua, 111, ancestor portraits, 24 122, 161, 437N.5, 438n.22; imprisoned, Anti-Rightist campaign: and art academy cur15-16; individualism, 437n.8; and Jiang riculum, 216; in art world, 1388—201, 208; Feng, 15-16, 122, 438n.22; and Lin Feng- CAFA, 188-200, 210; coercion in, 188— mian, 86, 421n.27, 430n.55; “On Chinese 189; conclusion, 203; labor camps, 197; Painting,” 112—118; and Qi Baishi, 86, national forms after, 234; opportunism in, 114, 118; Red Guard attacks, 329; and 188; and party loyalty, 192; purges, 197, remolding of art, 111-119; as rightist, 197, 198, 200, 208, 284; quotas, 197; and Soviet 456n.214; and Spring Earth Painting Club, art, 198, 201; Wu Hufan and, 303; Wu

5 Zuoren and, 189, 217; Zhou Enlai defend-

Ai Zhongxin, 157; at CAFA, 57, 134, 216, ing, 206; Zhou Yang and, 389

217, 386—387; exiled to countryside, 310; Antonioni, Michelangelo, target of attack, 368 on Jiang Feng, 194; landscape painting, Anyuan miners’ strike (1922), 338 157; Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway sketching applied arts: CAA, 124-125; CAFA, 57, 134,

trip, 172; and Maksimov, 160; Melting 136 Snow, Forbidden City (1947), 159, 297- art academies: administration during 1980s, 298; in National Art Exhibition (1955), 403; admissions, 213, 387; and CAA, 168, 172; as National Beiping Arts College pro- 201; Cultural Revolution and, 350, 388, fessor, 426n.82; On to Urumchi, 159, 172; 393; decentralization in, 216; eclipse of, The Red Army Crosses the Snowy Moun- 202; faculty, 25, 27; goals of art, 172; tains (1957), 1§9, 160; reviewed exhibition graduates, 404; guohua instruction, 182; (1954), 150; and socialist realism, 160; and local and regional (established 1959), 209— Soviet art, 1§0; as target of political cam- 210; middle schools (zhongxue), 134-135,

paign, 246; and Xu Beihong, 157 147; national, 136, 210, 439n.66; official All-China Art Workers Association. See AWA style at, 175; reorganization (1952), 134;

All-China Congress of Literary and Arts restructuring (1958), 210; six major, 135; Workers: First (1949), 35, 38, 92, 1033 Soviet models, 175; specialization (1953Second (1953), 119, 285, 434n.1513; Third 1957), 134-161; standardized, 175; tech-

(1960), 214 nique at, 175; travel, 90 531

532 INDEX art criticism: on commercialism, 124; shift in Basov, V. N., Greetings, Earth compared to (1956), 166; on traditional guohua, 123-— Chinese art, 282

124, 166 Beidahuang (Great Northern Wasteland),

art education, 424n.67; AWA (Shanghai 277-283; artists move to Harbin (1960), branch), 71; children’s palaces, 353; cultur- 279; artists as propagandists, 278, 283; al halls, 353; at Hangzhou, 45; republican artists sketching trip to Xinjiang, 282; China, 148; workers’ cultural palaces, 353; Beidacang (Great Northern Granary), 277; youth palaces, 353. See also art academies Chao Mei, 278; exhibitions, 278, 279; exile

art for art’s sake, 9, 22, 44, 181, 182 for rightists, 456n.214; funding, 277—279, art market, 368, 404; guohua, 74, 43.4n.142; 282; natural calamities (1960), 279; prop-

400 jiang

international, 404 aganda function, 277, 282; settlement of,

art remolding, 36, 40, 41, 73, III-119, 145, 282; themes in art, 278. See also HeilongArt Research Center (Meiyan suo), 135-136 Beidahuang Literature and Arts, 278 art standards: Cultural Revolution, 341-342, Beidabuang Pictorial, 278; print movement,

358-360, 366, 384, 385, 386, 391; guohua 277-279, 282 (1963), 307-308; raising, 128, 134, 298, Beidaihe, Hebei (resort), 299 350, 428n.28; Zhou Enlai and, 206, 376 Beying Aeronautical] Institute, 320, 330 Art Storm (Meishu fenglei): attacks on leaders, Beijing Arts College, 184, 309, 460n.297 328; on Being Chinese Painting Institute, Beijing Chinese Painting Institute, 199, 226,

329; at CAFA, 325; and Earth faction, 330; 430n.66, 477n.35; administration,

Red Guard groups sponsored by, 326 443n.158; countryside labors (1964), 306;

art themes. See themes for art oil painting added, 306; renamed Beijing art theory, 120, 121, 142, 149 Painting Institute (ca. 1964), 306; training Art Theory Research Center, 136 of students (1962-1963), 306. See also Art War Gazette (Meishu zhanbao), 328 Chinese Painting institutes Art Workers Association. See AWA Beijing Chinese Painting Research Association

artistic freedom, 398 exhibition (1953), 161

artists: in factories, 124; “generations,” Beijing Chinese Painting Research Institute, 472n.63; generations defined, 401; manual 226. See also Beijing Painting Institute labor, 45; provincial status (1949~1957), Beijing Conservatory, 320

109. See also amateur artists Beijing Crafts Research Institute, 446n.8 arts administration, centralized, 378 Beijing Department Store, site for GLF art, arts and literature rectification campaign, 124, 21

130, 148 Beijing Hotel, 368, 373

avant-garde: exhibition, 430n.67; experiments Beijing Municipal Committee, as exhibitions

(1930s), 16; and “Stars” as models (1980s), sponsor, 226

399; Xu Bing, 367 Beijing municipal government, CAFA adminisAWA (Art Workers Association): and cen- tration, 209 sorship, 70; Chinese Artists Association Beijing Municipal Military Affairs Committee,

forerunner, 7, 34-36, 65; Creation Re- 34 search Center, 70; exhibitions, 67, 161; and Beijing Normal College of Arts, 460n.297 FLAC, 41; guohua exhibition (1953), 161; Beijing Normal University art department,

lianbuanhua (Shanghai), 70; nianhua spon- 460N.297 sorship, 66; Northwestern branch (Xi’an), Beijing Painting Institute, 199, 306, 327, 404. 164; renamed, 119; Shanghai branch, 55, See also Beijing Chinese Painting Institute

67, 70, 71; and thought reform, 55 Beijing Revolutionary Committee, power struggle, 330 Beijing Train Station, among Ten Great Build-

Bai Xueshi, trip to south (1965), 309 ings, 228

Banhua, 281 317, 338

Bai Yan, CAFA administrator (1977), 386 Beijing University, during Cultural Revolution,

Bao Jia, 417; The Huai-Hai Campaign (1961, Beijing Workers Stadium, CRSG meeting

with Zhang Fagen), 241, 243 (1967), 329

INDEX 533 Beiping Art Academy (founded 1918), 28; national leaders, 227; and national painting,

graduates, 137 124, 126, 185; and New China Daily art 467N. 111 official seal confiscated (1967), 324; orga-

Bethune, Norman, subject for art, 345, 382, section, 268; officers, 125, 225, 227, 389;

Bi county, Jiangsu, murals and folk paintings, nizer of art campaign (1958-1959), 228;

2.25 popularization work section, 125; print-

bimo (brush and ink), 257 making, 124; and propaganda publishing, bird-and-flower painting (guohua), 118, 137, 227; Red Guard groups, 327; reestablish140, 162, 165, 190; at CAFA, 216, 219; ment (1978), 388; regional branches, 164-— Chen Banding, 166; exhibited, 161, 164; 165, 202, 226, 404, 442N.132, 451N.104; National Art Exhibition, 164; Wang Geyi, and regional leaders, 227; rehabilitation of 166; Wang Xuetao, 166; Yu Feian, 165 officers (1979), 389; rewards for artists, 7; black painting exhibitions, 368-374; Beijing, rise of, 202; sculpture, 124; Second Na-

373-374; Jinan, 374; Nanjing, 374; tional Art Exhibition (1955), 82; Shaanxi Shanghai, 374-375, 445n.68; Xi’an, 374— branch, 458n.238; Shanghai branch, 226,

376; and Zhou Enlai, 373 346; socialist realism, 201; and “Stars,”

bourgeois university staffing, 217 398; systematization, 175; Tianjin branch,

Braque, Georges, 180 226; Wuhan branch, 226; Xi’an branch, British embassy, arson (1967), 321 226, 284, 285, 293, 458n.238; and Yan

brush and ink (bimo), 257 Han, 195; Zhejiang branch, 227; and Zhou Bureau of Light Industry (Shanghai): Hand- Yang, 121 icrafts Institute, 345; Shanghai Art School CAAC (Central Academy of Arts and Crafts):

administration, 223 and Beijing airport mural, 390; and Beijing

bureaucracy: arbitrariness in, 6; in art world, Arts College, 309; and Cultural Revolution, 4, 5, 6; complaints about, 187; irregularity 338, 343; established, 136, 184; faculty, affecting art, 401; in party rectification 309, 390; as national art college, 439n.66;

(1957), 196 Red Guard groups, 319, 326

CAFA (Central Academy of Fine Arts), 164; admissions, 218, 359, 387; Anti-Rightist

CAA (Chinese Artists Association), 4-7, 36, campaign, 208—211; applied arts, 57, 134, 124-125, 161-169, 404; and Anti-Rightist 136; art history department, 136, 447N.353 campaign, 208; applied arts, 124-125; Art Research Center split, 135; Art Theory artistic development, 202; arts research Research Center, 136; artists, 211, 214, committee, 126; Beidahuang artists trip to 321; Beijing Arts College faculty, 309; as Xinjiang, 282; and CAAC, 121; cartoons, “black dyeing vat,” 311; and CAA, 201; 124; centralized, 201; charter (1954), 125; Chinese painting, 216, 218, 219, 332; Chinese painting research studio, 284, 288; color-and-ink painting (caimohua), 134, Chongaing branch, 226, 267, 456n.199; 135, 136, 173, 185, 189, 216; Communist and Cultural Revolution, 317, 349; decen- remolding, 41; condemned works, 209; tralized, 225; editorial section, 125; estab- conferences on drawing and painting inlished (1953), 119; exhibition section, 125; struction (1955, 1956), 136; and Cultural exhibitions, 161, 162, 166, 279, 297, 298; Revolution, 320-331 passim, 350, 360, factionalism (1953), 126; and FLAC, 121; 362, 367, 388; Cultural Revolution exhibifolk art, 126; GLF work plans, 225; Guang- tion (1972), 361; curriculum, 57, 104, 134, zhou branch, 165, 226; Guizhou branch, 136, 137, 216, 218; decentralization, 209; 227; and guohua, 126, 155, 166, 168, 182, and Dunhuang murals, 147; East China 185, 191; ideology, 7; Jiangsu branch, 165, campus (see CAFA East China campus); 254, 259; Kunming branch, 324; meetings established (1950), 35; factionalism, 222, (1955 and 1956), 190; membership, 122, 312-313; faculty, 56-58, 77, 90, 96, 173, 227; Nanjing (Jiangsu) branch, 198, 226, 216—220, 221, 238, 309, 343, 431N.93; 227, 2§93; national artistic tradition, 125; “five-man small group,” 41; Four Cleanups national arts research committee, 125; campaign, 310, 313, 319; and GLF, 211, national guohua exhibition (1956), 166; 213; graduates, 58, 137, 246, 270—272, national heritage revival (1956), 165; and 403; and guohua, 186, 193; history paint-

534 INDEX CAFA (cont.) struction, 220; established, 135; graduates, ing, 238; and Jiang Feng, 41, 45, 56, 57, 324, 333, 351, 364; manual labor, 343, 125, 136, 176-177, 183, 193, 223, 387; 364; in 1960S, 220; protests by radical stuleadership vacuum, 210; Luo Gongliu’s dents (1964), 310; Red Guard, 320, 322, class (1961—1963), 221, 246; Maksimov’s 326, 351; reopened (1979), 387; and socialclass (1955-1957), 1§1, 152; manual labor, ist realism, 272; Soviet curriculum, 135, 124, 227, 343; May Seventh College of 220; and “Stars,” 398; students, 319, Arts, 367; middle school (see CAFA middle 449n.72; Yang Xianzhen speech, 310 school); military control of, 343; mural CAFA Red Guard, 322, 323, 325; arrested, painting, 211, 220; National Art Research 343; battles, 331-332; bloodlines slogan, Center, 135, 210, 220; nianhua, 137, 2133 320; factions, 329; forts, 331; Great United oil painting, 211, 216-218, 221, 246, 331; Congress, 326, 330; groups, 319, 326, 331, party organization (1951), 57; People’s Dai- 332; middle school, 320, 322, 326, 3513 ly attack (1956), 168; political conscious- Prairie Fire, 326, 328, 330, 331-332; propness, 213-214; political movements, 213, aganda work, 332; Revolutionary Alliance/ 308; printmaking, 134, 216, 217, 218; Red Red Flag, 330; split (1967), 330 Guard (see CAFA Red Guard); rehabilita- Cahill, James, 375 tion of faculty and administrators (1977), Cai Liang: criticized, 177, 443n.3; and history 386; research institutes, 135; rightists, 198; painting campaign (1964-1965), 246 Sculpture Creation Studio, 327; Sky faction Cai Ruohong, 37—38; administrator (1949), art works, 338; Socialist Education Move- 427n.15; and Anti-Rightist campaign, 208; ment, 308-313; Soviet-style art, 136, 149, attacked, 186, 319, 324, 328; and Beying 155, 220, 221; specialization, 134, 137; sta- Chinese Painting Research Association extus of, 109, 164, 209; students, 310, 328, hibition (1953), 161; and CAA, 125, 164,

343; studio system, 205, 216-222, 331; 201, 227, 388, 389; and creative freedom, study groups (1962), 220; translation of 221; and Cultural Revolution, 317, 319, name, 426n.5; worker-peasant-soldier train- 324, 328, 329; history painting, 65; and ing program, 211; Zhongnanhai exhibition Hou Yimin commission (1961), 242;

(1953), 80 against Hu Feng, 179, 183; and Jiang Feng,

CAFA East China campus, 42-46, 56, 59, 126, 177, 184, 185-189, 192, 197; and 135, 424n.66; administration, 182-183, Jimao xin, 67; leadership (1965), 309; and 431n.86; Anti-Rightist purges, 208; antique lianhuanhua, 37, 73, 427N.15; as Masses painting collection, 136; Chinese painting Pictorial Press director, 67; as moderate,

department, 45; color-and-ink painting 177; and nianhua, 427.15; and Qian Jun(caimohua) department, 52, 142; Commu- rui, 183, 186; and Shao Yu, 189; and Shi nist remolding, 40; complaints about, 182—- Lu painting, 296; supporters, 185; and This

183; curriculum, 51-53, 134, 192, Land So Rich in Beauty, 230; traditional 430n.71; and Dunhuang murals, 147; fac- painting revival, 126, 191; USSR visit ulty, 142, 192, 439n.72; as figure painting (1954), 149; Yan Han criticized by, 195 center, 140; and guohua, 140-148, 182- Cai Yi, CAFA instructor, 56 183; Hangzhou National Arts Academy re- Cai Yuanpei, 420n.2; and art education, 28; named as, 41, 45—46; manual labor, 41; as art theorist, 12; on artists’ social respon-

national art research center, 136; new sibility, 44; as chancellor, 28; and Jiang nianhua, 59; relocation proposed to Shang- Feng, 44; and Liu Haisu, 420n.2; and Lu hal, §3, 56, 182-183, 210, 223; renamed Xun, 44; modern curriculum, 27; and

Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, 210; National Hangzhou Arts Academy, 27; “On Shanghai publishers, 73; and Soviets, 136, Replacing Religion with Aesthetic Educa-

149; Western curriculum, 192; Western tion,” 28 painting and guohua departments merged, Cai Zhenhua, Shanghai People’s Art Press

45, 51; and Yan Wenliang, 56. See also staff artist, 433n.130 National Hangzhou Arts Academy caimohua (color-and-ink painting), 52, 135; at CAFA middle school: Contemporary Heroes art academies, 52, 137, 142, 185; and Hu (1960, by faculty), 274; and Cultural Rev- Feng, 178; new style in Hangzhou, 142; reolution, 319, 325, 333, 360; drawing in- named Chinese painting, 216; terminology

INDEX 535 problem, 194; and traditional painting, 201; CCP, 200; publishing houses, 130. See 135; and Western academic drawing, 137. also decentralization; recentralization

See also CAFA Cézanne, Paul, 29, 43, 53, 96

calligraphy, 232, 287; Mao and, 35, 220, 232, Chairman Mao’s Heart Beats as One with the

426n.4 Hearts of the Revolutionary Masses, 320,

Cao Dali, in New Spring exhibition, 386 321, 322; by CAFA faculty, 337-338 Capital Theater, meeting site, 184 Chang Shuhong, Thunder (1945), reproduced The Capital’s Forbidden City at the New Year, in Meishu (1962), 297

61-62 Chang Youming, in New Spring exhibition,

cartoons: in CAA (1953), 124; in Cultural 386

Revolution, 332—337; Gang of Four attack, Chao Mei, 278-283; Apricot Orchard (1962),

384; against Hu Feng, 336; Liu Shaogi 282, 283; Black Soil Steppe (1960), 280; as

attack, 384 exhibition organizer, 279; in Fourth

CCP (Chinese Communist party), 6, 65; arbi- National Print Exhibition, 279; Golden Sea, trariness of, 193, 199-200; and AWA, 36; 278; to Heilongjiang, 278; in National Art and Beijing Municipal Committee, 226; Exhibition (1960), 279; prints, 278-283; as Beijing takeover, 34; Central Committee, 5, propagandist, 280; romantic appeal, 283; 130, 180, 211; centralization, 200; conflicts Sea of Grain, 278; in Second National within, 203, 204, 207; control of art and Military Exhibition (1960), 279; and Soviet artists, 1, 6—7, 34; cultural policies, 18, 80, art, 281-282; students in Cultural Revolu202, 207; and Cultural Revolution art stan- tion, 364; at Third National People’s Condards, 385; Cultural Revolution rejected, gress, 279; trip to Xinjiang, 282; and Zhang 314; directive to inherit the national tradi- Zuoliang, 278 tion, 194; discipline, 22, 97; and General Chen Banding: and affordable guohua, 225; Alliance for Left-Wing Culture, 13; gifts attacked in Cultural Revolution, 462n.26; and bribes policy, 303; and GLF, 307; and guohua in Second National Art Exhibition, guohua, 168, 199, 234; history painting, 164; and Third Exhibition of the Chinese 65; and intellectuals, 184; international Painting Research Association, 165-166 role, 216; Jiangsu, 251; leadership, 203, Chen Bo, CAFA head, 329 320; local officials involved in art, 254; Chen Boda: Cultural Revolution leader, 321; loyalty, 200; and manual labor, 211; mem- speech (1967), 329 bership goals, 226; Politburo, 207, 317, Chen Danging, in Contemporaries, 388 318, 364; propaganda department, 5, 35, Chen Dayu: black painting exhibition (Shang41, 207, 227, 349; propaganda publica- hai), 374; trip to south (1965), 309; Weltions, 268; rectification campaigns, 22, 185, coming Spring (1973), 373, 374 191, 192, 195, 196; and Red Guard, 320; Chen Hongshou: and lianhuanhua, 247; as rural collectivation drive (1955), 179; selec- model, 130 tive revival of traditional cultural forms, Chen Pei: at CAFA, 210, 387; criticized by 234; Shanghai takeover, 67; supervision of radical students, 310; Cultural Revolution academic activity, 217. See also remolding attack, 328; Lin Fengmian exhibition criticensorship, 254, 382; lianhuanhua, 70; and cized by, 308; purge (1964), 210; replaced, Lu Xun’s preface to exhibition (1931), 44 311; Yang Xianzhen’s speech defended by,

Central Academy of Arts and Crafts. See 310

CAAC Chen Qitong, criticized Hundred Flowers

Central Academy of Fine Arts. See CAFA liberalization, 191 Central Academy of Handicrafts, 439n.68 Chen Shuliang, 427n.13

Central Academy of Industrial Arts, 439n.68 Chen Shutong: and Beijing Chinese Painting

Central Committee, CCP, 5, 130, 180, 211 Research Association Exhibition (1953),

Central Institute of Fine Arts, 426n.5 161; as possible subject in Founding of the Central Museum of Revolutionary History, Nation, 43.4n.157

history paintings, 65 Chen Tiegeng: biography, 423n.45; nianbua

Central Propaganda Bureau, CCP, 5, 35, 41, artist, 18; and woodcuts, 14

207, 227, 349 Chen Yan’ning, in oil painting correction

centralization: in art world, 164, 378; CAA, group, 360

536 INDEX Chen Yangiao: and Communist takeover of Chinese Artists Association. See CAA Shanghai, 67; vice-director of East China Chinese Communist party. See CCP

