G-SEC WORKING PAPER No.20
Iconography of Socialist Revolution:
Construction of an Optimistic Imagery
in Maoist China, 1949-1976
Bianca, Yin-ki CHEUNG *August, 2007

Abstract
This paper analyses how Maoist China built an optimistic imagery of the newly
established state under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism by manipulating art,with peasant paintings of Huxian as an example, to glorify the Chinese Communist
revolution and socialist utopia.
Tracking the evolution of peasant paintings in Huxian, from the 1950s to the 1970s,
under the cultural policies of the Chinese Communist Party since Mao Zedong’s famoustalks on literature and art in Yan’an in 1942, this paper analyses how state sponsorship
constructed an optimistic imagery of a socialist revolution and fostered the image of“socialist heroes.”
By contextual study and close reading to render a historical