Artists Association, 164 Chinese Literature, published Heilongjiang Chen Yi: Canton Forum of Opera and Drama prints, 366 : speech, 207; and guohua, 74-75, 1753 as Chinese National Art Gallery, 43; construcmilitary leader, 241; and Mo Pu, 428n.29; tion, 228; Founding of the Nation exhibited and Shanghai art world, 67; as Shanghai (1992), 435n.163; “Long Live the Victory

mayor, 67; and This Land So Rich in of Chairman Mao’s Revolutionary Line” exBeauty, 231; and “uncapped” intellectuals, hibition (1967), 337; national exhibition

297 (1979), 397; opened (1962), 451N.110;

Chen Yifei: influence (late 1970s), 393; and post-1975, 378; “Stars” exhibition, 397 labor reform, 352; in oil painting correction Chinese painting. See caimohua; guobua, group, 360; at OPSS, 347; in Shanghai ex- national painting hibition (1976), 385; The Taking of the Chinese Painting institutes: as alternatives to Presidential Palace (with Wei Jingshan), art academy policies, 200; established, 191; 382-383, plate 11; and Xu Chunzhong, as model for oil painting creation studio,

347 187; old guohua artists supported by, 305;

Chen Yiming: criticism of Red Guard suffer- protected by party leaders, 200; Shanghai ing, 394-396; “Maple” lanhuanhua (with and Beijing, 200. See also Beijing Chinese

Liu Yulian and Li Bing), 394, 395 Painting Institute; Shanghai Institute of Chen Yun: concern about communes, 203; Chinese Painting possible subject in Founding of the Nation, Chinese Painting Research Society, Xi’an, 284

434N.157 Chinese People’s Revolutionary Military

Chen Zhifo, 75, 259 Museum, among Ten Great Buildings, 228 Chen Zunsan, study in Leningrad (1953- Chistiakov, Pavel Petrovich (1832-1919),

1959), 150 439n.65; and Chinese art curriculum, 136; Month, 1968, 393 and guohua instruction, 182

Cheng Conglin: and realism, 394; X Day X drawing system, 136, 147, 218, 220, 3333

Cheng Li, Follow Closely Our Great Leader chuangzuo (creation) classes, at CAFA (1949—-

Chairman Mao (with Tang Xiaohe), 361, 1952), §7, 104

plate 10 civil war, 22, 36—37

Cheng Shifa, 305; attacked (1974), 373; black Cixian, Hebei (labor camp), 343

painting exhibition (Shanghai), 374; and Close, Chuck (b. 1940), 396 Chen Hongshou, 130, 132; and Cultural collective painting, 254-255 Revolution, 343, 389; figure painting, 130, collectivization, of peasants, 203 132; Girl and Deer, 375; Kong Yiji illustra- color-and-ink painting. See caimohua tions, 130, 131; landscape album, 343; and comics, 67; American, 71. See also

lianhuanhua, 72, 130, 433n.128; and Ren lianhuanhua Yi, 130, 132; Shanghai Art Academy in- communism: redness of, 213, 308. See also

structor, 224; at Shanghai Institute of CCP; remolding Chinese Painting, 305; Shanghai Painting Communist Youth League, 13 Institute director, 404; Shanghai People’s communization, as theme for art, 247 Art Press, 72; Views from Diancong Moun- Conghua, Guangdong (resort), 299 tain “Leaning Pine Tree” album leaf, 344; constructivism, Soviet, as source for Chinese

washbasin decoration, 225 art, 16 Cheng Zhenxing, 422n.45 127, 287

Cheng Shouyi, 467n.121 contemporaneity (shidaixing), in guohua, 113, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), 223 Contemporaries (Tongdairen), 388 children’s palaces, art training at, 353 Courbet, Gustave, 181 China Pictorial, 278; on nianhua, 59 CRSG (Cultural Revolution Small Group): China/Avant-garde Exhibition, 430n.67 appointed, 317; and Earth faction Red Chinese Arts Research Institute, Ministry of Guard, 330; literature and arts group, 328,

Culture, 136; Red Guard groups, 327 329

INDEX $37 Cui Zifan: Beijing Chinese Painting Institute Deng Lin, 319 party bureaucrat, 306; with Qi Baishi, 306; Deng Shu, 90; CAFA instructor, 57, 90;

Red Guard attack, 329 Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the

cultural bureaus, provincial, 458n.243 CCP (with Hou Yimin), 59, 62-63, 64, 88; cultural relics, function in New China, 112 history painting campaign (1964-1965), Cultural Revolution: and academic painting, 246; Leningrad study (1955-1961), 151; 315; and amateur art, 347, 353, 359, 362, marries Hou Yimin, 90; nianhua, 62, 63, 378; art, 314-316, 319-327, 332-376; alt 64, 90; Preserve Peace, 63; Red Guard standards, 341-342, 358-360, 366, 384, target, 332, 336; We Must Implement the 385, 386, 391; artists harassed, 84; arts Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the administration, 345, 350-351; Beethoven Finish (1972), 323, 361 criticized, 468n.151; bloodlines slogan, 320, Deng Tuo, 453n.137; Cultural Revolution

337; class background issue, 320; col- target, 318; Red Guard art target, 336 laborative art, 347; export paintings, 368; Deng Xiaoping, 429n.33; accession (1979), factional split, 318; “four olds” criticized, 84; attacked, 328, 329, 377; at Beijing air318; guohua, 362, 368; iconography, 84, port murals opening ceremony, 390; child 320-321, 336-337, 358, 362, 379, 384; in- at CAFA, 214; criticized, 378; on cultural fluence on later art, 367, 382; leading up to, policies, 307; and GLF, 207; and Liu 202, 211, 217, 276, 309; and Liu Shaoqi, Shaoqi portrait, 243; Red Guard art target,

243, 328; May 16 Circular, 317; model 336; on rightist teachers, 217; on Socialist operas, 366; official art, 359, 367; painting Education Movement, 311; split with Mao, correction groups, 359, 362; periodization, 240; subject for art, 382; in Taihang Moun461n.1; and professional artists, 351; rusti- tains, 97 cated urban youth, 361; Shanghai Institute Deng Ye, CAFA East China campus adminisof Chinese Painting students, 306; worker- trator, 431n.86 peasant-soldier, 359. See also CAFA Red didactic art, 37

Guard; Red Guard Ding Bingzeng, 53; lianhuanhua prize (1963),

Cultural Revolution Small Group. See CRSG 133; Railroad Guerrillas (1956-1958; with

Culture and History Hall (Wenshiguan), Han Heping), 132-133, 342; at Shanghai

attacked by Red Guard, 329 People’s Art Press, 72, 133 cun (texture strokes), 289 Ding Cong: Red Guard criticize, 329,

462n.26; exiled to Heilongjiang as rightist,

457.214

Dagongbao, 284 Ding Jingwen: at CAFA, 56, 135; and ComDat Ze, at National Beiping Arts College, munist takeover of Beijing, 34; and Dong

426n.82 Xiwen, 80; on Founding of the Nation,

Das, Naranarayan, 198 434mn.151, 153; and Mao, 80; and Yang Datong, Shanxi, Red Guard visits, 323 Xianzhen speech, 310

daxieyi (large idea writing), at CAFA, 219 Ding Lihual, 457n.215 decentralization: in art academies, 216; and Ding Ling: exiled to Heilongjiang as rightist, corruption, 306; of cultural activities (GLF), 4§6n.214; and Jiang Feng, 13, 38 204, 223, 224-227, 2§1; economic, 225, Ding Shaoguang, 392; and Western modern-

306; and regional art, 224-227 ism, 435n.180 decorative painting, 390 dissident art, “Stars,” 43, 398

Delacroix, Eugéne: Li Hua praising, 148; and Dong Biwu, subject of Founding of the Na-

Shanghai painting, 383 tion, 80, 81, 84

demobilized soldiers: in Heilongjiang, 277, Dong Gang, 450n.77

364; as subject for art, 278 Dong Xiwen, 90-94, 435n.179; Anti-Rightist Democracy Wall: link to “Stars,” 398; Move- campaign and, 217; at CAFA, 57, 91, 104,

ment, 429n.33 217; Chinese folk art combined with Soviet

Democratic Alliance: and Hundred Flowers, realism, 94; in Chongqing, 90; on color,

189; rightists, 445n.71 298; color-and-ink landscape, 162; criti-

Democratic League, Shanghai, 198 cized, 213, 217, 246, 310; Cultural Revolu-

538 INDEX Dong Xiwen (cont.) five-year plan, 110; liberalization, 203; Mao tion and, 84, 322; Dunhuang trip, 90, 91, on, 179; recentralization, 224 147; in Guizhou, 90; on guohua artists, education: moral and world outlook, 27; 186; handbill, 38, 91, 427n.19; in Hang- staffing criteria, 221. See also art education zhou, 90; in Hanoi, 90; history painting, Eight Articles on Literature and Art (1962), 65; and Jiang Feng, 80, 186; joined CCP, 2.97, 446—447N.15; criticized (1964), 310; 92; Kazak Herdswoman (1948), 91, 93, 94; liberalization (1961), 207 297, 390; in Kunming, 90; Liberation of Eight Character Directive, 217; criticized Beijing, 38, 39, 92; at Ming Tombs Reser- (1964), 310 voir construction site, 211; and modernism, “Eighteen Arhats,” second oil painting class,

91, 148; at National Beiping Arts College, 221, 246 91, 426n.82; at National Hangzhou Arts Eighteen Art Society, 13, 15, 421nn.I2, 13, Academy, 90; “national-style” oil painting, 423N.45 91, 94, 217; portraits of Mao Zedong and Eighth Route Army, 18; in Taihang MounZhu De, 92; and primitivism, 91; in Second tains, 97; and Zhang Zuoliang, 278 National Art Exhibition, 162; Spring Comes Eisenstein, Sergei, compared with Ai Zhongto Tibet, 162; at Suzhou Art Academy, 9o. xin painting, 160

See also Founding of the Nation Esperanto, 15 Door Guardian, Hebei province, 98 Europe: Chinese artists, 216; Eastern, 185; ex-

drama, revolution in, 112 pressionism, 14, 99; influence on Chinese

drawing: in guohua instruction, 144, 182, painting, 180, 297; modernist styles, 24, 25

189; with thought reform, 49 Europeanization, in science and art, 12 drawing from life, 118; guohua and, 127, 147, exhibitions: “The Accomplishments of the

169-174; landscapes and, 118, 127, 169— Military Struggles of the Red Guard,” 342;

174 Albania (1966), 340; “Artworks from

Du Hongnian, 457n.225 Beidahuang” (1960), 279; Beidahuang

Du Jian, 449n.73; Advancing Among Swift artists’ sketching trip to Xinjiang (1962), Currents (1963), 222; second oil painting 282; Beidahuang prints, 278, 279; Beijing

training class, 221 Chinese Painting Research Association

Du Zhesen, on Li Keran, 299 (1953), 161; Third Beijing Chinese Painting Dunhuang, 392; Buddhist cave temples, 285; Research Association (1956), 165; Bi county murals, 92, 147, 235; and oil painting, 92— folk paintings at CAA Art Gallery (1958),

94, 147; Zhao Wangyun and, 285 225; black painting (1974), 373; CAFA Dunhuang Research Institute, zianbua spon- artists at Zhongnanhai (1953), 80; caimo-

sorship, 66 hua and anti—Hu Feng campaign, 178; chil-

duo, kuai, hao, sheng (More, Faster, Better, dren’s art, 124, 333, 353; Chinese National

Cheaper), 201, 225 Art Gallery, 279, 328, 337, 342, 349, 3795 condemned works at CAFA, 209; GLF (1960), 205; GLF guohua (1958), 225;

East China Artists Association, 164-165 guohua from Nanjing (1958-1959), 202, East China Arts Academy, 55, 198-199, 254-263; guohua and Western style (1977),

42.4N.66 385; guohua from Xian at Beijing (1961),

East China campus of CAFA. See CAFA East 288; guohua’s changing role (1953-1957),

China campus 161-169; Heilongjiang printmakers at Har-

East China Cultural Department, 59, 178 bin (1959), 279; Heilongjiang printmakers East China News Publishing Bureau, 72 at Beijing (1960), 279; Leipzig, 274; Li East China People’s Art Publishing, 72 Keran landscape sketches at Beijing (1959),

East China People’s Press, 72 298; Li Keran, Luo Ming, Zhang Ding at

East Guard, 336 Beijing (1954), 170; lianhuanhua (1959), East Is Red groups: CAAC, 319; Geology 246; lianhuanhua and guohua (1973), 362; Institute, 330 lianhuanbua (national, 1963), 130; Lin Eastern Europe, uprisings (1956), 185 Fengmian (1963), 297, 308, 446n.1; “Long economic policies: decentralization, 225, 306; Live the Victory of Chairman Mao’s Rev-

INDEX 539 olutionary Line” (1967), 321, 337; “Long famines, 202, 203 Live the Victory of Mao Zedong Thought Fan Shaoyun, 305 Revolutionary Painting” (1967), 328; Lida Fang Ganmin, 47; Melody in Autumn (1934), Workers’ Painting, 378; Maksimov stu- 48; at National Hangzhou Arts Academy

dents’ graduation (1957), 152; “Mao (1935), 96; and thought reform, 49 Zedong’s Thought Iluminates the Anyuan Fang Jizhong: black painting exhibition Worker’s Movement” at Beijing (1967), (Xi’an), 375; exhibitions, 288, 293; sympo338; National (1972-1975), 321, 355, 359; sium on Xi’an guohua, 288; travel to south

364; National (1977), 378-379; First (1962), 293; wild disordered style, 291; National Art (1949), 38, 92, 108, 286, with Zhao Wangyun, 284 436n.197; Second National Art (1955), 82, Fang Zengxian: CAFA East China campus 162, 164, 285; Third National Art (1960), teacher, 142; color-and-ink painting, 137; 205, 214, 226, 279, 446n.12; Fifth Nation- Dunhuang field trip, 147; Every Grain Is al Art (1979), 397; First National Guohua Hard Work, 143, 146; and figure painting, (1953), 161, 285; Second National guohua 142-145; and guohua, 146; in guohua

(1956), 166, 285; national lianbuanhua painting correction group (1973), 362; and (1963), 130; national military, 296, 349; Jiang Zhaohe, 142; as Liu Wenxi’s teacher, Second National Military (1960), 279; 468n.131; and new socialist realist guohua, Fourth National Print (1959), 279; “The 175; and Pan Tianshou, 142; in Second New Look of Mountains and Streams” at National Guohua Exhibition, 166 Beijing (1961), 263; New Spring, 386; Fauvist landscape, by Hu Yichuan, 297 Second Northeastern Provinces Art (1960), Federation of Literary and Arts Circles. See

279; PLA thirtieth anniversary (1957), 159; FLAC PLA fiftieth anniversary (1977), 379, 3823 Feng Fasi, 425n.80; CAFA instructor, 217; PRC tenth anniversary, 204; PRC twenty- CCP expulsion as rightist, 445n.71; Maksififth anniversary (1974), 364; PRC thirtieth mov student (1955-1957), 152; and Xu

anniversary at Beijing (1980), 471n.44; Beihong, 425n.80 PRC thirtieth anniversary at Chongging Feng Xuefeng: at Chongqing, 22; criticism of (1979), 471n.44; “Prints from the Peony old literature, 18; and Eighteen Art Society, River Reclamation District” (1961), 279, 13; On internationalization of Chinese cul4§8n.231; professional and amateur art ture, 24; purged (1957), 197; Zhou Yang (1972), 359; Proletarian Cultural Revolu- and, 16, 18, 23, 122, 197 tion Red Painting Guard at Rongbaozhai Feng Yuxiang, poems for Zhao Wangyun Gallery (1967), 328; provincial (1959 and saishang xiesheng ji, 284 1960), 205, 279; quasi-official (1977— Feng Zhen, CAFA instructor, 431n.93 1979), 384-386, 396-397; Red Guard, Feng Zikai: black painting exhibition (Shang319, 337; ‘Red Sun” at Chinese National hai), 374; East China Artists Association Art Gallery (1968), 342; Shanghai (1971), vice-director, 164; on Political Consultative 355; Soviet art at Beying (1954), 1493 Committee (1959), 446n.8; Shanghai InstiSoviet bloc, 96, 146; Spring Tide group at tute of Chinese Painting director, 305 Beijing (1979), 386; “Stars,” 396-400; figure painting, §2, 118, 119, 130, 140, 142-

watercolors (1976), 384-385; Yan’an 145, 350; At Qing’s view on, 115; at (1941), 267; Yan’an Talks, 297, 328, 350—- CAFA, 216, 219; curriculum, 118; Hang-

353; Yellow River concerto images at zhou innovation, 142—147; primacy of, Chinese National Art Gallery (1973), 349; 137; Shanghai, 130, 132; Tang and Song,

Zhao Wangyun, 285 gI

expressionism, European, 14, 99 FLAC (Federation of Literary and Arts Circles), 35, 121, 259; branches, 121, 164, 198, 324; in Cultural Revolution, 324; Hu

factionalism, in party rectification (1957), 196 Feng expulsion, 179; nianhua sponsorship, Fahaisi, mural painting and national tradition, 66; reorganization (1953), 1213; against

235 Soviet revisionist art and academic art,

Fall of the Nanjing, as subject for art, 382 317

540 INDEX folk art, §9, 97; new year’s prints, 97; paint- Gang of Four, 376, 382, 384, 394 ing in GLF, 225; prints’ influence on oil Gao Gang: Founding of the Nation removal, painting, 92; songs exemplifying revolution- 81, 83, 85; political campaigns against ary realism and revolutionary romanticism, (1955), 130; purge and suicide, 82

254 Gao Gao, on Cultural Revolution, 337

foreign exchange, fawning for, 374 Gao Hong, 152, 155

foreign media, interest in “Stars,” 398 Gao Jianfu, and new national painting, 12

formalism, 125, 182 Gao Jingde: Anti-Confucius campaign (1973), Founding of the Nation (Dong Xiwen, 1952— 368; art leader (1976), 377; and Jiang Qing, 1953), 65, 75-77, 78-79, 80-86, 94, 396, 350; at Ministry of Culture, 378; organized 434-435, plate 1; copied by Zhao Yu and exhibition (1972), 350-353, 359; and proJin Shangyi, 84-85; and Cultural Revolu- fessional artists, 351; promoted academic tion art, 342; exhibitions, 80, 83, 435n.163; technical standards, 350, 367; and Soviet fame, 86; and Japanese art, 82; and Jiang art, 350; and Wang Mantian, 350; and We Feng, 82, 85, 122; Liu Shaoqi in and out of, Must Implement the Proletarian Cultural 81, 84, 85, 338; and national painting, 82, Revolution to the Finish, 361 85; and mianhua, 80-81, 82; 1967 revision, Gao Minglu, 383-384

plate 1; poster, 80; publication, 122, Gao Qifeng, and new national painting, 12 434N.151; publicity, 80, 434n.1513; repro- Gao Xiaohua, 394; and “Scar” literature, 394; ductions of, 86; revisions, 82—83, 84, 162; Why? (1979), 393 Soviet influence, 82, 86; style, 85, 342; Gao Zhuang, CCP expulsion as rightist,

Zhou Changgu’s Two Lambs compared 445n.71

with, 145 Gaocheng Railways, construction (1954), 172

“Four Cleanups” (1963), 307 Gate of Heavenly Peace. See Tiananmen

“Four Wangs,” and Wu Hufan, 303 Ge Pengren: CAFA graduate student, 388;

France, Chinese artists in, 216 Red Guard, 319

freedom: artistic, 398; of expression, 87, 307 Ge Weimo, 404, 449n.77 Fu Baoshi, 135, 259; arts administrator, 284; General Alliance for Left-Wing Culture, 13, attacked (1974), 373; brush and ink (bimo), 421N.I7 257; and CAA Jiangsu branch, 165, 254, Geology Institute, 330 259; CAA national vice-chairman, 259; German expressionism, rejection of, 99 CAA rehabilitation (1979), 389; critical re- GLF (Great Leap Forward), 211, 277; and sponse to, 264; fame (1959), 207; FLAC affordable guohua, 225; and amateur art, member, 259; Guan Shanyue collaboration, 227; and art for new buildings, 229; and

228-238; and Guo Moruo, 259, 284; CAA, 224-227; conclusion, 220; criticism guohua instructor, 259; Japan studies, 260; of artists (1959), 205; cultural controls reliterati painting criticized by, 257; Mao laxed, 203; decentralization, 204, 223, 224, poems illustrated by, 225, 233; and Nanjing 225, 251; economic recentralization followguohua, 254; and Nanjing school, 260; Ode ing, 224; effects on art, 224—227, 267; ex-

to Yubuatai, 257, 258, 259; painting pansion of cultural organizations, 450n.98; praised, 307; on Political Consultative failure, 207; and famine, 211, 220, 306; inCommittee (1959), 204; at Political Con- digenous styles, 273; launched (May 1958), sultative Conference (1958), 259; political 203; and local art colleges, 223; and manpressures, 402; Shitao quoted by, 257; small ual labor, 211; production plans, 226, 263, paintings, 232; symposium on cultural stan- 267-268, 272, 45§n.187; propaganda, dards for artists, 287; teaching methods, 75; 283; and regional art, 224-227; slogans, This Land So Rich in Beauty (with Guan 201, 203, 225; student enthusiasm for, 220; Shanyue), 229-236, 307; traditional man- worker-peasant-soldier artists, 211 ner, 257; The West Wind Blows Red Rain, Goldman, Merle, 23, 180

232, 233,259 Gong Xian: Mountains and Clouds, 258; and

Fu Jingshan, 449n.73 Nanjing school, 260 Fu Wenshu, 2.67 Government Administration Council, 33, 35, Fu Xiaoshi, as rightist, 209 37, 426n.86

Fu Zhigui, 137, 450n.77 government bureaucracy, 5, 6

INDEX 541 government policy on literature and arts Revolution art, 351

(1949), 37 Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts: and Cul-

government reconstruction (1970), 349 tural Revolution, 362; established 1958,

Goya, praised by Jiang Feng, 148 210

Great Hall of the People, 214; construction, Guo Moruo: All-China FLAC chairman 228; site for art, 229, 236, 288, 452n.133; (1958), 259; and Betjing Chinese Painting among Ten Great Buildings, 228; on This Research Association exhibition (1953),

Land So Rich in Beauty, 229; Yunnan 161; in Chongging, 95; Founding of the

Room paintings, 392 Nation subject, 81, 434.157; and Fu

Great Leap Forward. See GLF Baoshi, 259, 284; and Jiangsu painters, Great Northern Wasteland. See Beidahuang; 263; and Li Hua, 218; self-criticism, 318; as

Heilongjiang speaker, 426n.6; and This Land So Rich in

Great Soviet Encyclopedia, on impressionism, Beauty, 231; on Zhao Wangyun, 285

181, 182 Guo Shaogang, influence, 403—404

Great United Congress of CAFA classes and Guo Weiqu, 219, 462n.26

departments, Red Guard, 326, 330 guocuibua (painting of national essence), 50

Great Wall, 231 guohua, 2, 50-53; Ai Qing on, 112-118;

Gu Bingxin: book collector, 247; and artists, 73-75, 169-175, 180, 185, 186, lianhuanhua, 70-71, 247; prize (1963), 287, 374; audience for, 74, 114; in Beijing, 439n.51; at Shanghai People’s Art Press, 72, 73, 126; bird-and-flower (see bird-and-

130 flower painting); brushwork, 145; Chang’an

Gu Mu, at Beijing airport murals opening group (see Xi’an); conflicts over, 122, 182;

ceremony, 390 conservatism, 175; contemporaneity in,

Gu Qun, CAFA instructor, 4310.93 113, 127, 287; copying, 113, 117, 118,

Gu Yuan: CAFA positions, 218, 386, 387; I20, 127, 140, 145; critical standards Chairman Mao Speaks to the Peasants, 64; (1963), 307-308; Cultural Revolution during civil war, 22; against Hu Feng, 179; attack, 374; definition, 50; drawing, 136, jury for exhibition (1972), 359; in liberated 144, 182, 189; and drawing from life, 127, zones, 36; May Seventh College of Arts 147, 169-174; exhibitions, 161, 162-165, administrator, 367; move from Manchuria 166, 170, 178, 285, 298; figure painting, 130, to Beijing, 35; nianbua prize, 64; on Peo- 350; Hundred Flowers debate, 182-188; ple’s Art Press staff, 64; Protect Our Peo- individualistic strains, 202; ink painting, 23, ple’s Troops (1944), 99, 102; and protest 49, 144; insect-and-fish, 118; instruction, march (1957), 187; revolutionary new 118, 137-147, 189, 224; Jiangsu (see Nan-

year’s picture, 99; in Yan’an, 38 jing); landscape, 137, 140, 169-174, 190;

Gu Zhujun, 449n.77 landscape sketching, 169-174; Liu Shaoqi Guan Liang, 49, 385; Cutting Firewood at support, 180, 182; market, 74-75, 225,

West Mountain, 47 434n.142; in Nanjing, 205, 207, 251, 254—

Guan Shanyue: Fu Baoshi collaboration, 228— 265, 266, 289; as national form of art, 168, 238; and Gao Jingde, 351; and guohua ex- 254; nationalism, 170; neglect, 74, 188; hibition (1973), 362; and Lingnan school, new, 115, 116; and party loyalty, 179; po447n.17; Newly Opened Road (1954), 162, litical purges, 199; propaganda, 229-238; 163, 2333; and Second National Art Exhibi- realism, 117, 118, 120, 122, 126, 142, 145, tion, 162, 164; This Land So Rich in Beauty 146, 170, 173; reform, 24, I1I—118, 169—

(with Fu Baoshi), 229—236, 307 175; remolding, 73-74; remolding at art Guang Jun: CAFA graduate student, 388; academies, 134-135, 137-148; repetitive criticized (1959), 2133 criticized in Socialist themes, 113, 117; research association (BeiEducation Movement, 311; employment, jing and Shanghai), 73-74, 12.6; revival of,

213; salon, 220 110, 305, 362; in Shanghai, 126, 224, 267;

Guang Tingbo, in oil painting correction and socialist realism, 122, 146; Soviet ele-

group, 360 ments, 136, 145; specialties, 449n.57; sta-

Guangxi Arts School, merged into Guangzhou tus, 73-75, 186; subject matter, 117, 146,

Academy of Fine Arts, 210 216, 288; in Ten Great Buildings, 228-238; Guangzhou: academies, 449n.58; Cultural terminology, 194, 216; and tradition, 113,

542 INDEX guobua (cont.) lianhuanhua, 130; Shanghai Institute of 145, 175, 179, 194; Western elements, 122, Chinese Painting vice-director, 305 127, 136, 140, 142-146, 170, 173, 174, He Youzhi, 247; Great Change in a Mountain

179, 182, 193, 194; in Xian, 207, 267, Village (1963), 247, 248; Li Shuangshuang, 284-298, 363-364; Xu Bethong, 30; Yao 248-249, 250-251; lianhuanhua reform, Wenyuan attacks (1974), 373; Zhou Yang 71; prize, 247; traditional elements in mod-

and, 120, 171, 174, 182. See also Jiang ern style, 249

Feng; painting Hebei: Masses Art Press lianhuanhua, 73;

Guomindang, 16. See also Nationalists People’s Art Press, 73

Heilongjiang: agricultural reclamation bureau, 277; Cultural Revolution painting and

Ha Ding: attacked in Shanghai black painting prints, 364; demobilized soldiers, 277, 364;

exhibition, 374; private studio, 216 Jiamusi as site for youth rustication, 364; Han Heping: lianhuanhua prize (1963), 133; labor camps, 200; propaganda, 278; rightRailroad Guerrillas (1956-1958; with Ding ists, 198, 297, 364, 456n.214; settlement of, Bingzeng), 132—133, 342; at Shanghai Peo- 277, 282—283; woodblock print movement,

ple’s Art Press, 133 277-283; Zhang Zuoliang, 278

Han Xin, 379—380; black painter, 380; black Hergé, and Zhang Chongren, 223, 450n.79 painting exhibition (Shanghai), 374; CAFA heroes, as theme for art, 221, 467n.112

student, 388; Hua Guofeng at Yangqu Hiroshige (1797-1858), Kinryuzan Temple at (1977; with Liu Yaozhen), 382, 383; Land- Asakusa as stylistic source for Founding of scape (1972), 89; With You in Charge, | the Nation, 434n.158 Am at Ease (1978; with Wei Jingshan), 379, history painting, 228-229, 245, 287, 382;

381, 382 campaign (1958-1959), 236—241; cam-

Hangzhou: Communist remolding of art, 40. paign (1961), 241-246; campaign (1964— See also National Hangzhou Arts Academy 1965), 246; CCP, 65; Cultural Revolution, Hao Boyi, 457nn.218, 225, 279; Beidahuang 339; Founding of the Nation, 80; He Kong-

printmaking teacher, 364, 366 de, 164; landscape as theme, 237; Shanghai Harbin Military Engineering Academy, 278 painters (1976-1979), 382; Shi Lu, 236; He Haixia, 292—293; Beijing exhibition and Soviet-style painting, 204, 238; tech(1961), 288; black painting exhibition nique, 313; Xu Beihong, 30, 65 (Xi’an), 375; as forger, 289; Moonlight at Hitler, Adolf, 209 Yanling, 375; National Exhibition (1937), Ho, Wai-kam, 403 289; and Shi Lu, 287, 293, 376; symposium Hong Bo: at CAFA, 56, 387; and Communist on Xi’an guohua, 288; and textural chaos, takeover of Beijing, 34; on Jiang Feng, 58; 292; travel with Shi Lu and Li Qi, 376; Yu- Joining the Army, 26, 27, 38; journalist on men Gorge on the Yellow River (1959), Korean front, 57; Red Guard art model,

292-293; Zhang Dagian pupil, 289; and 336; as rightist, 197

Zhao Wangyun, 287, 293 Hongqi (Red Flag) magazine, 347 , He Kongde, 153; and Chen Yifei-Wei Jing- Hotel School, 468n.145 shan commission, 382; and Gao Hong por- Hou Bo, photograph in CAFA exhibition at

traits, 379; Gutian Meeting (1972), 360, Zhongnanhai, 80 361; Korean front painting, 153; A Letter Hou Yimin, 88; CAFA instructor, 90; CCP

from Home, 153, plate 2; Maksimov underground organizer, 91; Celebrating the student (1955-1957), 152; PLA, 153; and Thirtieth Anniversary of the CCP (with protest march (1957), 187; as rightist, 198; Deng Shu), 59, 62—63, 64, 88; and coal Second National Exhibition (1955), 153, miners, 90; as Communist, 88; exile to

164; Soviet figure style, 153 countryside, 310; graduation picture, 156; He Long, 97, 267; as Red Guard target, 336, journalist on Korean front, 57; Liu Shaoqi

337 and the Anyuan Coal Miners, 241, 242-

He Tianjian, 305; GLF production plan, 226; 243, 245, 328, 332, 338; Maksimov stuand guohua production cooperative, 174; dent (1955-1957), 152; marries Deng Shu,

landscapes published in Meishu, 298; 90; at National Beiping Arts College, 88;

INDEX 543 nianhua, 62, 64, 88, 90; political campaign Second National Art Exhibition, 164; Landtarget, 246; and propaganda art, 88; Red scape of Shu, 51; National Beiping Arts Guard target, 332; student organizer, College faculty, 426n.82; Painting Research 427n.19; We Must Implement the Prole- Center director, 135 tarian Cultural Revolution to the Finish Huang Gongwang, Dwelling in the Fuchun

(1972), 321, 323, 361 Mountains, 2.45

housing, for artists, 41 Huang Guanyu, 449n.73 Hu Feng: campaign against, 130, 171, 176— Huang Miaozi: CAFA Red Guard attacking,

179; cartoonists ridiculing, 178, 336; on 329; Cultural Revolution attack, 462n.26; internationalization of Chinese culture, 24; exiled to Heilongjiang as rightist, 457n.214 and Jiang Feng, 18, 49; July (Qiyue), 18; Huang Naiyuan, With You in Charge, I Am at old literature criticized by, 18; student sup- Ease, 470n.12 port for, 188; and Zhou Yang, 16, 18, 23, Huang Rui, and “Stars” protest march (1979),

122, 178, 444n.2§ 398

Hu Kao, 329, 456n.214, 462n.26 Huang Shanding, 422n.30 Hu Man, against Hu Feng, 179 Huang Yanpei, and Wu Hufan, 302

Hu Peiheng, 166, 170 Huang Yongyu: at CAFA, 218, 392; cartoons,

Hu Qiaomu, 161, 241 218; criticized, 213; New Sound in the

Hu Ruosi: Jiang Feng praising, 128; The Forest (19§4), 218, 219; “no-shirt party,” People of Xinjiang Donating a Horse to 221; prints published, 387; Red Guard

Marshall Zhu De, 123, 438n.24 beating, 322; and students, 221; values art

Hu Yaobang, 429n.33 over politics, 218; winking owl attacked

Hu Yichuan, 420n.11; at CAFA, 41, 56, 57; (1974), 373 during civil war, 23; on FLAC national Huang Zhou, 172; Cultural Revolution committee, 35; history painting, 65; and attack, 318; and Deng Tuo, 318; Jiang Feng Jiang Feng, 23, 177, 188; and Luo Gongliu, praising, 127; and Liu Shaogqi family, 318;

427n.26; moved (1958), 210; and nianhua, Snowstorm on the Steppes (1955), 172, 18, 19; as radical student (Hangzhou and 173; with Zhao Wangyun, 284 Shanghai), 14~15, 28, 427n.26; revolution- huazhong (genre), 288 ary new year’s picture, 99; South-Central Hubei Art Academy, and Cultural Revolution,

Art Academy director, 57, 210; Strange 360 Boulders in National Exhibition (1962), Huizong, Emperor, Court Ladies Preparing 297; To the Front, 14-15; woodcut activi- Newly Woven Silk, 261

ties, 427n.26; in Yan’an, 38 humanism, 22

Hu Yongkai, 449n.73 | Hunan, setting for Great Change in a MounHua Guofeng: ouster, 314; promoted, 377; tain Village, 247

subject for art, 379, 382 Hundred Flowers campaign, 130, 179-188;

Hua Junwu: attacked, 324, 328; and Beida- and factional struggle, 184, 185; and huang artists, 279; Beijing Chinese Painting guohua, 174, 182—188; impressionism de-

Research Association exhibition (1953), bate, 180; liberalization, 191; opportunism, 161; and CAA, 201, 227, 279, 389; and 188; purge of intellectuals and party ofCultural Revolution, 317, 319, 329; against ficials, 188; traditional painting revived, Hu Feng, 178, 179; and Jiang Feng, 185, 184; turn against Mao, 188 190, 195; leadership, 309; and liberated Huxian Peasant Painting Exhibition, 378 zones, 37; People’s Daily, 123, 279; Shi Lu painting rejected by, 296; symposium on cultural standards for artists, 287; and This

Land So Rich in Beauty, 230; Yan Han idealism, 22

attacked by, 195 impressionism: Hundred Flowers debate, 180;

Hua Shan, nianhua artist, 19 influence on China, 180—182; and realism,

Hua Tianyou, 426n.82 181; Soviet scholarship on, 181, 182

Huang Binhong: art historian, 52; Cultural India, exhibition of Chinese art (1952), 62 Revolution attack, 462n.26; guohua in individualism, 22, 87, 202, 297

544 INDEX Institutes of Chinese Painting. See Beijing 123; and impressionism, 180; individChinese Painting Institute; Shanghai Insti- ualism criticized by, 176; influences (1949—

tute of Chinese Painting 1957), 164, 201, 210; and internation-

International Club, decoration attacked alist views, 24, 27; Iron Horse Prints (cover

(1974), 373 design), 16, 17; Kill the Resisters, 14; and

internationalization, of Chinese culture, 24, 2.7 labor reform, 200; and League of Left-Wing

interviews, as documentation, 3—4 Arts, 15; leftist, 177; and Li Keran, 127, 171, 193, 298; and Li Zongyjin, 190; lianhuanhua, 123, 127; library worker,

James, C. Vaughn, 120 208; list of model art, 123, 127; and Lu Japan: Being attacked, 16; Fu Baoshi as stu- Xun, 14, 16, 18, 44, 122, 422n.31; and Lu dent, 260; Hangzhou invaded, 97; impres- Xun Academy (Yan’an), 18—19; and Maksisionism, 180; influence on Chinese painting, mov, 152; and Mao Zedong, 183, 191, 180; modern painting, 12; Nanjing at- 197; on May All the Nationalities Unite, tacked, 16; nianbua propaganda, 18; prints 137; and Ministry of Culture, 184, 190; against (1931), 14; Shanghai occupation, and Mo Pu, 23, 42-43, 183, 186, 192; and 16, 74; surrender, 22, 99; in war with modernism, 24, 25, 43, 44; and national China, 16, 18, 22, 74, 90, 95, 97, 99, 2393 tradition, 190; and Nationalists, 22; and Western influence reaching China from, new forms of art, 38, 119; New Spring ex234; woodcuts, 13; Xu Xingzhi and, 217; hibition (1979), 386; and nianhua, 18, 22,

Xuzhou invaded, 95 60, 123, 127; and non-Communist faculty

jiajia shige hubu hua (Every home a poem, at Hangzhou, 53; and oil painting, 44, 82, every household a painting), GLF slogan, 123, 148, 149; for painting clubs, 386; and

2.25 Pan Tianshou, 192, 193; pictorial maga-

Jiang Feng, 12-27, 387, 422n.45, 423nn.46, zines, 123; and PLA, 148; for political art, 49; against academic art, 43; administrator, 44; political campaigns against, 22, 176— 19, 22, 38, 66, 126, 196; and Ai Qing, 15— 177, 186, 189, 298; and popular art, 43, 16, 22, 122; Antiparty Group, 188, 189, 49; and prison, 15-16; “The Problem of 192; and artistic democracy, 386; attacks Using Old Forms in Painting,” 23-27, 119; on, 127, 168, 182, 462n.26; avant-garde propaganda posters, 123, 127; purge, 197, style, 16; and AWA, 36, 41, 65; and Beijing 223; and Qi Baishi, 86, 193; and Qian JunChinese Painting Research Association ex- ruil, 183, 187, 188, 197; reemergence hibition (1953), 161; and CAA, 124, 184, (1979), 386; reform of Chinese painting, 185, 389; and CAAC establishment, 184; 196; and remolding of art, 41, 145; rightist, and CAFA, 41, 45, 56, 57, 125, 136, 176— 188, 195, 197; and sculpture, 123; and Sha 177, 183, 193, 223, 387; and Cai Liang, Jitong, 191; and Shao Yu, 189; on Shen 443n.3; and Cai Ruohong, 126, 177, 184, Jiawei, 364; and Shi Lu, 124; and socialist 185-189, 192, 197; and Cai Yuanpei, 44; realism, 191; and socialist remolding of and caimohua students, 137, 145; and CCP, Hangzhou campus, 42-48; and Soviet-style 15, 16, 18, 177, 183, 208, 387; and Chen oi] painting, 148, 149; specialization critiQitong, 191; during civil war, 22, 23; and cized by, 176; speeches, 123, 427n.13; and Communist takeover, 34, 86; and Ding “Stars,” 43, 398; stubbornness, 191, 196; Ling, 13, 38; and Dong Xiwen, 80, 186; Studying Is Good, 19, 21; supporters, 185, and figure painting instructors, 142; on 186—187, 188, 196; taste in art, 400; and FLAC national committee, 35; and Found- Tian Han, 40; USSR visit (1954), 149; and ing of the Nation, 82, 122; free-lance work, Wang Manshi, 193; and Wang Zhaowen, 184, 209; and Goya, 148; graphic design, 23, 428n.26; and Western art, 1, 49, 16, 25; and Gu Yuan, 124; and guohua, 437n.2; and Wu Fuzhi, 192; and Xu 23-27, 40, 49, 123-128, 145, 169, 170, Beihong, 40; and Yan Han, 23, 103, 186, 175, 184, 190, 234, 430N.61; in Hangzhou, 187, 195, 197, 444n.37; and Yan’an, 18, 39-40, 42~48, 52, 53; against “high art,” 42-48, 191; and Yao Youxin, 440n.77; 43; and Hu Feng, 18, 49, 179; and Hu Yi- and Ye Qianyu, 124, 127, 193, 194; and chuan, 23, 177, 188; and Hundred Flowers, Yuan Yunsheng, 43, 44, 428n.31; and 180, 185, 188; ideas on art, 43, 44, 49, 58, Zhang Ding, 127, 171, 189-190; and

INDEX 545 Zhang Leping, 124; and Zhou Enlai, 185, guohua catalog attacked, 374 190, 386; and Zhou Yang, 119, 122, 190 Jiefangjun huabao, 278

Jiang Handing, 174 Jin Lang: Dunhuang field trip leader, 147; at Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), as subject for Hangzhou academy, 45; and Jiang Feng,

art, 223 183, 192; at North China University, 27; as

Jiang Qing, 349; arrest, 376, 377; CAFA cam- rightist, 197 paigns (1964-1965), 309; CAFA radical] Jin Shangyi, 241, 340-341; CAFA instructor, students supported by (1964), 310; and 218; Chairman Mao at Lu Shan (1966), Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 339; con- 340, 341; Farewell (Departing for the Long ference on military arts and literature March) (ca. 1959), 241; Founding of the (1966), 316; and Cultural Revolution, 321, Nation copy (1972, revised ca. 1980; with 328, 349, 362; and exhibitions, 364, 376; Zhao Yu), 84—85; history painting, 340; as extremist, 207; and feminism, 351-352; and history painting campaign (1964— and GLF crisis, 307; on Mao Zedong’s in- 1965), 246; influence, 403; Long March terest in art, 434n.154; May Seventh Col- (1964), 340; Maksimov student (1955 lege of Arts director, 367, 373; model operas, 1957), 152; Mao Zedong at the December 346, 362, 373, 462n.28; photographs, Conference (1961), 241, 242, 340; Mao 462n.28; pseudonym (Jun Ling), 462n.28; Zedong with People of Asia, Africa, and and Red Guard, 330, 337; Rent Collection Latin America (ca. 1960; with Wu Biduan), Courtyard named as art model, 317; reorga- 207, 215; in New Spring exhibition, 386; nizing national art academies (1973), 367; nianhua as graduation work, 137; in oil as subject for art, 321, 396; taste in art, painting correction group (1972), 360; We 367; against traditional guohua, 350; and Must Implement the Proletarian Cultural Wang Mantian, 369; and ZAFA, 350; and Revolution to the Finish (1972), 321, 323, |

Zhou Enlai, 207, 364, 368, 376 361; With You in Charge, | Am at Ease Jiang Tiefeng, 338; CAFA student, 392; Cali- (1977; with Peng Bin), 379, 380 fornia (1983), 392; criticized (1959), 213; Jin Xunhua, as model hero, 346-347 criticized in Socialist Education Movement, Jin Ye: CAFA East China campus administra311; employment, 213; with Huang Yong- tor, 431n.86; as rightist, 192, 197 yu, 392; “Proletarian Cultural Revolution Jin-Cha-Ji North China United Revolutionary Painting Exhibition” (1967), 325, 327; and University, 34; founded, 22; and North

Western modernism, 435n.180; Yunnan China University, 27

school, 392 Jin-Sui Daily, 268

Jiang Yan, Examining Mama, 123, 438n.24 Jinggang Mountain, Red Guard groups at

Jiang Zhaohe, 137, 139; CAFA instructor, CAAG, 319 137, 218, 219; Child and Dove, 162; and Jinling, Eight Masters of, 260 Jiang Feng, 127, 193, 194; before libera- Joint Bookstore, 70 tion, 139; at Ming Tombs Reservoir con- Journey to the West, 129; lianhuanhua theme, struction site, 211; and new Chinese figure 249 painting in Beijing, 140; new socialist realist guohua styles, 175; on Political Consultative Committee, 204; Refugees, 31, 33, 139, 425-—426n.81; and Second National Art Ex- Kang Sheng, 42, 423n.52; CAFA investigation

hibition, 162; Selling Thread (1937), 139; (1964), 310; criticism of ideologically Telling Uncle Soldier My Grades, 140, 141; erroneous art, 241; as Cultural Revolution

Zhongnanhai exhibition (1953), 80 leader, 321; and GLF, 307; and Guan

Jiangnan, 231 Shanyue, 447n.17; and Museum of RevoluJiangsu. See Nanjing tionary History, 241; subject for art, 321

Jiangsu Provincial Chinese Painting Institute, Kang Shiyao, in Xi’an guohua exhibition, 288

254, 259, 260, 263, 267, 454n.168 Kao, Mayching, 44, 50, 148

jiao (beauty), 231 Kollwitz, Kathe: reprinted by Lu Xun, 16; Jiefang ribao: and Cultural Revolution art, studied by Shanghai artists, 13 347, 349; and Jin Xunhua, 346, 347; Yel- Kong Boji, 385 low River oil painting series, 374; Zhong- Kunming, in Cultural Revolution, 324

546 INDEX labor camps, 197 276; and Tibet conquest (1951), 265, 268; labor reform, artists, 342-343 Tibetan Girl (1959), 268, plate 6; Tibetan Lai Chusheng, 174 images, 268, 270; Weaving a Rug (1952), Lai Shaoqi: East China Artists Association 270; woodcuts, 270 vice-director, 164; Shanghai art leader, Li Huanzhi (composer): Communist takeover 434n.143; and Shanghai Institute of of Beijing, 34; director of National Con-

Chinese Painting, 303 servatory, 35

Laing, Ellen, 274 Li Jishen: and Beijing Chinese Painting Reland reform, 37, 461n.4; as theme in art, 239 search Association exhibition (1953), 161; landscape painting, 140; Ai Qing’s view, 115; Founding of the Nation subject, 81 at CAFA, 216, 219; Cai Ruohong’s support, Li Jun: and history painting campaign (1964—

126; and drawing from life, 118, 127, 169— 1965), 246; study in Leningrad (1956~

174; exhibitions, 161, 164, 169-174; feng- 1962), 151 jing, 118, 119; guohua, 137, 140, 169, 173, Li Keran, 94-96, 298; attacked, 171, 176,

190 307, 373; brushwork, 170; buffalo painting,

Laozi yingxiong zi haohan; laozi fandong zi 95; CAFA instructor, 57, 104, 219; Chong-

hundan, 463N.33 qing exhibition (1943), 95; Chongqing

League of Left-Wing Artists, 15, 4230.45 teacher, 95; Cultural Revolution, 389;

Lee, Hong Yung, 330 death, 473n.66; Eighteen Art Society, 94; Leftists, and antigovernment prints, 14 film about, 299; and guohua, 95-96, 164,

Lei Dezu, 469n.4 171, 179, 225, 298; and Huang Binhong, Lenin, iconography associated with Mao 96, 171; individualist, 302; innovator, 298;

Zedong’s portraits, 448n.56 and Jiang Feng, 127, 171, 193, 298; labor-

Leningrad: Chinese students, 150, 217, 238, ing at Ming Tombs Reservoir construction 449n.60; Repin Art Academy, 150, 217, site, 211; landscape exhibition (1954), 170;

449N.60 Landscape of Pure River Li (1975), 368,

Leninism, on art, 120, 121 371; Landscape of Xuzhou, 95; landscape “Let one hundred flowers bloom,” 119 painting, 162, 169, 298, 299; landscape Li Bing: criticism of Red Guard suffering, sketches, 127, 169, 173, 298; and light 394-396; “Maple” lianbuanhua (with Chen effects, 299; and Lin Fengmian, 94,

Yiming and Liu Yulian), 394, 395 425n.75; and Luo Ming, 169-172; Mist Li Binghong: chairman of oil painting depart- and Clouds on the Li River, 308; Model ment (CAFA East China campus), 134; his- Workers and Peasants at Beihai Park, 59, tory painting, 65; staff artist at Shanghai 60, 64, 96; modernist painting, 94, 162;

People’s Art Press, 433n.130 Morning Mist in a River City (1959), 299, Li Chaoshi, teacher at National Hangzhou 300; National Beiping Arts College teacher,

Arts Academy, 429n.50 95-96, 426n.82; new Chinese landscape

Li Chu-tsing, 29, 400 painting, 169, 402; nianhua artist, 63, 96; Li Honggang, character in “Maple,” 394, 396 oil paintings, 94, 436n.183; privileges, 299; Li Hu: CAFA instructor, 218; National Bei- and Qi Baishi, 86, 171; Qian Shizhi student,

ping Arts College teacher, 426n.82 94; Rain on the Li River (1962), 301; reLi Hua: CAFA instructor, 134, 218; on Dela- treat from politics, 298, 302; retreat from croix, 148; and Guo Moruo, 218; handbills, realism, 302; and Second Nationa! Art Ex92, 427n.19; and Lu Xun, 218; National hibition, 95, 162; Spring Dawn in Jiangnan, Beiping Arts College teacher, 426n.82; stu- 308; Ten Thousand Crimson Hills (1963),

dent, 311; and Zhou Enlai, 218 299, plate 7; and thaw (1972), 368; travel

Li Huaji, 449n.77 in southern China (1954), 169; West Lake,

Li Huanmin, 404; CAA Chongging branch, Hangzhou (Santan yinyue) (1953), 128, 267, 455n.187; CAFA influence, 268, 270; 177; and Xu Beihong, 425n.75; and Zhang

Golden Road (1963), 271; under Li Ding, 169-172, 299

Shaoyan, 268; at New China Daily, 268; Li Kuchan: affordable guohua, 225; CAFA inprints published (1977), 386—387; as pro- structor, 219; calligraphy sent to Mao, 220; gressive worker, 267; shuiyin effects, 274; employment difficulties, 219-220, 449n.70; and socialist realism, 271; Soviet influence, lotus attacked (1974), 373; at National Art

INDEX 547 Research Center, 220; National Beiping Li Yang, 422n.30 Arts College teacher, 220, 426n.82; Red Li Yiran, administrator of May Seventh Col-

Guard beating, 322; xieyi style, 219 lege of Arts, 367 Li Lu: on lianhuanhua, 132; New Art Press, Li Zhaobing, attacked in Cultural Revolution,

72, 130; Shanghai People’s Art Press, 130 328

Li Qi: CAFA instructor, 56, 57; Communist Li Zhenjian, CAFA East China campus takeover of Beijing, 34; Cultural Revolution teacher, 142, 439n.72 attack, 328; exhibition (1962), 293; Jiang Li Zisheng: Beijing exhibition (1961), 288; exFeng attacked by, 193; Mao at the Ming hibition (1962), 293; symposium on Xi’an Tombs Reservoir Site (1958), 211, 2123 guohua, 288; travel to south (1962), 293 Mao Zedong portrait (1960), 386; travel to Li Zongjin, 439n.67; in Anti-Rightist cam-

south (1962), 293 paign, 193; combination of Western and Li Qun, 427n.13 Chinese techniques, 193; guohua meeting, Li Renjie, 449n.77 190; pencil drawing in Chinese painting, Li Ruinian: National Beiping Arts College 194; as rightist, 197

teacher, 426n.82; Sha’ping (1944), repro- Liang Yulong, 449n.77; National Beiping Arts

duced in Meishu (1962), 297 College teacher, 426n.82

Li Shan, as student, CAFA East China cam- lianhuanbua (serial picture stories), 70; an-

pus, 142 tique costumes, 129, 130; artists’ training,

Li Shaoyan, 404; career, 265-269, 276-277; 71; banned, 396; Beijing, 129; demons, chairman of CAA Chongging branch, 268; 130; exhibitions, 130, 246, 362; fees for criticism of Luo Zhongli, 396; director of artists preliberation, 433n.135; feudal and New China Daily art section, 268; on colonial, 37; ghosts, 130; government poldirectorate national CAA, 277; editorial icy on, 38, 49; ink outline-style, 132—134; work and CAA local branch, 451n.105; The in liberated zones, 36, 37; “Maple” banned, Fourth Division in Northwestern Shanxi 396; and movies, 133; and national herit(1946), Lor, 267; and Gao Jingde, 351; and age, 129; before 1949, 67; as popular work, He Long, 268; leadership of Sichuan print- 53; popularization and raising standards, makers, 267, 277; in liberated zones, 268; 134}; prizes, 130, 246; quotas (Shanghai), Old Street, New Look (1958), 268, 269; 129; salaries, 73; Shanghai, 37, 129, 130, 120th Division (Eighth Route Army) in 133, 246-251; socialist realism and native Northern China series, 267; prints of Ti- traditions, 134; status, 74; subject matter, betans, 268; provincial propaganda depart- 129, 249; texts, 129 ment, 268; shuiyin technique, 274; and Lianbuanhuabao (Serial Pictures Gazette), Soviet prints, 97, 267—268; travels with the 394-396 Eighth Route Army, 97, 267; Yan’an ex- Liao Jingwen: in Anti-Rightist campaign, 189;

hibition, 267; Yan’an style prints, 276 Jiang Feng defended by, 186

Li Shuang, 472n.57 Liao Mosha, Red Guard target, 336 Li Shusheng, short history of oil painters, May Liaoning Art Press, 73 Fourth era, 298 liberalism, 22; Chinese landscape painters, Li Song (fl. 1190-1265): The Knickknack 298

Peddler (1212), 261, 262; Peddler com- liberalization: cultural controls (1961-1963),

pared to Ya Ming, 261 202, 207, 250, 297—298; economic policies, Li Tianxiang: CAFA instructor, 217, 218; 203; Hundred Flowers, 191 study in Leningrad (1953-1959), 150 liberated zones, 105, 268; art of, 36-37 Li Xiannian, at Beijing airport murals opening Liberation Army Daily, attack on Huang

ceremony, 390 Zhou, 318

Li Xiaoshan: on Cultural Revolution, 314; on life experience: subject for art, 172, 352, 364.

Dong Xiwen, 80; on Liu Chunhua, 342 See also drawing from life Li Xiongcai: criticism on, 166; Forest, 123, Life of Wu Xun, campaign against, 438n.40 438n.24; and Gao Jingde, 351; guohua in Lin Biao: Cultural Revolution leader, 321; dis-

Second National Art Exhibition, 164; appearance, 349; Founding of the Nation

praised by Jiang Feng, 12.8 subject, 84; as subject for art, 84, 321, Li Xiushi, 422n.30 396 ,

548 INDEX Lin Bogu, in and out of Founding of the Na- director, §5, 424n.66; educator, 11; emigra-

tion, 81, 84, 85 tion, 88; Green Jade Gorge in 1962 Na-

Lin Fengmian, 87, 207, 4210.27, 429nn.71, tional Exhibition, 297; guohua in Second 72, 75; and Ai Qing, 421n.27; attacked, National Art Exhibition, 164; lianbuanhua, 309, 373, 374; Autumn Beauty, 46, 473 130; and modern art, 53; Nanjing Academy black painting exhibition (Shanghai), 374; of Arts, 55; and nude models, 53; opposiand Cézanne, 28; Cultural Revolution, 314; tion to Soviet art, 199; Oianmen in Beying, emigration, 88, 430n.55; exhibition (1963), 54; ridicule of party officials, 199; as right308; and Fauves, 28; landscapes published ist, 198~199; Shanghai Art Academy, 53-— (Meishu), 298; as maverick after 1949, 54, 199, 420n.2; in Shanghai exhibition 425n.72; and modernism, 28; at National (1977), 385; Shanghai Red Guard target,

Hangzhou Arts Academy, 28, 46-47, 346; style dominates Shanghai art, 386 42§n.71; overseas market, 434n.142; paint- “Liu Hulan Delivering Army Shoes,” as theme

ing as flawed politically, 308; target of for art, 221 Shanghai Red Guard, 346; and thought re- Liu Jiyou: illustrations for Jimao xin, 67;

form, 49; undated work, 429n.48 influence on lianhuanhua, 247 Lin Gang: CAFA instructor, 57, 217, 218; and Liu Jucheng, and Jiang Qing, 328

history painting campaign (1964-1965), Liu Kaiqu: CAA rehabilitation (1979), 389; 246; journalist on Korean front, 57; marries CAA vice-chairman (1953), 125; CAFA Pang Tao, 90; New Spring exhibition, 386; administration, 45, 210, 387; and Comnianhua, 61-63, 106; study in Leningrad munist takeover of Shanghai, 67; Cultural (1954-1960), 151; Zhao Guilan at the Revolution attack, 324; East China Artists Heroes Reception (1952), 61-63, 80, 106; Association director, 164; against Hu Feng,

Zhongnanhai exhibition (1953), 80 179; Jiang Feng defense, 186; and MonuLin Mohan: attacked (1966), 317; CAFA polit- ment to the People’s Heroes, 223; as right-

ical campaign (1964), 310; “struggled” ist, 197; and Zhou Enlai, 223, 431n.86

during Cultural Revolution, 329 Liu Qing, 449n.77 Ling Hubiao, and Shi Lu treatise, 293 Liu Shaoqi: and anti-pornographic literature Lingnan school: Guan Shanyue, 162; Guang- campaign, 130; at CAFA exhibition, 80; dong guohua, 447n.17; Li Xiongceai, 127— chairman of PRC, 243; children, 214, 318;

128 on cultural policies, 307; Cultural Revolu-

Link, Perry, 400 tion and, 243, 328; on drama, 180; in and

literati class, as audience for guohua, 118 out of Founding of the Nation, 81, 84, 85, literati painting (wenrenhua), 24, 44; Jiang 338; and GLF, 306~—307; guohua supported

Feng on, 118 (1956), 180, 182; and Mao Zedong, 240,

literature: remolding old, 36; “Scar,” 394; as 306-307; and Mo Pu, 428n.29; post-

subject for art, 71, 129 humous rehabilitation, 84; Red Guard

literature and arts rectification campaign target, 329, 331, 336; as subject for history

(1951), 124, 130, 148 paintings, 243-245; support for, 180; wife,

“Literature of National Defense,” Red Guard 318

art, 336 Liu Wel: career, 429n.43; and Communist

Liu Bingjiang, New Spring exhibition, 386 takeover of Hangzhou academy, 45; May Liu Binyan, exposé literature, 459n.251 Seventh College of Arts administrator, 367 Liu Borong: and Cultural Revolution heroes, Liu Wenxi, 468n.131; CAFA student (East

347; help from Xia Baoyuan with The China campus), 142; in Cultural RevoluEleven Young Heroes of Huang Shan, tion, 363; and Gao Jingde, 351, 363; in

467n.119 guohua painting correction group (1973), Liu Chunhua, 338; Beijing Painting Institute 362; style, 363, 364; With You in Charge, I

director, 404, 468n.139; Chairman Mao Am at Ease, 470n.12 Goes to Anyuan (ca. 1967), 338, 339-340, Liu Xun, 472n.94 347, 357; after Cultural Revolution, 387; Liu Yaozhen, Hua Guofeng at Yangqu (1977;

production of icons, 342 with Han Xin), 382, 383

Liu Haisu, 87, 420n.2; CAA Jiangsu branch Liu Yulian: criticism of Red Guard suffering, founded, 165; East China Arts Academy 394-396; “Maple” lianhuanhua (with Chen

INDEX 549 Yiming and Li Bing), 394, 395, 396 of Du Fu, 302, plate 8; lianbuanhua, 302,

Liu Zhiming, Vice-Minister, 136 433n.128; as rightist, 199, 302; in Second Liu Zyiu (Liu Guangcheng), bird-and-flower National Guohua Exhibition, 166; at Shang-

pictures in People’s Daily, 123 hai Institute of Chinese Painting, 302; Shilocal arts administration, 121-122, 384 tao influencing, 302; and socialist realism,

local color, and Xi’an guohua, 288 302; as traditionalist, 298; Western-style

340 Lida, Liaoning, 378

Long March, 16; subject for art, 159, 241, perspective, 166

Lou Jiaben, 469n.4 Luo Gongliu, 28, 244-245, 332, 423n.45; at

Lou Shiyi, and Jiang Feng, 13 CAFA, 41, §6, §7, 217, 218, 386, 387; CCP

Lu Chen, 449n.73, 469n.4 (1938), 244; experimental work, 221; and

Lu Danfeng, character in “Maple,” 394-396 history painting, 65; history painting camLu Dingyi, 241; in Cultural Revolution, 328, paign director (1961), 241; and Hou Yimin 329; dismissed (1966), 317; Red Guard commission (1961), 242; and Hu Yichuan’s target, 332, 336; university staffing, 217 woodcut team, 427n.26; and Jiang Feng, Lu Guoying, student of Maksimov (1955 428n.26; in Leningrad, 150, 245; Mao

1957), 1§2 Zedong at Jingang Shan, 243-244, 245,

Li Hongren, 467n.121 plate 4; Mao Zedong Presenting the Rec-

Li Meng: administrator, 72; removal of art tification Report (1951), 453n.142; Nation-

academies from Shanghai, 431n.83; al Hangzhou Arts Academy student, 28,

Shanghai art leader, 43.4n.143 244, 453N.142; nianhua, 19; at North ChiLii Sibai: CAA Jiangsu branch vice-chairman, na University, 27; Red Guard beating, 322; 2.59; Fish on a Blue Plate (1943), repro- revolutionary new year’s picture, 99; second

duced in Meishu (1962), 297 oil painting training class (director), 221; Li Xiaguang, teacher at National Hangzhou Sinicization of oil painting, 245; Soviet

Arts Academy, 429n.50 models rejected, 245-246; Speaking at the

Lu Xun, 422nn.29, 31; and Ai Qing, 422n.31; Rectification Movement Meeting, 448n.56; art collecting, 15; and Cai Yuanpei, 44; and Tunnel Warfare, 66, 77, 245, 453n.142; We Eighteen Art Society, 13, 443; erroneous atti- Must Implement the Proletarian Cultural tude, 120; faction, 18, 197; and Hu Feng, Revolution to the Finish (1972), 323, 361 18, 178; and Jiang Feng, 14, 16, 18, 44, Luo Ming: guohua in Second National Art Ex-

122, 422n.31; and Kollwitz prints, 16; hibition, 164; and landscape drawing from nianhua and lianhuanhua, 49; publication, life, 169; landscape exhibition (1954), 170; 267; Shi Lu inspired by, 296; Soviet wood- landscape sketches, 173; and Li Keran, cuts (history), 97; and Spring Earth Painting 169-172; travel in southern China (1954), Club, 422n.29; as subject for art, 382; and 169; and Zhang Ding, 169-172 woodcuts, 13, 4230.45; Xin’e huaxuan Luo Pan, lianhbuanhua administrator, 71 (Selected Pictures from New Russia), 16; Luo Ruiging: dismissed (1966), 317; Red

and Zhou Yang, 16, 18, 120, 122, 197 Guard target, 332, 336 Lu Xun Academy of Art (Shenyang), 208, Luo Zhongli: Father (1980), 397; influence of 449n.59; and Cultural Revolution, 338, Chuck Close, 396; realism, 394 360, 362; newly named (1958), 210; as Lushan, Jiangxi, Politburo meeting (1959),

progressive work unit, 214, 263 203

Lu Xun Academy of Arts (Northeast), estab- Luwan district, 385

lished (1946), 35, 447.34 Lytvynenko, Valentyn, 281; Ode to Hunting, Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts 281 (Yan’an), 34, 42, 423n.45; mianhua (1939), 18—19; Taihang Mountains branch,

423n.45; training for cultural propaganda, Ma Changli, 449n.77 18; Wang Mantian and Wang Hairong, Ma Desheng, and “Stars” protest march 349; woodcuts, 18. See also Northeast Art (1979), 398 Academy; Northeast Lu Xun Academy of MacFarquhar, Roderick, 191

Literature and Arts Maksimov, Konstantin M. (b. 1913): and

Lu Yanshao, 72; Landscapes After the Poems CAFA, 151-161, 218, 221; Dawn at

550 INDEX Maksimov (cont.) speeches (1957), 191; students mobilized Zhengyang Gate, 1§3, 154; encouraged di- by, 316; as subject of art, 61, 65, 77, 92, versity, 156; instruction in color, 153; and 105, 106, 233, 236, 242-245, 345, 352, Jiang Qing, 156; oil painting class, r51— 354, 379, 382, 396, 448n.56, 462n.21, 161, 186-187, 198, 221; and Qi Baishi, 466n.110; succession struggle, 377; swim441n.110; speech (1955), 175; and xieyi ming the Yangzi, 233; thought, 48, 317, painting, 441n.110. See also Maksimov stu- 319; “A tiny spark can set the steppes

dents ablaze,” 396, 428n.32; and Wu Hufan,

Maksimov students, 151-161, 218, 238, 303; and Xu Beihong, 33, 426n.4; Yan’an 468n.131; and Cultural Revolution, 331, Talks, 19-22, 97, 103, 104, 350 352, 360; and history painting campaign Maoist art, 216, 287, 315 (1964-1965), 246; in Hundred Flowers market. See art market campaign, 186—187; themes in work of, Marxism, 48, 148

1§3-155 Masses Art Press, lianhuanhua, 73

Manet, Edouard, 181 Masses Pictorial Press, 67

manual labor: abuses in administration, 205; Matisse, Henri, 29, 43, 53, 402

artists, 225, 278-279, 366, 450n.83; May Fourth Movement, 148 CAFA, 227; Cultural Revolution, 342-343, May Seventh Cadre School, 346, 347 352, 366; in GLF, 204; at May Seventh May Seventh College of Arts, 367, 386 College of Arts, 367; at Ming Tombs Reser- May 16 Circular, 317 voir construction site, 211; propaganda for, May 16 Corps, 343, 351

282; students (1968), 354 Meishu, 109; and Beidahuang artists, 279;

Mao Dun: “Midnight,” 137, 138; Minister of CAFA nianhua, 137; and Cultural Revolu-

Culture, 187 tion, 317; guohua, 166; on Hu Feng, 178,

Mao Zedong, 38, 317, 425n.78; Anti-Rightist 179; on Hundred Flowers, 187; on imprescampaign, 197, 200; art collection, 199, sionism, 181; Jiang Feng’s speech (1953), 303, 435N.170; art interests, 43.4n.154; 126; liberalization (1962), 297-298; on birthplace, 466n.110; “Bombard the Head- Maksimov’s class, 152; official journal of quarters,” 462n.21; and CAFA, 80, 310, CAA, 126; old art (1977), 386; raising stan427n.7; and calligraphy, 35, 220, 232, dards, 298; revived, 377, 378; rightists con426n.4; cult of, 214; Cultural Revolution, demned, 198; and Sino-Soviet split, 215; on 316, 342; cultural theories and figure paint- Soviet art, 149 ing, 142; death (1976), 376; on Ding Ling, Meishu yanjiu, 152 197; directive on drama (1953), 119; dying Meishu zhanbao, 328 (as subject for art), 379, 382; on economic Meishu ziliao: Cultural Revolution, 366; on development, 179; on Feng Xuefeng, 197; Soviet art, 149 and Founding of the Nation, 80, 425n.78; Meishu zuotan: on nianhua, 59; on Soviet art,

on Gao Gang, 197; GLF, 306-307; and 149 guohua, 169, 199; on indigenous literary Meisner, Maurice, 342 forms, 18; influence on art, 366; interna- Meng Guang: as rightist, 224; Shanghai Art tionalism opposed by, 27; and Jiang Feng, Academy instructor, 224; Shanghai studio,

183, 191, 197; “Let a hundred flowers 4490.59 bloom, let a hundred schools of thought “Mi-dots,” invented by Mi Fu, 257 contend,” 180; and Li Kuchan, 220; and Mi Gu, on Hu Feng, 178 Liu Shaoqi, 306-307; on mass action, 307; migration, to border areas, 458n.233 and May fourth theorists, 120; on nude Ming illustrated drama, and lianhbuanhua, 247 models, 311, 392; “Ode to Snow,” 230; Ming Tombs Reservoir, construction, 211,

party rectification campaign (1957), 185; 220 and Peng Dehuai’s purge, 240; poetry, 230, Ministry of Culture, 5, 35, 41, 43, 45, 188; 254, 303; portraits of, 65, 105, 207, 214— Anti-Rightist campaign directed by, 188; art 216, 352, 355, 361, 364, 386, 448n.56; and campaign organizer (1958-1959), 228; Art Qi Baishi, 87, 435n.170; and Red Guard, Research Center administration, 136; Arts 318, 319, 320, 337; “revolutionary realism Bureau, 67; and Beijing airport murals, 390;

and revolutionary romanticism,” 254; and Beijing Chinese Painting Institute,

INDEX 551 443n.158; and CAFA, 136, 183, 186; and artists, 90; in liberated zones, 36; and litercaimohua, 185; and Cultural Revolution, ati painting (rejection of), 147; Marxist 317, 324, 349; exhibition organizer, 162, justification for study, 148; as models for 166, 297; and guohua, 166, 185, 186, 187; students, 147; painting tradition, 235; and history painting, 65, 246; lianbuanhua popularity among artists, 148; post-Mao prizes (1963), 130; Maksimov sponsor, era painting of, 43 5n.180; revival, 235 151; and Mao Zedong, 309; national con- Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History, ference on drawing instruction (1955), 136; 432n.106; Red Guard groups, 327. See also and nianhua, 59, 66, 67; nude models ban- Museum of Revolutionary History ned (1965), 311; oil painting training Museum of Military History, history painting,

(second), 221; and “pornographic” litera- 65 ture (1955), 130; Publishing General Museum of Revolutionary History, 449n.61; Bureau, 129; reconstruction (1975), 378; Founding of the Nation, 80, 85; history Soviet expert (Myl’nikov), 221; Zhou Enlai painting, 65, 246, 288; Liu Shaogi and the

criticizing, 205 Anyuan Coal Miners, 332; oil paintings, 77,

Ministry of Light Industry: art campaign orga- 164; opening delayed, 240; painting comnized by (1958—1959), 228; and Beijing air- missions (1958-1959), 236—246; refurport murals, 390; CAAC administration, bished (1972), 84; reorganized (ca. 1980),

136 84; site of attacks on party leaders, 328;

minorities: as subject for art, 144, 145, 146, among Ten Great Buildings, 228. See also 172, 262—270 passim, 276, 286, 351; [1- Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History betans, 145, 172, 265, 267, 268, 270, 276; museums, in Cultural Revolution, 345

Uighurs, 172 Mylnikov, A. A. (b. 1919): Awakening exhib-

Mo Pu: and CAFA East China campus, 51, ited in Beijing (1957), 216; at CAFA, 221; 56, 223, 431n.86; CCP criticizing, 183; and and Gao Jingde, 350; influence in China, Chen Yi, 428n.29; during civil war, 23; on 216 Founding of the Nation, 434n.149; at Hangzhou academy as Communist administrator, 45; and Jiang Feng, 23, 42—43, 183, Nanjing: artists, 263; East China Academy of

186, 192; in liberated zones, 37; and Liu Arts, 199; film, 267; guohua, 205, 207, Shaoql, 428n.29; and Lu Xun Academy 251, 254-265, 266, 289; guohua school, Central China branch (1940), 428n.29; 260; schools, 199, 260, 289 People’s Daily attacking (1956), 168; on Qi Nanjing Academy of Arts, 55 Baishi, 193; as rightist, 192, 197; Settling National Agricultural Exhibition Hall, among

Accounts, 44; and Sha Jitong, 42—43; at Ten Great Buildings, 228

Yan’an, 42—43, 191 national art, 135. See also national painting

model operas, influence on art, 366 National Art Academy: Beijing, 35. See also modernism: academic painting replacing, 150; CAFA; National Beiping Arts College Chinese, 64; oil painters, 164; rejection of, National Art Gallery: Beijing, 324; in Cultural 111; Second National Exhibition and, 164; Revolution, 324; Red Guard groups, 327 vs. tradition, 420n.6; Western, 44, 65, 399, National Art Research Center, 135—136; dis-

435n.180 banded, 447n.35; reassigned to Ministry of

Modigliani, Amedeo, 392 Culture, 210; staff, 220

Monet, Claude, 181, 298 national artists, in CAA, 121 Monkey Makes Havoc in Heaven, lian- National Beiping Arts College, 28, 31, 88;

huanhua, 129 Communist takeover, 34-35, 86; curricu-

morality, political campaigns and, 200 lum (1945-1949), 91; faculty (1945~— Moscow, “bulldozer exhibition,” 398 1949), 220, 426n.82; history painting, 65 Moshikou Village, Shijingshan, GLF labor National Conservatory, Tianjin, 3 5

site, 211 National Cultural Education Heroes Meeting,

Municipal Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio Beijing (1960), 263, 267

(1965), Shanghai, 224 “national essence”: Ai Qing’s evaluation, 112;

Municipal Sanitation Bureau, Xi’an, 293 criticized, 179 murals: in GLF, 225; inspiration to modern National Essence Movement, 50

552 INDEX national forms, 23, 24; after Anti-Rightist New China Bookstore, 72 campaign, 234; guohua, 168, 288; Institutes New China Daily (Xinhua ribao), Chongaing, of Chinese Painting, 200; Li Keran, 302; in 268, 451Nn.105 literature, 178; new interpretation in paint- New China News Agency, 35 ing, 237; relationship to new contents, 137; New Fourth Army, 42; Shanghai art world, 67

Shi Lu, 288, 302 New National Painting Research Association,

National Hangzhou Arts Academy, 27, 28, 74

35, 38, 44-50, 423n.45; Communist reor- “new realism,” 393-394, 396 ganization (1949-1950), 431n.86; curricu- New Spring exhibition (1979), 386 lum, 96, 134; Dong Xiwen, 90; faculty, 96, new year’s prints, 18, 23. See also mianhua 224, 429n.5§0; flight inland (1937), 90; for- Ni Yide, 429n.43; CAFA East China campus mer students at Yan’an, 19; history, 27; in vice-director, 45; and National Hangzhou Kunming, 90; and leftists, 13; Lin Fengmian Arts Academy, 45, 429n.50; transfer to

director (1900~1991), 28, 425n.71; Luo Being, 56 Gongliu student at, 244, 453n.142; re- nianhua, 18—22; at CAFA, 63; credit for innamed CAFA East China campus, 41, 45—- novations in, 427n.20; Cultural Revolution 46; studio system, 216; Western painting art source, 334; defined, 59-61; early

department, 46—47 19508, 58, 59-64, 65, 90; East China

national heritage: Ai Qing’s evaluation, 112; Artists Association focus (1954), 165; and guohua, 118; and lianhbuanhua, 129; “feudal and colonial,” 37; in GLF, 213;

Zhou Yang on, 119, 120 government policy, 37-38, 49; guohua in-

national minorities. See minorities fluenced by, 364; at Hangzhou, 45; Hebei, National Museum of History, among Ten 27; iconographic changes, 19; against

- Great Buildings, 228 Japanese, 18; in liberated zones, 36-37;

national painting (minzu huihua), 50, 189; Ai new, 19, 22, 58-64, 137; oil painting inQing defining, 112; in CAA (1953), 124; fluenced by, 364; for populace, 53; prizes, East China Artists Association focus (1954), 63; revolutionary, 19, 45, §23; sponsorship, 165; and Hu Feng opposition, 178; legacy, 66; status, 74; Tianjin, 37; and Western 113; in Nanjing (1961), 263; revival, 120. realism, 61-64; at Yan’an, 427n.20. See

See also guohua also new year’s prints

National People’s Congress (1959), 204; nihilism, 175, 189; criticized, 179; defined,

Third (1960), 279 179, 443n.161; and Hu Feng thought, 179

“national tradition,” 232, 390 Niu Wen: CAA Chongqing branch leader,

nationalism, 194, 234; Ai Qing’s evaluation, 4§5n.187; The East Is Red, the Sun Is Ris112; anti-Soviet, 216; in art, 202, 203, 235; ing (1959), 265, 266; and Gao Jingde, 351; art theory, 60; and atomic bomb detona- and Tibet conquest (1951), 265; Yan’an tion, 303; and border disputes, 203; GLF, style prints, 276 313; and guohua, 170, 203, 298; and land- nonpolitical art: criticism of, 124; Institutes of scape painting, 170, 298; after 1957, 201; Chinese Painting, 200 Sino-Soviet, 313; in This Land So Rich in North China Literature and Arts Work Team,

Beauty, 235; woodblock prints, 203 22 Nationalists: army, 34; government criticized North China United University, 34, 35, 268;

in woodcuts, 14; spying for, 178 art propaganda workers, 27; art work team, Nationalities Cultural Palace, among Ten 456n.204; in Zhengding, 27

Great Buildings, 228 Northeast Art Academy (Shenyang), 135, 208;

Nationalities Hotel, among Ten Great Build- Anti-Rightist purges, 208; former Northeast

ings, 228 Lu Xun Academy of Literature and Arts,

nationalization, of art forms, 287 447n.34; renamed Lu Xun Academy of Art, New Account of Tales of the World (Shishuo 210

xinyu), 235 Northeast Lu Xun Academy of Literature and

New Art Press, 72, 73; drawing class (1959), Arts (Manchuria): established (1946), 22, 247; Shanghai lianhuanhua, 129; staff 35, 4470.34; renamed (1953), 447n.34. See

artists, 129 also Northeast Art Academy

New China Arts School, 422n.45 Northeast Pictorial, 37

INDEX 553 Northern Wei figure styles, inspiration to Pan Tianshou, 135; attacked, 373, 374,

modern artists, 90 462n.26; Beijing Chinese Painting and Re-

Northwest Arts Academy (Xi’an), 135; re- search Association (Third Exhibition), 165;

named Xi’an Art Academy, 210 black painting exhibition (Shanghai), 374; Northwest Historical Museum, 285 Corner of Lingyan Gully (1955), 165, 166,

Northwest Pictorial, 451n.105 172; Cultural Revolution attack, 462n.26; nude models: banned, 463n.42; CAFA Social- drawing from life, 172; and Jiang Feng, ist Education Movement and, 311; con- 192, 193; national art research center directroversy in 19208, 53; for guohua, 118; as tor, 136; at National Hangzhou Arts

politically healthy, 392 Academy (1935), 46, 96; on new Hangzhou figure painting, 145; painting praised, 307; rehabilitated by CAA (1979), 389; against

official art, uniformity in early 1950s, 87 socialist realism, 142; and thought reform, oil painters, fear of unemployment, 185 49, 52; Western drawing study, 166; ZAFA oil painting, 2; in art campaign (1958-1959), director (1959), 210 228; at CAFA, 134; Communist history, 65; Pang Tao, 90 Jiang Feng and, 44, 82, 123, 148, 149; in Pang Xungin: CAAC teacher, 392; and Comliberated zones, 37; in 1949-1955, 64-65; munist takeover of Shanghai, 67; daughter popularity with art students, 148; second Pang Tao, 90; and Jiang Feng, 44, 186; as training class, 221, 246; Shanghai instruc- rightist, 197, 200; Still Life (1973), 368, tion, 224; Soviets and, 65, 110, 148—161, 372; wife’s death, 200; and Zhou Enlai, 203, 238, 339, 341, 350; still-life, 126, 164, 431n.86 368, 372; in Ten Great Buildings, 238-246; Paris, 419n.1

Xu Beihong, 29, 30, 31 peasant paintings: in GLF, 204; as national

Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio (OPSS), style, 254; by professional artists, 227. See 345-347; labor camp, 346. See also Shang- also peasants hai Municipal Oil Painting and Sculpture peasants: and artists, 225; collectivization,

Studio 203; as subjects, 396

324, 325 Guard, 331

The One-Ton Cudgel (Qianjunbang; 1967), Peking Foreign Languages Institute, Red

Oriental Art Academy (Dongfang meishu Peng Bin, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease

zhuanke xuexiao), Sichuan, 105 (1977; with Jin Shangyi), 379, 380 Oriental Hotel (Dongfang fandian), Beijing, Peng Boshan: East China Cultural Department

230, 241 vice-director, 56; and Hu Fengism, 178

outline and color technique, 37, 49-50, §2, Peng Dehuai: GLF criticized by, 240; Mao 60-61, 120, 123, 137, 142, 145; Li Keran, attacked by, 203; portrait, 97; purge, 204; 96; nianhua painting, 60, 105; sources, 60— in Taihang Mountains, 97

61 Peng Zhen, 241, 317; dismissed (1966), 317;

426n.6 332

Ouyang Yugian, as CAFA speaker (1950), GLF retreated from, 207; Red Guard target, Overseas Chinese Hotel, among Ten Great Peony River Reclamation district (Heilong-

Buildings, 228 jiang), as exhibition sponsor, 279

ox-pens, in Cultural Revolution, 323 People’s Art. See Renmin meishu

People’s Art Press: Beijing lianbuanhua, 129; establishment, 67; Hebei, 73; Hou Yimin’s

painting, 2, 37, 60-61, 120; bamboo, 117; Liu Shaogi and the Anyuan Coal Miners CAA (1953), 124; at CAFA, 57, 13.4; col- reproduced, 328; in Hundred Flowers, 185, lective, 254-255; decorative, 390; gouache, 187; Red Guard groups, 327; staff artists,

2; orchid, 117; plum, 1173; realistic, 2; 64, 185, 187 “thematic” Soviet, 150. See also guohua; People’s Commune Dining Hall (1958), 254,

landscape painting; oil painting 255

painting correction groups: guohua, 362; oil People’s Daily, 109; art published, 80, 122,

painting, 359-360 123; and Beidahuang artists, 279; CAFA

Painting Research Center, 135 nianhua reproduced, 137; CAFA “rebel

554 INDEX People’s Daily (cont.) political indoctrination, 4 artists” praised, 332; Chairman Mao Goes political movements: in arts institutions to Anyuan reproduced, 339; editorial “De- (1963), 308; in Cultural Revolution, 354; velop the Art of Guohua” (1956), 168; against “rightist tendencies” (1959), 204—

editorial on greater publishing freedom, 20§. See also political campaigns 129; Founding of the Nation, 80; on political subject matter, 391 guohua, 161, 168, 174, 185; Huang Zhou Popular Art (Qunzhong meishu), CAFA

attacked by, 318; on Hundred Flowers, magazine, 211 191; Jiang Feng attacked by, 168; Li Keran popularization, 36, 53, 287; in CAFA curricuwritings, 299; on liberalization, 207; Mo Pu lum, 137; early PRC period, 104—105; and

attacked by, 168; new nianhua, 63; Xu oil painting, 64; painters, 72; and raising

Beihong obituary, 125 standards, 428n.28

People’s Liberation Army. See PLA portraits, 126; ancestor, 24; Cultural RevoluPeople’s University, in Cultural Revolution, tion, 352; by Dong Xiwen, 92; of Mao

338 Zedong, 65, 105, 207, 214-216, 352, 355,

Peredvibniki (Wanderers), 441n.108 361, 364, 386, 448n.56; of political leaders,

303 389

perspective, 144; in guohua, 140; lack of in 65, 81, 92, 97, 105, 364; of Qi Baishi, 164;

Chinese classical painting, 190 by Yan Han, 97

photographs, as compositional aid to painting, post—Cultural Revolution (1976-1978), 383, Picasso, Pablo, 180; study of African sculpture post-modernism, 399

compared with Dong Xiwen, 91 Prairie Fire, Red Guard at CAFA, 326, 328, pictorial magazines, 123; in liberated zones, 330, 331-332 36—37; nianhua sponsored by, 66 PRC anniversary celebrations: tenth, 204,

Pissarro, Camille, 181 22.7~229, 298; twenty-fifth (1974), 364; PLA (People’s Liberation Army), 35; artists, thirtieth (1979), 471n.44 44; assaults, 37; Chao Mei, 278; civil war primitive art, affinities with modern, 148 victory, 34; and Heilongjiang prints, 283; printmaking: CAA (1953), 124; CAFA, 134, liberation of Beijing, 148; Maksimov stu- 216, 217, 218. See also woodblock prints dents, 152; propaganda, 38; as subject for private studios: before 1949, 216; in Shanghai

art, 311, 366; Ya Ming, 260 during 1950s and 1960s, 216

plaster casts: smashed in Cultural Revolution, professional art exhibition (1972), 359 321~—322; used in instruction, 52, 54, 259 proletarian intellectuals, university staffing,

poetry, 287; Mao Zedong’s, 230, 254, 303 217

police, 15 propaganda: anti-Japanese, 99, 133; art, 64, policy: arbitrary changes, 214; on 65, 204, 220, 238, 427n.19; Beidahuang,

lianhuanhua, 38, 49; on nianhua, 38, 49; 282, 283; about China’s atomic bomb, 303;

serve the people, 36 during civil war, 22; Cultural Revolution,

Politburo: CRSG, 317; Cultural Revolution, 324, 349; department of CCP, 5, 35, 41, 318; and exhibition (1974), 364; Sixty Arti- 207, 227, 349; for GLF, 220; for Heilong-

cles on Agriculture, 207 jiang settlement, 277; history painting, 64— political campaigns: academic questions in, 65,77; Korean War, 71; land reform, 65, 196; effects on art, 176; opportunism, 177, 71, 104; in liberated zones, 36; military 179; Organization, 189; personal rivalries, cultural activity, 283; national minorities, 178; uses of, 176—177. See also Anti- 286; nianhua, 99; painting, 204, 238; picRightist campaign; Cultural Revolution; tures, 88; posters, 53; printmakers, 267;

Hundred Flowers campaign; Yan’an pro-Communist, 34, 38, 91-92, 427n.19; political conformity, enforced (1958-1959), publications, 227; publishing houses, 64—

224 73; Sichuan activities, 267, 268; in south

Political Consultative Conference (1958), 259 China, 57; for Tibetan conquest, 268; in Political Consultative Congress (1959), 204 wartime, 2.4, 71; for women’s rights, 105 Political Consultative Council, Jiangsu, 198 Protect the Border District, 20 political correctness, style and didactic mes- provincial job assignments, criticism of, 128

sage, 104 publishing houses: centralization, 130;

INDEX 555 lianhuanhua, 130; nianhua sponsors, 66; illustrated drama (and lianhuanhua), 247 Shanghai, 130; staff artists, 65-73. See also Qinghua University, 353; in Cultural Revolu-

People’s Art Press; Shanghai publishers tion, 318 Qiu Ruimin, 467n.121 Qu Shunfa (Xuhui District Cultural Palace

Qi Baishi: age, 435n.169; Beijing Chinese administrator), exhibition organized by, 384 Painting Institute director, 306; CAA chair- quality, as critical standard (1961), 284 man (1953), 125, 193; CAA rehabilitation Quan Shanshi, 467n.121; Death Before Sur(1979), 389; and Communist authorities, render (1961), 242, 244; and history paint86, 87, 114, 118; creativity, 115; Cultural ing campaign (1964-1965), 246; Red DeRevolution attack, 462n.26; died, 298; frog tachment of Women, 349; Study of a

painting, 115; Frogs, 116; guohua in Woman (ca. 1956), ryz; in USSR (1954Second National Art Exhibition, 164; Li 1960), ISI, 241 Keran’s teacher, 86; lotus painting, 115; quasi-official exhibitions (1977-1979), 384—

National Beiping Arts College teacher, 386, 396-397 426n.82; Prawns (1949), 435N.169; visited Ounzhong meishu, CAFA magazine, 211 by Ai Qing, Jiang Feng, Wang Zhaowen (1949), 86; and Xu Beihong, 86; Zhong-

nanhai exhibition (1953), 80 railroad construction, as theme for art, 172, Qi Benyu: and Jiang Qing, 328; speech 2.86

(1967), 329 Railroad Guerrillas, 132, 133, 248

Qi Gong, in Xu Yansun rightist group, 199 Rao Shushi, removal of art academies from

Qi Su, CAFA vice-director and party vice- Shanghai, 431n.83

secretary, 210 Raphael, as source for Cultural Revolution

Qi Yanming, 453n.137; attacked in Cultural art, 339, 341

Revolution, 328; and This Land So Rich in realism: academic, 157; Chinese, 308; as ex-

Beauty, 230, 231 hibition selection criterion (1955), 162;

Qian Junrul, 187, 453n.137; and CAFA, 184, guohua standard, 118; and Hu Fengism, 186, 426n.6; and Cai Ruohong, 183; crit- 178; national form of, 111; “new,” 393-— icism of, 185; and guohua, 182, 190; and 394, 396; promotion of, 111; revolutionJiang Feng, 183, 187, 188, 197; and tradi- ary, 254, 282, 287; and romanticism, 254, tional painting, 191; Vice-Minister of Cul- 260, 282, 287; scientific, 118; Shi Lu and,

ture, 186 106, 172, 287, 289, 302; Western, 23, 24,

Qian Shizhi, teacher of Li Keran, 94 25, 29, 61-64, 74, 174; and Xu Beihong, Qian Songyan (1899-1985): CAA Jiangsu 125. See also socialist realism branch vice-chairman, 259; and Gao Jingde, recentralization: economic, 224; of higher

351; On Furong Lake (1958), 254, 256; education, 309 Summer Light on the River, 264 reconstruction, government (1970), 349 Qian Xiaodai, Monkey Beats the White-boned rectification campaigns: arts and literature,

325 257

Demon (lianbuanbua; with Zhao Hong- 124, 130, 148; CAFA (1964), 211, 309;

ben), 249, 252-253 CCP, 22, 185, 191, 192, 195, 196

Oianjunbang (The One-Ton Cudgel), 324, Red Army, 16; as subject for art, 159, 241,

Qianlong court artists, 254 Red Flag Army, 337 Qin Wenmei, 467n.131; pseudonym for col- Red Guard: activists arrested, 343; art, 319,

laborative works produced in Xi’an, 320, 332-342, 338, 339; from art

Shaanxi, 358 academies, 306, 319; battles, 331-332,

Qin Zheng: Home (1957), 155, 156; Maksi- 393-396; CAA seizure (1967), 330; at mov student (1955-1957), 152; and protest CAAC, 326; CAFA (see CAFA Red Guard); march (1957), 187; refugees theme, 156; as conflict, 337; Congress, 326, 330, 464n.65;

rightist, 195, 198 disbanded (1968), 343; factions, 319, 320,

Qin Zhongwen, landscapes published in 330, 342-343, 396; “Long Marches,” 323;

Meishu, 298 and Lu Yanshao album, 302; Mao Zedong

Qing dynasty: books and stationery, 274; and, 318, 319, 320, 337; movement, 318;

556 INDEX Red Guard (cont.) rusticated urban youth: artists, 353, 364; in “National Assembly of Red Art Rebels,” Heilongjiang, 364 324; news on Socialist Education Move-

ment, 310-311; pilgrimages, 323; power

struggle, 330; Prairie Fire, 326, 328, 330, St. John’s University, use of former campus,

331-332; propaganda, 324, 337; “royal- 223 ists,” 318; Shanghai art world targets, 346; salaries, artists’, 41 Shanghai exhibitions, 346; and Shi Lu trea- Salvation Movement, at Yan’an, 42 tise, 293; as source, 223, 227, 241, 243, Save Good Seeds, Make Good Grain, 439n.70 316, 317; as subject for art, 320, 393-396; “Scar” literature, 394

wall posters, 182 sculpture, 123; in CAA (1953), 124; at CAFA,

“red, smooth, and luminescent,” 360 57, 134; in liberated zones, 37; popular

regional school: Heilongjiang, 277-283; Ling- with art students, 148 nan, 447n.17; and Nanjing, 251, 254-265; seals, carving, 287 Shi Lu, 109; Sichuan, 265-277; Xi’an, The Serial Illustrated Romance of the Three 284—296; Zhou Enlai encouraging, 206. See Kingdoms (Lianhuan tubua san guo zhi), 70

also specific regions serial picture stories. See lianhuanhua

regionalism: in art, 202, 288; in Heilongjiang Serial Pictures (Lianhuanhua bao), 67 woodcuts, 277-283; Xi’an guohua, 284 Serial Pictures Gazette, publishes “Maple,”

religious iconography, for political purposes, 394

422N.44 Sha Fei, 427n.13

remolding: art, 36, 40, 41, 73, III—119, 145, Sha Jitong, 191; death at Yan’an, 42—43

400; of Hangzhou campus, 42-48; litera- Sha Kefu, 34 ture, 36; Shanghai publishing, 65-73; Shaanxi Municipal Art Creation group, The

thought, 22 Hearts of Yan’an’s Children Turn Toward Ren Baige, 455n.185; secretary of Chongging Chairman Mao (1973), 363

municipal party committee, 266 Shaanxi Provincial Museum, 285 Ren Mengzhang: influence, 403; and Maksi- Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border District Liter-

MOV, 152, 153 ature and Arts Union, 23

Ren Weiyin, Shanghai studio, 449n.59 Shandong University art department, 424n.66 Ren Xiong, influence on lianhuanhua, 247 Shang Husheng, Maksimov student (195 5-—

Ren Yi, as model, 130 1957), 1§2

Renmin meishu, 109; on nianhua, 58; “Real- Shanghai: art academies relocated (1952), 55, ism Is the Progressive Method of Artistic 431n.83; art clubs, 15; art colleges, 222; art

Creation,” 64 market, 74; commercial art, 471n.37; Com-

Renoir, Pierre-Auguste, 29 munist party, 13; Communist remolding of Rent Collection Courtyard (1967): artists’ art, 40; Democratic League, 198; guohua,

speech, 329; and Jiang Qing, 317 73; Handicrafts Institute, 345; illustrators, Repin Art Academy, Leningrad, 150, 217, 166, 246; impressionism in, 181; and Jiang

449N.60 Feng, 13; lianhuanhua, 67, 250; Liu Haisu

Resistance Pictorial (Kangzhan huakan), 285 influence, 384; municipal publishing Revolutionary Alliance/Red Flag, CAFA, 330— bureau, 128; oil painting, 381-383, 384;

331, 338 private art lessons, 216, 384; propaganda

revolutionary heroes, as subject for art, publications and newspapers in Cultural

467N.112 Revolution, 345; school for gifted children,

revolutionary realism and revolutionary 272; Western-style painters, 384; Yan

romanticism, 254, 282, 287 Wenliang influence, 384. See also Shanghai Revolutionary Rebel Corps, former FLAC, publishers

324 Shanghai Agricultural Exhibition Hall, 359

rightists, 188~201, 445n.71; in Heilongjiang, Shanghai Art Academy (Shanghai meizhuan),

198, 297, 364, 456n.214. See also Anti- 53, 384, 422.45, 424n.66, 456n.196; and

Rightist campaign CAFA East China campus, 199; disbanded

Royal Academy, Brussels, 223 (1952), 27; history, 53~54; and Lu Xun,

Russians. See Soviet Union 13; move out of Shanghai, 55

INDEX 557 Shanghai Art College: closed (1965), 345; and Cultural Revolution art, 346 Cultural Revolution, 347, 349, 360; estab- Shanghai publishers, 128-134, 247; as art lished (1960), 223; and Shanghai Institute sponsors, 74; center, 67; Communist re-

of Chinese Painting, 306 molding, 65—73; Maksimov students, 152; Shanghai Art Film Company, as progressive private, 72-73; shift in art policy, 246; staff

unit (1960), 263 artists, 65

Shanghai Art School, 379; and Cultural Rev- Shao Dazhen, Meishu editor-in-chief, 404 olution, 374; established (1959), 222, 223; Shao Longhal, 467n.121 faculty, 222-224; graduates, 224, 374, 382. Shao Yu: and Beijing Chinese Painting Re-

See also Shanghai Art College search Association exhibition (1953), 161; Shanghai Art Workers Political Study Group, as CAA national leader, 164; CAFA faculty

Ai Qing conducted session at, 111 opposing, 186; and Cai Ruohong, 189; Shanghai Arts College (Shanghai yizhuan), complaints about, 187; Cultural Revolution

and Lu Xun, 13 attack, 328, 462n.26; against Hu Feng,

Shanghai Department of Education, 223 179; and Jiang Feng, 189; jury for exhibiShanghai Drama Academy, 224; organized tion (1972), 359; lianhuanhua, 37, 73

quasi-official exhibition, 385 Shen Jiawei: after Cultural Revolution, 387; Shanghai Eighteen Art Society Research Cen- exhibition (1974), 364; and Jiang Qing,

ter, 13 364; and Liu Chunhua (compared), 366;

Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting, 175, reputation, 366; as rusticated urban youth, 199, 379, 404, 446n.8; administration, 364; at Shanghai exhibition (1977), 385; 443n.158; antique painting collection, 305; Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland apprenticeship system, 305—306; classical (1974), 364, 365, 366 curriculum criticized (1963), 306; establish- Shen Junru, possible subject in Founding of

ment, 303; instructors, 224, 302; merged the Nation, 434n.157 with Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio, Shen Roujian, Shanghai art leader, 404, 379; renamed Shanghai Painting Institute, 434N.143 374; Shanghai Red Guard target, 346; stu- Shen Tongheng, Shanghai lianbuanhua ad-

dents, 305; and Wu Hufan’s art collection, ministrator, 433n.120

305 Shen Yanbing, CAFA speaker (1950), 426n.6

Shanghai Institute of Social Sciences, 223 Sheng Yang, CAFA administrator (1977), 386 Shanghai Municipal Cultural Bureau: art Shenyang, Northeast Pictorial Press lian-

education, 71; exhibition organizer, 67 huanhua, 73 Shanghai Municipal Oil Painting and Sculp- Shi Lu, 105-109, 284-296, 403; abstraction, ture Studio, 224, 379; merged with Shang- 295; Autumn Harvest, 289; Beijing exhibihai Institute of Chinese Painting, 379. See tions (1949, 1961), 286, 288; Beyond the

also Oil Painting and Sculpture Studio Great Wall (1954), 146, 162, 172, 286; Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, black black painting exhibition (Xi’an), 375; CAA

painting meeting, 373 Xian branch, 284, 286-287, 404,

Shanghai Municipal Propaganda Bureau, 178; 451n.105; in CCP, 105, 289; and Chinese

replaced in Cultural Revolution, 346 tradition, 238; Clouds Across the Qinling Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Commit- Mountains, 172; color-and-ink landscapes, tee, Art Creation Office, censorship of art, 172; Congress of Literary and Arts Work-

382 ers, 105, 286; “Counterrevolutionary

Shanghai Museum, 293; and Wu Hufan’s art Manifesto,” 376; critical recognition, 286;

collection, 305 Down with Feudalism (1949), 106, 107,

Shanghai New China Arts School, 422n.45 237; editorial work, 105, 451n.105; Shanghai Painting Institute, 374; artist, 382; Egyptian sketches, 287; enamelware decora-

library (1975), 383 tions, 225; exhibition (1962), 293; export

Shanghai People’s Art Press: staff, 133; staff paintings, 268, 276; Ferry to the East

artists, 72 (1964), 296; Fighting in Northern Shaanxi,

Shanghai People’s Art Publishing House, 129, 236-238, 288, plate 3; on figure painting,

130 288; on GLF art policies, 287; Going Up-

Shanghai Propaganda Small Group, organized stream at Yumen (1961), 207, 289, 292,

558 INDEX Shi Lu (cont.) Sichuan, academies, 105, 210, 393-394, 396, 293; and guohua, 105, 164, 286, 288; and 449n.58 He Haixia (compared), 287; illness (1963), Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts: “new realism,”

296; individualism, 288, 295, 296, 298; in- 393-394, 396; newly named (1958), 210 ternationalism, 286; land reform, 105; land- Sichuan Artists Association, 456n.199

scapes in Meishu, 298; Lanzhou-Xinjiang Sichuan banhua xuanji, 267 sketching trip, 172; and Li Keran (com- Sichuan printmakers, 265—277; decorated stapared), 287; liberated zone (1939), 105; tionery and matchbox covers (1959-1960), madness, 296; Mao Zedong at the Heroes 267; funding for, 267; Tibetan subjects,

Reception (1949), 106, 108; and Maoist 265, 267, 276 arts policy, 287; Masses Pictorial editorial, single-outline and flat-color technique. See

105; Mount Hua (1972), 368, 370; Nation- outline and color technique al Art Exhibitions (First/Second), 106, 162, Sisley, Alfred, 181 164, 172, 286; new year’s picture produc- Sixty Articles on Agriculture, 207 tion organized by, 106; Northwest Artists Sixty Articles on Universities, 217, 310 Association vice-chairman, 106; Northwest Sixty Regulations Governing Work in Insti-

Cultural Work Team art group, 286; tutes of Higher Education (1961), 217 Northwest Pictorial magazine, 285-286; social responsibility, artists’, 44 Northwest Pictorial Press, 106; An Old socialist countries, joint exhibition (1958), 83 Wall in India, 442n.152; On the Road to Socialist Education Movement, 307—313 Nanniwan (1960), 207, 289, 290; at Orien- socialist realism, 50, 144, 351, 391; Al tal Art Academy (Sichuan), 105; painting Zhongxin and, 160; at art middle school, criticized as elitist, 307; poem on wildness 224, 272; bureaucracy for, 200; at CAFA, (1963), 296; poetry, 286, 376; propaganda 58; Chinese, 149, 175, 441n.108; definiactivities, 286; pseudonym, 296; and real- tions, 119, 444n.108; dominance, 125, 164, ism, 106, 172, 287, 289, 302; and regional 207; figure painting revived (1965), 309; school, 109, 284; against scholarly elegance, guohua conflicts with, 122; landscapes and, 296; self-expression, 295; on socialist art, 171; Li Huanmin and, 271; Li Keran and, 288; socialist realism, 106, 172, 289; Spring 171; lianbuanhua and, 134; Lu Yanshao Shoots (1973), 295; and symposium on and, 302; Maksimov class, 153; Nanjing, cultural standards for artists, 287; sympo- 260; as Official academic style, 175; Pan sium on Xi’an guohua, 288; technique, 289; Tianshou against, 142; Second National Ex-

and thaw (1972), 368; travel sketches hibition, 164; Shi Lu and, 106, 172, 289; (1955), 173; travel to south (1962), 293; Soviet, 41, 111, 148-155, 175, 224, 238, treatise on painting (1963), 293-295; and 271-272, 350, 360, 441n.108; “typical” Wang Zhaowen, 284, 286; Watering defined, 149; Xu Beihong and, 29; Zhang

Horses at the Yan River (1959), 288, Ding and, 171 4§2n.133; at West China Union University, Song Guangxun, 456n.200 105; wild disordered style, 289, 291; “wild, Song Kejun, on woodcuts, 378 weird, chaotic, and black,” 296, 307-308, Song Qingling, subject of Founding of the Na-

376; woodcuts, 286; and Xi’an regional tion, 81, 84 style, 284, 289; and Xugu, 293, 294; and Song Shuo, in CAFA political campaign

Zhang Ding (compared), 287; and Zhao (1964), 310

Wangyun, 285 Song Wenzhi: and Gao Jingde, 351; guohua Shi Zhan, praised in speech by Jiang Feng exhibition (1973), 363; and Huang Yongyu, (1949), 427N.13 373; Shi Lu compared, 289; trip to south

Shida jianzhu. See Ten Great Buildings (1965), 309

Shijiazhuang Masses Art Press (Hebei), 37 Song Zhongyuan, CAFA East China campus

Shitao: He Haixia influenced by, 293; Liu teacher, 142, 439N.72 Haisu influenced by, 297; Shi Lu influenced South China Arts School (Guangzhou),

by, 237, 296, 452n.134 merged into Guangzhou Academy of Fine

shiyi (poetic meaning), 264 Arts, 210 shutyin technique, 273; for Beijing Hotel, 368 South-Central Art Academy (Wuhan), 57, Siberians, 281 135, 210; established (1953), 57; merged

INDEX 559 into Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, 210; garde,” 399; name, 428n.32; protest march

moved (1958), 210 (1979), 398; unofficial art, 396-398, 404

Southwest Art Academy (Chongging), 135; re- Stasov, V. V. (1824-1906), criticism of im-

named Sichuan Assembly of Fine Arts, 210 pressionism, 181 Southwestern Artists Association, 456n.199 State Council, 6, 49; Administrative Office, Soviet artists, positions in China, 218, 403-— 230; Cultural Revolution, 249, 350; culture

404 group, 349, 350, 376; and East China

Soviet Union: Chinese relations deteriorating, Academy of Arts relocation (1956), 199; ex-

202, 277, 282; experts withdrawn from hibition organizer, 362; and guobua, 175; China, 215, 221; literary doctrines, 287; Institutes of Chinese Painting created, 191, middle schools, 135; students from China, 200, 303; manual labor assignments, 205; I§O—-I§1, 217, 238, 241, 449n.60; techni- mural project, 339; and This Land So Rich cal assistance, 110; “thaw,” 180; visited by in Beauty, 230; and Zhou Enlai, 376 Chinese art leaders, 149. See also Soviet- steel production, backyard furnaces/communal

style art mess halls, 203

Soviet-style art, 58, 86, 149; and Anti-Rightist still-life painting, 126; Pang Xunain, 368,

campaign, 198, 201; and art education, 41, 372; Wu Zuoren, 164 51, 65, 134, 161, 217, 354; and Beidahuang su (common), 259 prints, 281; CAFA, 136, 149, 155, 220, subjectivism, in 1957 party rectification, 196 221; and Cultural Revolution art, 339, 341, subjects for art. See themes for art 360; Death Before Surrender, 242; and ex- Sukarno, at guohua exhibition (1956), 174 hibition system, 65; guohua awards, 146; Sullivan, Michael, on Dong Xiwen, 80 and history painting, 241, 382; and im- Sun Jingbo: accused of May 16 partisanship, pressionism, 181, 182; Luo Gongliu study- 351; CAFA graduate student, 388; after ing, 245; and modernism, 150; and oil Cultural Revolution, 388; labor reform, painting, 65, 110, 148-161, 203, 238, 339, 352; A New Axi Song (1972), 351-3523 in 341, 350; posters and propaganda pictures, oil painting correction group (1972), 360; 64; and print style, 268; progressive, 148; posters, 338; “Struggle with words, not retreats from, 288; review of exhibition with weapons” (1967), 325, 326

(1954), 150; socialist realism, 41, III, Sun Ke, 447n.29 148-155, 175, 224, 238, 271-272, 350, Sun Kexiang, 447.29; as rightist, 209 360, 441n.108; teachers, 150, 1§1; In Ten Sun Zixi, 449n.73; as administrator of May

Great Buildings, 238; thematic painting, Seventh College of Arts, 367 150; themes, 71; and “typical,” 142, 149; Surikov, V. I. (1848—1916), as model, 354 and woodcuts, 267, 271-72, 276; and Suzhou Art Academy (Suzhou meizhuan),

Zhan Jianjun, 238 424n.66; disbanded (1952), 27; Dong

286 Shanghai, 55

specialization, in art, 41, 43, §2, IIO—1I75, Xiwen at, 90; history, §54—55; moved out of Spring Earth Painting Club, 15; alternative names, 421n.26; exhibition, 15; members arrested, 422n.30

Spring Festival on the River, influence on Tai Tianjin, With You in Charge, I Am at

lianhuanhua, 247 Ease, 470n.12

Spring Field Painting Club, 421n.26. See also Taihang Mountain Communist base, 423n.45

Spring Earth Painting Club Tales of Three Kingdoms, lianhuanhua Spring Tide (Chunchao) group, exhibitions, (1956), 130

386 Tang Muli, 353-359; Acupuncture Anesthesia

Stalinism, 27; art doctrines, 24, 120; national (1972), 357, 358; billboard portraits of forms, 12.0; socialist content, 120; and Mao, 355, 357; CAFA graduate student, socialist realism, 119. See also Soviet-style 388; Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan, 3573

art and Cultural Revolution, 353, 367, 387; as

standards. See art standards dairy farmer, 353, 354; independent study “Stars,” 396—400; controversy, 398—400; of art, 354-355; Milk Maid (1971), 355, Jiang Feng and, 43, 398; model for “avant- 356; as professional artist, 359; reform of

560 INDEX Tang Muli (cont.) Tian Han, 422n.29, 425n.79; CAFA speaker ideology through physical labor, 354; as (1950), 426n.6; National Beiping Arts Col-

rusticated urban youth, 364 lege faculty, 426n.82; Red Guard art target,

Tang Xiaohe, 315, 361; Follow Closely Our 336; and Spring Earth Painting Club, Great Leader Chairman Mao (with Cheng 422n.29; and Xu Bethong, 30, 33, 425n.79,

Li), 361, plate 10; and history painting 426n.84 campaign (1964-1965), 346; in oil painting Tian Shiguang, Chinese painting instructor,

correction group (1972), 360 219

Tang Yun, 305; GLF production plan, 226; Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace), 35; and guohua, 174, 450n.82; Shanghai Art demonstration to commemorate Zhou Enlai College guohua teacher, 450n.82; at Shang- (1976), 377, 394; Mao portraits, 65; sub-

hai Institute of Chinese Painting, 305 ject in art, 81 Tao Xingzhi Academy of Arts, school for Tiananmen Square, 228, 236, 241; site of Red

gifted children, 272 Guard art, 319

423N.45 paintings, 368

Taokong huabui (Taokong Painting Club), Tianjin Foreign Trade Administration, export Ten Great Buildings, 204, 228; art for, 228, Tianjin People’s Art Press, lianbuanhua, 73

2.38—246; list, 228, 451n.109 tiaozheng, gonggu, chongshi, tigao (adjustthemes for art, 384; babies, 140; beautiful ment, consolidation, augmentation, imladies, 261; Bethune, 345, 382, 467n.III; provement), 217 Chiang Kai-shek, 223; communization, 2.47; Tibetans, as art subjects, 145, 172, 265, 267,

demobilized soldiers, 278; Deng Xiaoping, 268, 270, 276 382; Fall of the Nanjing, 382; heroes, 221, ticai (subject matter), 288 467n.112; Hua Guofeng, 379, 382; insect- Tiema banbuabui (Iron Horse Print Club),

and-fish, 118; Jiang Qing, 321, 396; Kang 4230.45 Sheng, 321; land reform, 239; life experi- Tongdairen (Contemporaries), 388 ence, 172, 352, 364; Lin Biao, 84, 321, tradition: Cultural Revolution rejection of, 396; literature, 71, 129; Liu Shaoqi, 243- 315; vs. modernism, 420n.6; national, 232, 245; Long March, 159; Lu Xun, 382; Mao 390; resilience of, 400 Zedong, 61, 65, 77, 92, 105, 106, 233, 236, traditional art, 23; Chinese painting, 38, 49— 242-245, 345, 352, 354, 379, 382, 396, 52, 73; Hangzhou curriculum changes and, 448n.56, 462N.21, 466N.110; minorities, 51-53; ink painting, 23; social and eco144, 145, 146, 172, 262—270 passim, 276, nomic status, 72; and socialist art of USSR, 286, 351, 391-392; monkeys, 165; orchid, 135; western modeling replacing, 194. See

373; peasants, 396; pine, 257; PLA, 311, also guohua 366; Red Army, 159, 241, 257; Red Guard, tragedies, in late 1970s realism, 394

320, 393-396; revolutionary heroes, Tuo Musi, 450n.77 467n.112; Tiananmen, 81; women, 145, “Twelve-Man Painting Exhibition,” at Huang273-276, 351, 391; Wusuli River, 366; Ye pu District Youth Palace Shanghai, 385 Jianying, 382; Yellow River, 349; Zhou Enlai, 61, 321, 379, 382; Zhu De, 92, 382. See

also bird-and-flower paintings figure paint Uighurs, as subject for art, 172

portraits ukty Ones 13 ; ing; guohua; landscape painting; painting; ,

“This Land So Black” ( Jiangshan ruci duohet), United Action Committee (UAC), 336-337

307 United Front, 74, 285; art policy, 376; CAFA,

; , unity of the three,” 357-358 (1980), 388; thought remolding, 22 7 . “Three Antis” Movement, 124 Stars,” 396-398, 404 thought reform: CAFA, 176; modernist « 375 Shanghai art world, 67

painters, 48-49; relaxationart: (1962), 207 ; eegroups ; unofficial Beijing

“Three Golds” (rightists Zhu Jinlou, Jin Ye, and Jin Lang), 192

“three prominences,” 366 Van Gogh, Vincent, individual style, 298

INDEX 561 Wan Qingli, 469n.4 Wang Rizhang, Nationalist director of HangWang, C. C., on Wu Hufan, 305 zhou academy, 45 Wang Bingzhao, expelled from CCP as right- Wang Shikuo: Bloody Clothes (1959), 238,

Ist, 445N.71 240, 297, 386, 449n.61; CAFA instructor, 1957), 1§2 National Exhibition, 239; and history paint-

Wang Chengyi, Maksimov student (195 5— 56, §7, 239; Communist, 239; in First

Wang Dejuan, 449n.73 ing, 65, 246; in Japan, 238; on land reform, Wang Dewei: Cultural Revolution attack, 239; in liberated zones, 36; National Hang328; graduation picture, 155; Heroic Sisters zhou Arts Academy student, 238; at North (1957), 1§5, 157; and history painting China University, 27; Off to the Army, 77; campaign (1964-1965), 246; Maksimov Red Guard target, 332; Reform the Hooli-

student (1955-1957), 152 gans, 25, 27, 239; Shanghai Art Academy

Wang Dongxing, and Mao Zedong, 80 student, 238; studio system, 449n.61; and Wang Geyi: and guohua production coopera- Wu Dayu, 238-239; and Zhou Enlai, 240 tive, 174; on Political Consultative Commit- Wang Xuetao, in Third Exhibition of the tee (1959), 446n.8; Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting Research Association, 166 Chinese Painting vice-director, 305; in Wang Xun, as rightist, 189, 197 Third Exhibition of the Chinese Painting Wang Xuzhu, Maksimov student (195 5—

Research Association, 166 1957), 152

work team, 318 328

Wang Guangmei: Red Guard art target, 336; Wang Yeqiu, attacked in Cultural Revolution,

Wang Guanaing, lianhuanhua, 71 Wang Yuyin, 457n.215 Wang Hongwen, 377; arrested, 376; inspects Wang Zhaowen: CAA leader, 227; CAFA

export paintings, 368 “five-man small group,” 41; during civil Wang Huaiqing, 449n.73 war, 23; and Communist takeover of BeiWang Keping: Idol (1979), 398-399, jing, 34; and Communist takeover of 429n.33; and Jiang Feng, 429n.33; and National Beijing Arts College, 86; Cultural

“Stars,” 397, 398 Revolution attack, 324; against Hu Feng,

Wang Lan, 468n.138 179; and Jiang Feng, 23, 428n.26; in liberWang Linyi, National Beiping Arts College ated zones, 37; and Lin Fengmian, 86;

teacher, 426n.82 Painting Research Center administrator,

Wang Liuqiu: and Jiang Feng’s “antiparty” 135; on Political Consultative Committee, group, 192; Maksimov student (195 5— 204; and Qi Baishi, 86; on Shao Yiping’s 1957), 1523 protest march (1957), 1873 as flower painting, 123; and Shi Lu, 286; sym-

rightist, 192, 198 posium on cultural standards for artists,

Wang Manshi: and Jiang Feng, 193; Painting 287; symposium on Xi’an guohua, 288; on Research Center vice-director, 135; pencil Wu Fan, 272 drawing in Chinese painting, 194; as right- Wang Zhijie (free-lance illustrator), rightist, ist, 197; and Soviet drawing education, 193 208 Wang Mantian: administration, 352; on art in Wang Zicheng: and Anti-Rightist campaign at foreign trade, 369; and Black Painting CAFA, 210; and Cultural Revolution, 317 Movement, 373; on boulders, 362; Cultural War of Liberation, 22; art of, 36~37 Revolution art activities director, 349; and We Must Implement the Proletarian Cultural guohua, 362; at Lu Xun Academy, 349; Shi Revolution to the Finish collaboration, 323, Lu attacked by, 376; socialist realist art ex- 361 hibitions, 376; suicide, 378; and thirtieth Wei Chuanyi, Maksimov student (195 5—

anniversary of Yan’an Talks exhibition, 1957), 1§2 350-353; on Tianjin Municipal Party Com- Wei Jingshan, 379, 467n.121; influence in late

mittee, 349; and Wang Hairong, 349 19708, 393; in Shanghai exhibition (1976), Wang Meng, exposé literature, 459n.251 385; The Taking of the Presidential Palace “Wang Ming Line,” Red Guard art target, 336 (with Chen Yifei), 382-383, plate rz; Wang Qi (CAFA instructor), and Soviet prints, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease (1978;

218 with Han Xin), 379, 381, 382

562 INDEX Wei Lianfu, 450n.77 133; Lu Xun, 13; at Lu Xun Academy, 18; Wei Qimei: CAFA studio system instructor, new nianhua, 18; new year’s pictures, 59; 217; National Beijing Arts College teacher, Sichuan, 265—277; status, 74; in Taihang

426n.82 Mountains, 97; traditional illustrations, 133

Wei Tianlin, White Peonties (1938), repro- woodcuts. See woodblock prints

duced in Meishu (1962), 297 Worker, Peasant, Soldier Pictorial, published Wei Zixi, guohua exhibition (1973), 363 by East China People’s Art Press, 128-129 Wen Lipeng, 456n.204; Prairie Fire Red worker-peasant-soldier artists, 353; in CulGuard capture, 332; second oil painting tural Revolution, 350, 359; GLF, 211;

training class, 221 and guohua, 114

Wen Yiduo, father of Wen Lipeng, 332 Worker’s Stadium, among Ten Great BuildWen Zhaotong, condemned as a Hu Fengist, ings, 228

178 Wu Biduan: CAFA instructor, 57; journalist

Weng Rulan, 333-334, 440n.80; CAFA on Korean front, 57; Leningrad study graduate student, 388; “A Crowd of (1956-1959), 150; Mao Zedong with PeoClowns” (1967), 332-337, 334, 338; ple of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (ca. Goodbye, Uncle Peasant, 465n.79; Red 1960; with Jin Shangyi), 207, 215; May Guard iconoclasm, 342; Ye Qianyu student, Seventh College of Arts administrator, 367

333 Wu Dayu, 47; black painting exhibition

Wenhuibao: Cultural Revolution art orga- (Shanghai), 374; at National Hangzhou nizer, 347; Zhongguohua (pamphlet) Arts Academy, 96, 224; and philosophy of

attack, 374 Zhuangzi and Laozi, 224; Shanghai Art (1953), 126 form, 49; Wang Shikuo taught by, 238-239

Wenyibao, publication of Jiang Feng’s speech Academy instructor, 224; and thought re-

WENZONE, 421N.17 Wu Dezu, Maksimov student (1955-1957), West Guard, 336 152 West Lake Academy of Arts (Xihu yizhuan), Wu Fan, 272, 456n.200; CAA Chongqing

2.8 branch, 267, 272, 455n.187; CAA national

West Lake Eighteen Art Society, 13 directorate, 277; Chongqing Municipal Fed-

Western art, 2, 24, 86, 420n.2; and Chinese eration of Art and Literary Circles editor, murals, 148, 235; conflict with Chinese art, 272; Chongqing native, 265; Dandelion 122; and guohua, 122, 127, 140, 142~-145, (1959), 274, 275; evocative pictures, 276; 170, 173, 174, 179, 182, 193, 194, 235; at guohua compared with work of, 274; introJiangsu-Jiangxi Normal School (Nanjing), spective tone, 274; National Hangzhou Arts 420n.2; Li Xiongcai’s light and shading Academy student, 272; Planting Season effects, 123; modernism in, 44, 65, 399, (1957), 273, 274; Plum Blossoms and Tire 435n.180; new nianhua, 61; painting, 38, Tracks, 403, plate 12; print group, 272; 50; realism, 23, 24, 25, 29, 61-64, 74, 174; prize, 274; as progressive worker, 267; A and This Land So Rich in Beauty, 236 Small Bus Station (1964), 274, 276; themes White Swan Western Painting Club: and Jiang of prints, 273~—276; water-based ink and

Feng, 13; and Lu Xun, 13 pigments, 273; women as subject matter, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease, 379, 380, 273-276

381, 470n.12 Wu Fuzhi, criticized by Jiang Feng, 192

Wo Zha (né Cheng Zhenxing): biography, Wu Guanzhong, 419n.1; copied Chairman 422n.45; during civil war, 22; Cultural Mao Goes to Anyuan, 342; landscape oil Revolution attack, 462n.26; as nianhua paintings (published in Meishu), 298; in

artist, 18 New Spring exhibition, 386

women: Cultural Revolution art and, 351; Wu Guoting, 467n.121

marriage rights, 105; as subject of art, 145, Wu Han: as Red Guard art target, 336; and

273-276, 351, 391 This Land So Rich in Beauty, 230, 231

woodblock prints: anti-government, 14; Chen Wu Hufan, 305; Anti-Rightist campaign, 303;

Tiegeng, 14; folk art styles, 97—98; Bamboo in National Exhibition (1962), Heilongjiang movement, 277-283; 297; blue-green style, 166, 303; brushwork, Japanese, 13; Hanbuanhua influenced by, 303; and CCP art policy, 305; Celebrate the

INDEX 563 Success of Our Atomic Bomb Explosion Xi’an: East China Academy of Arts proposed (1965), 303-304; confiscation of art collec- site, 199; guohua, 207, 267, 284-298, tion, 305; Cultural Revolution target, 305; 363—364; liberation, 286; school, 284, 288,

and “Four Wangs,” 303; and guohua pro- 289 duction cooperative, 174; guohua in Second Xi’an Art Academy, newly named (1958), 210

National Art Exhibition, 164; guohua in Xiang Ergong, 449-—450n.77 Second National Guohua Exhibition, 166; Xiao Feng: influence, 403; Leningrad study and Huang Yanpei, 302; lianbuanhua, 130; (1954-1960), I§1 and Mao Zedong, 303; in Meishu, 303; xiaoyaopai (carefree faction), 463n.43 Mountain Peaks in Mist (1956), 167; Xie Haiyan, CAA Jiangsu branch vice-

national exhibitions, 164, 166, 297, 303; chairman, 259 and Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting, Xie Zhiliu, painting in Third Exhibition of the

303; son condemned as rightist, 303; Beijing Chinese Painting Research Associasuicide, 305; in Third Exhibition of the Bei- tion, 165 jing Chinese Painting Research Association, xteyi (idea writing), 145; deemphasized, 140;

166; thought reform, 302; traditionalist, literati painting equated with, 118 298; Twin Pines and Layered Green (1959), xibua (Western painting), 50

289, 303, plate 9; and Ye Gongzhuo, xin guobua, defined by Ai Qing, 115

302-303 Xin Mang, 449n.77

310 campaign, 310

Wu Jihan, in CAFA political campaign (1964), Xingtai, Hebei, site of CAFA Four Cleanups

Wu Jingding, caimobua landscape painting, Xingxing. See “Stars”

173 Xinminbao, and propaganda art, 88

Wu Lao, CAFA instructor, 56 xinging shuchang (to have ease of mind), Wu Qizhong, in guohua painting correction 45§n.181

group (1973), 362 xtyanghua (Western painting), so

Wu Yongnian, 450n.77 xizuo (studies), at CAFA (1949-1952), §7 Wu Zuoren, 425n.80; in Anti-Rightist cam- Xu Beihong, 87, 425nn.75, 79; academician,

paign, 189, 217; attacked (1974), 3733 29; and Ai Zhongxin, 216; allegorical CAA rehabilitation (1979), 389; CAA vice- painting, 29; attacks on Renoir, Cézanne, chairman (1953), 125; at CAFA, 57, 210, and Matisse, 29; as AWA official, 36, 65;

217, 387; Cultural Revolution attack, CAA rehabilitation (1979), 389; as CAFA 462n.26; on guobhua, 189; history painting, director, 57; and caimohua term, 52; and 65; against Hu Feng, 179; Jiang Feng de- Chinese painting, 31; as college administrafended by, 186; laboring at Ming Tombs tor, 66; Communist takeover of Beijing, Reservoir construction site, 211; and Mak- 34-35; death (1953), §7, 125, 435N.170; simov, 160; oil painting, 164; Portrait of Oi Drawing of a Woman, 30; drawing instruc-

Baishi (1954), 157, 158, 164; still life tion, 91; in Europe (study), 29; guohua inflower painting, 164; and studio system, struction, 182; guohua Westernized, 91; 216, 217; and symposium on cultural stan- history painting, 30, 65; in India, 29; and dards for artists, 287; and Xu Beihong, Mao Zedong, 33, 426n.4; at National Bei-

425n.80 ping Arts College, 29; at National Central

Wusuli River, as subject, 366 University (Nanjing), 29; and Nationalist

Wuxi, 424n.66 government, 30, 31; official view of (1953), 125; The Old Man Who Moved the Mountain, 30, 32; and Qi Baishi, 86; romanticism, 29; and socialist realism, 29; The

Xia Baoyuan: black painting exhibition (Shang- Sound of the Flute, 31; stroke (1951),

hai), 374; Liu Borong collaboration 431n.89; and Taiwan, 33; as teacher, 29; (1972), 467n.119; Shanghai Art Academy and Tian Han, 30, 33, 425n.79; Tian Heng student, 224; on Yan Wenliang, 444n.20 and His Five Hundred Retainers, 30, 32; Xia Yan: Cultural Revolution “struggle,” 329; and Wu Zuoren, 216; Zhongnanhai exhibiRed Guard target, 329, 336; Vice-Muinister tion (1953), 80; and Zhou Enlai, 30, 33, 57,

of Culture, 187 426n.87

564 INDEX Xu Bing, May Seventh College of Arts gradu- Ruohong criticized by, 195; and CCP, 97;

ate, 367 during civil war, 23; on Cultural Revolu-

Xu Binru: Cultural Revolution attack, 328; tion, 196; diaolan attacked (1974), 3733 Museum of Revolutionary History director, door guardian, 97, 103; Down with Feudal-

328 ism, 38, 40, 104, 106; and Eighth Route 346 member, 35, 103; to Hangzhou (1949),

Xu Chunzhong, illustration of Jin Xunhua, Army, 97; Fang Ganmin student, 97; FLAC Xu Jiecheng, 457n.225; exiled to Heilongjiang 103; against hard-line policies, 402; against

as rightist, 456n.214 | Hu Feng, 179; and Hu Yichuan, 97; Hua

Xu Kuang, 272, 447n.29; Awaiting the Ferry Junwu criticized by, 195; on Hundred Flow(1959), 272, 273, 274; CAA Chongqing ers, 444n.37; ideology taught by, 104; indibranch, 267; as progressive worker, 267, vidual style, 402; and Jiang Feng, 23, 103, 272; as rightist, 209, 272; from Shanghai, 186, 187, 195, 197, 444n.37; labor reform, 272; shutyin effects, 274; to Sichuan, 272; 200; land reform, 104; lianhuanhua, 73; in

Soviet influence, 272, 276 liberated zones, 36; and Lu Xun Academy,

Xu Lei, “China/Avant-garde Exhibition” 97; Mao Zedong criticized by, 195; Nation-

(1989), 430n.67 al Congress of Literary and Arts Workers

Xu Leng, 457n.225; in national exhibitions, (1949), 103; national exhibition (1949), 279; at Third National People’s Con- 103; at National Hangzhou Arts Academy,

gress, 279 45; new year’s prints, 97, 99, 103; A New-

Xu Pingyu, attacked in Cultural Revolution, Style Marriage Celebration, 59; nianhua

328 artist, 19, 63; Pan Tianshou student, 97; 398 97, 100; prints for Beijing Hotel, 368; Pro-

Xu Wenli, and “Stars” protest march (1979), and PLA, 97—103; Portrait of Peng Dehuat,

Xu Xi, 469n.4 tect Our Homes (1939-1940), 97, 99; and

Xu Xingzhi: Art Theory Research Center protest march (1957), 187; as rightist, 188, director, 136; CAFA studio system instruc- 195, 196, 197; serial picture stories, 97;

, tor, 217 Spider Plant (1972), 368, 369, 373; student Xu Yansun: attack on Li Keran and Zhang in Hangzhou, 28, 52, 96; study of illustra-

Ding, 199; as rightist, 199 tions, 96; to USSR (1950), 103, 149; Win Xu Yong, in guohua painting correction group the War of Resistance, 103; in Yan’an, 38,

(1973), 362 191; and Yan’an party rectification, 191,

Xugu: influence on Shi Lu, 293; Squirrel 192, 195, 196; to Zhangjiakou (Hebei), 99;

(1985), 294 on Zhou Yang faction, 438n.21

Yan Jiaqi, on Cultural Revolution, 337 Yan Lichuan: “A Discussion of ‘Wild, Weird,

Ya Ming, 260, 454n.168; and Admonitions of Chaotic, and Black’” (1963), 307-308; on the Instructress to the Ladies of the Palace, Li Keran, Shi Lu, Fu Baoshi, and Pan Tian-

263; as arts administrator, 284; attacked shou, 307 (1974), 373; beautiful ladies paintings, Yan Weliang (1893-1988), 424n.66; Autumn 262—263; CAA Jiangsu branch, 165, 259, in Changfeng Park, 55; CAA director 260; and Gao Jingde, 351; Jiangsu Painting (1981), 88; CAFA East China campus viceInstitute vice-director, 260; Mending Nets, director, 56, 424n.66; Cultural Revolution, 262; on Nanjing CCP leadership, 45 5n.186; 88; Evening Traffic on the Huangpu River New Fourth Army, 260; Peddlers, 260- in National Exhibition (1962), 297; GLF 263, plate 5; realism and romanticism, production plan, 226; New Art Press draw260; Steel Mill (1960), 264; and Tang-Song ing instructor (1952), 247; and new region-

painting, 261-263 al Shanghai style, 88; on perspective (1957),

Yan Han (né Liu Yanhan), 96-105, 403, 87; Shanghai landscape painting influenced 423nn.45, 46; on Anti-Rightist campaign, by, 87—88; style dominates Shanghai art, 195; Army and People Cooperate, 103; in 386; Suzhou Art Academy director, 54-55; Beijing (1950), 103; The Bride Speaks, 59, thought reform, 55 61, 64, 105; CAA criticized by, 195; CAFA Yan Zhenduo, in New Spring exhibition, 386

instructor, 56, 57, 96, 103, 1343; Cal Yan’an, 423nn.45, 49; for art, 363; artists,

INDEX 565 267; departure from, 22; Lu Xun Academy 170; against Hu Feng, 179; imprisoned, of Arts, 97; “sacred spot of the revolution,” 343; and Jiang Feng, 124, 127, 193, 1943

323; Shaanxi as Communist base, 18; laboring at Ming Tombs Reservoir conteaching methods replaced with Soviet, 134; struction site, 211; May All the Nationali-

woodcuts, 34, 276, 387 ties Unite, 64, 124, 137; Midnight illus-

Yan’an Talks, 19-22, 38, 97, 103, 104, 350 tration, 137, 138, 334; National Beiping Yan’an veterans: as administrators (1979), Arts College teacher, 426n.82; on Political 396; at art academies, 104; at CAFA East Consultative Committee, 204; Red Guard China campus, 183; Communist history target, 322, 329, 334; on Shi Lu, 289, 291; painting, 65; after 1949, 63—64; print and symposium on cultural standards for

movement, 265 artists, 287; on Xi’an painters, 289; on Xu

Yang Jiao, 35; during civil war, 22; Heilong- Beihong, 194

jiang exile, 456n.214; Northeast Art Ye Xin, 469n.4 Academy director and party secretary, 208; Ye Yushan, 404

as rightist, 208, 456n.214 Yellow River, 231; gorges as theme for art, Yang Keyang, administrator at Shanghai 292-293; as subject for art, 349

People’s Art Press, 433n.130 Yi Zhong, 346-347; “Chairman Mao’s Red Yang Lin’gui, We Must Implement the Pro- Guard Study the Model Revolutionary letarian Cultural Revolution to the Finish Youth” (1969), 347, 348

(1972), 323, 361 Yin Rongsheng, and 1964-1965 history

Yang Shangkun, 97; dismissed (1966), 317; painting campaign, 246 Red Guard target, 332; 1n Taihang Moun- Yin Shoushi, 427n.13, 457n.225; guohua,

tains, 97 457n.218; Heilongjiang exile as rightist,

Yang Xianzhen, 310 4§7n.214; Jiang Feng praising, 128

Yang Zhiguang, and Gao Jingde, 351 Ying Tao, jury for exhibition (1972), 359 Yang Zhixing. See Young, Gerald Zhixing Ying Yeping, 72; Shanghai Art College

Yangliuqing (near Tianjin), nianhua, 61 guobua teacher, 450n.82

yangshi (style), 288 Yonglegong, 392; mural painting and national Yao Wenyuan, 377; arrested, 376; export tradition, 235

paintings inspected by, 368; and guohua Young, Gerald Zhixing: Warriors of the

catalogue of Shanghai Foreign Trade People (The War in the South) (1965), 312 Administration, 373; and Jiang Qing, 328; Young Pioneers, 257 and political campaign in art (1973), 369, Yu Changgong, Maksimov student (195 5—

373-374; and Shanghai art, 347; Wang 1957), 152 Mantian supervised by, 369 Yu Feian: affordable guohua, 225; as critic, Yao Youxin, 440n.77; CAFA East China cam- 166; guohua in Second National Art Exhibipus student, 145; lianbuanhua, 71; Shang- tion, 164; “How Much Money Is a Guohua hai People’s Art Press, 72; work published, Painter’s Labor Worth?,” 174; and Jiang

146 Feng, 190; painting in Third Exhibition of

Yao Zhonghua: criticized, 213, 311; employ- the Beijing Chinese Painting Research Asso-

ment, 213; Socialist Education Movement ciation, 165 and, 311; student study groups (1962), 220 Yu Feng: CAFA Red Guard attack, 329;

Ye Gongzhuo: as rightist, 199, 303; and Cultural Revolution attack, 462n.26 Shanghai Institute of Chinese Painting, 303; Yu Hai, 422n.30

and Wu Hufan, 302-303 Yu Yunjie: Maksimov student (1955-1957), Ye Jianying, 3.4; as subject for art, 382 1§2; as rightist, 198, 224; Shanghai Art Ye Qianyu: affordable guohua, 225; in Anti- College instructor, 224; Shanghai People’s Rightist campaign, 208; AWA official, 36, Art Press staff artist, 43 3n.130; teacher,

65; CAA rehabilitation (1979), 389; CAA 382 !

vice-chairman (1953), 125; CAFA instruc- Yu Zhicai, Shanghai Art College guohua tor, §7, 134, 137, 218, 219; college admin- teacher, 450n.82

istrator, 66; Cultural Revolution, 314, Yuan Hao: graduation picture, 155; Maksi343, 462n.26; Dunhuang field trip leader, mov student (1955-1957), 152; Morning 147; and guobua landscape drawing, 169, on the Yangzi, 155; We Must Implement

566 INDEX Yuan Hao (cont.) structor, 223; Shanghai Red Guard target, the Proletarian Cultural Revolution to the 346; watercolorist, 223

Finish (1972), 323, 361 Zhang Chungiao, 377; arrested, 376; export Yuan Yunpu, Beijing airport murals, 390 paintings inspected by, 368; and Jiang Qing, Yuan Yunsheng, 390-391, 471.36; airport 328; and Shanghai art, 347; Wang Mantian mural, 471n.35; Art Deco-inspired figure supervised by, 369 painting style, 390; in controversies, 39I1— Zhang Daqian, 289 392, 428n.31; Dong Xiwen student, 390; Zhang Dazhuang, 174 exiled, 209; and Jiang Feng, 43, 44, Zhang Ding: in Anti-Rightist campaign, 208; 428n.31; Memories of Waterside Village attacked, 171, 176, 179, 324, 329, (1962), 390; to New York (1982), 392; and 462n.26; Beijing airport murals, 390; nudes, 209, 391-392; as rightist, 209, 297; CAAC director, 390; at CAFA, 41, 56, 329; style, 390-391, 392, 471n.35; as subject for during civil war, 22; on conservatism and art, 391-392; Water Splashing Festival “nihilism,” 179; Cultural Revolution attack, (1979), 390, 392; and Western modernism, 324, 462n.26; and guohua, 171, 179; on

43§n.180; and Yunnan school, 392 Hu Feng, 179; and Jiang Feng, 127, 171, yuefenpai (calendar pictures): Tianjin, 37; 189—190; and landscape drawing from life,

tobacco company, 24 127, 169; landscape exhibition (1954), 170;

Yumen Gorge, 293 Landscape Sketch (1954), 171; landscape Yun Qicang, 450n.77 sketches, 127, 169, 173; and Li Keran,

Yunnan, 448n.49; regional school, 392 169-172; in liberated zones, 37; and liberaYunnan Red Arts Rebels Liaison Station, for- tion, 428n.26; and Luo Ming, 169-172;

mer CAA, 324 move from Manchuria to Beijing, 35; re-

Yuxian, northern Hebei, labor camp, 343 view of Second National Art Exhibition, 179; travel in southern China (1954), 169; and Western viewpoint vs. traditionalism,

ZAFA (Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts): 169 color-and-ink painting department renamed Zhang Fagen, 243; editorial work and CAA

(1958), 216; and Cultural Revolution, 345, local branch, 451n.105; The Huai-Hai 347, 362; newly named (1958), 210. See Campaign (1961; with Bao Jia), 241, 243

also CAFA East China campus Zhang Guangyu: CAAC teacher, 392; CAFA Zhan Beixin: Maksimov student (195 5— Red Guard attack, 329; Cultural Revolution 1957), 152; With You in Charge, | Am at attack, 462n.26

Fase, 379, 470n.12 Zhang Hongtu, 449n.73

Zhan Jianjun: at CAFA, 137, 218; caimohua, Zhang Jinghu (1892-1967), on Political Con152; color-and-ink painting taught by, 137; sultative Committee (1959), 446n.8 on Dunhuang field trip, 147; Five Heroes of Zhang Lan, Founding of the Nation subject,

Mount Langya (1959), 238, 239, 282; and 8 guobhua, 238; and history painting campaign Zhang Leping: and Communist takeover of

(1964~1965), 246; Maksimov student Shanghai, 67; and Jiang Feng, 124; staff (1955-1957), 152; in New Spring exhibi- artist at Shanghai People’s Art Press,

tion, 386; mianhua as graduation work, 433n.130 137; and Soviet art, 238, 282; We Must Im- Zhang Lu, exiled to Heilongjiang as rightist,

plement the Proletarian Cultural Revolution 456N.214

to the Finish (1972), 323, 361 Zhang Qinruo, exiled to Heilongjiang as rightZhang Anzhi, trip to south (1965), 309 ist, 456N.214 Zhang Biwu, nianhua prize, 64 Zhang Qiren: CAFA administrator, 343, 386, Zhang Chongren: Belgium study at the Royal 387; Lu Xun Academy of Art director, 214; Academy, 223; and Hergé, 223, 450n.79; May Seventh College of Arts administrator,

Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) portrait, 367 223; and Monument to the People’s Heroes Zhang Shaoxia: on Cultural Revolution, 314; commission, 223; with pope, 223; private on Dong Xiwen, 80; on Liu Chunhua, 342 studio, 216, 223; Shanghai Art School in- Zhang Shouchen: director of guohua produc-

INDEX 567 tion cooperation, 442n.153; as rightist, 199 (Zhao Wangyun: Sketches from the Border),

Zhang Tongxia, 456n.204 284

Zhang Wenxin, Maksimov student (195 5- Zhao Yannian, Shanghai People’s Art Press

1957), 1§2 staff artist, 433n.130

Zhang Xiaofei, 35; during civil war, 22; exiled Zhao Youping, 449n.73

to Heilongjiang as rightist, 456n.214; Zhao Yu, Founding of the Nation copy (1972, nianhua, 447.25; Northeast Art Academy revised ca. 1980; with Jin Shangyi), 84—85 vice-director and party vice-secretary, 208; Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. See ZAFA Read a Thousand Characters, 4470.25; as Zhejiang Provincial Committee: and CAFA

rightist, 208, 456n.214 East China campus, 183, 347; Jiang Feng Zhang Xuan: Court Ladies Preparing Newly inquiry, 197

261 ministration, 210

Woven Silk, 261; and Ya Ming (compared), Zhejiang Provincial government, ZAFA ad-

Zhang Yangxi, CAFA East China campus Zheng Kangxing, 457n.215; Heilongjiang

printmaking department chairman, 134 propaganda official, 279 Zhang Yongsheng, 467n.125; arrested, 378; Zhong Han, secretary of second oil painting

and Jiang Qing, 345, 350; at ZAFA, 345 training class, 221 Zhang Zaixue (Cao Ruohong pseudonym), 67 Zhong Ming, in New Spring exhibition, 386

Zhang Zhengyu: attacked by CAFA Red Zhong Qiuyuan, administrator of May Guard, 329; attacked in Cultural Revolu- Seventh College of Arts, 367 tion, 462n.26; calligraphy for This Land So Zhongguo zuoyi wenhua zong tongmeng,

Rich in Beauty, 232 421Nn.17

Zhang Zuoliang: administration in Heilong- zhongguohua (Chinese painting), 50 jiang, 277-278; exhibitions, 279; print de- Zhongguohua (Chinese Paintings): catalogue,

signs, 278; propagandist, 278; at Third 373, 375, 469n.152; pamphlet attacked,

National People’s Congress, 279 374; Yao Wenyuan attacks catalogue

Zhangyjiakou, labor camp, 343 (1974), 373

Zhao Hongben: lianhbuanhua, 71; Monkey Zhongnanhai, 204; CAFA exhibition, 80;

Beats the White-boned Demon heroes reception (1950), 62; Chairman Mao (lianbuanhua; with Qian Xiaodai), 249, Goes to Anyuan and viewing, 339-342 252-253; New Art Press, 72; at Shanghai Zhongshan University Middle School (Guang-

People’s Art Press, 130 zhou), 423n.45

Zhao Wangyun, 284-292; in Anti-Rightist zhongzhuan, technical high school, 223 campaign, 284; arrested, 285; black paint- Zhou Changgu: CAFA East China campus ing exhibition (Xi’an), 375; with CAA, teacher, 142; on Dunhuang field trip, 147; 284-285; castigated (1974), 376; and CCP, and guohua, 146; and Second National Art 285; Chinese painting research society orga- Exhibition, 162; Two Lambs (1954), 144,

nized by, 285; at Congress of Literary and 145, 146, 162 Art Workers in Beijing (1949), 285; Cul- Zhou Enlai, 38, 231, 241; Anti-Rightist camtural Relics Office regional director, 285; paign defended by, 206; art for export with Democratic Alliance, 285; Egyptian (1971), 368; and art reforms, 206; attacked sketches, 287; exhibition (1962), 293; ex- (1974), 373, 3773 and Beijing Chinese Painthibition in Beijing (1961), 288; exhibitions ing Institute, 430n.66; CAFA East China (1937-1956), 285; and Feng Yuxiang, 284; campus administrator, 431n.86; Central guohua in Second National Art Exhibition, Committee report (1956), 180; on Chen Yi 164; guohua sketches (1930s), 284; as men- poetry, 206; and Cultural Revolution art, tor, 284; Northwest AWA vice-director, 367; death (1976), 376; on freedom of 285; and Resistance Pictorial, 285; Return- speech limits, 206; at guohua exhibition ing Herder in an Autumnal Forest (1961), (1956), 174; influence on art, 205, 299; on 2913 as rightist, 284, 285, 288; and Shi Lu, intellectuals, 180; and Jiang Feng, 185, 190, 285, 292; travel to south (1962), 293; trip 386; and Jiang Qing, 207, 364, 368, 376; to Egypt, 285; wild and disordered style, and Jiangsu painters, 206, 263; landscape 291; Zhao Wangyun saishang xiesheng ji painting supported by, 299; and Li Hua,

568 INDEX Zhou Enlai (cont.) 122, 197; on FLAC reorganization, 121; on 218; liberalization (1959, 1961), 250; and folk songs and Mao’s poems, 254; and Lin Fengmian, 430n.55; on Mao Zedong guohuad, 120, 171, 174, 182, 191; and Hu poetry, 206; Ministry of Culture criticized Feng, 16, 18, 23, 122, 178, 444n.25; on inby, 205; as moderate, 207; national art digenous styles, 18, 23; against internapromoted by, 368; and national exhibition tionalism, 27; and Jiang Feng, 119, 122, , postponement (1959), 299; nationalistic or 190; and Leninist art doctrine, 120, 121; on apolitical paintings, 376; on opera, 205, liberalization (1962), 207; and Lu Xun, 16, 206~—207; and Red Guard, 330, 331; re- 18, 120, 122, 197; and Mao Zedong, 119, gional styles encouraged by, 206; speech 254, 309; May Fourth theorists criticized (1959), 204; speech (1961), 206; speeches by, 120; on national art forms, 119, 122, to Congresses of Literary and Arts Workers 4§3n.148; on national heritage, 119, 120, (1949, 1953), 36, 119; on standards for art, 180; on new contents in art, 119; on old 206, 376; subject for art, 61, 321, 379, 382; artistic forms, 120; on realism and romansubject of Founding of the Nation, 81, 84; ticism, 254; Red Guard art target, 336; and on This Land So Rich in Beauty, 229; uni- single-line and flat-color painting, 120; fication of non-Communist and Communist speech to Second Congress of Literary and cultural workers, 36; on unique styles, 205; Arts Workers, 119; on Xu Beihong, 125; and Wang Shikuo, 240; and Xu Beihong, and Yang Xianzhen, 311 30, 33, 426n.87; and Zhao Wangyun, 285 Zhu Dan, 427n.13; CAFA administrator, 386,

Zhou Guangmin, 363 387

Zhou Libo, Great Change in a Mountain Vil- Zhu De: at guohua exhibition (1956), 174; at

lage, 247 Soviet expert’s class graduation exhibition

Zhou Lingzhao, National Beiping Arts College (1957), 152; subject for art, 92, 382; sub-

teacher, 426n.82 ject of Founding of the Nation, 80, 81; in

Zhou Sicong: at Beijing Chinese Painting Insti- Taihang Mountains, 97 tute, 306; CAA official, 404; CAFA student, Zhu Jinlou: at CAFA East China campus, 134, 218; drawings in Meishu, 378; in guohua 140; as designer, 431n.71; and Jiang Feng,

painting correction group (1973), 362; 183, 192; as rightist, 192, 197 socialist guohua figure painting, 306 Zhu Leshan, 192

Zhou Xi. See Jiang Feng Zhu Naizheng: in oil painting correction

Zhou Yan, 383—384 group (1972), 360; as young rightist, 297 Zhou Yang, 187; and Ai Qing, 119; and Anti- Zhu Qizhan, attacked in Shanghai black

Rightist campaign, 197, 389; attacked, 317, painting exhibition, 374 318, 328; CAFA speaker (1950), 426n.6; Zong Qixiang, CAFA Chinese painting in-

and Chen Pei, 311; Cultura] Revolution, structor, 219 328, 329; and Feng Xuefeng, 16, 18, 23, Zou Zhe, and Nanjing school, 260

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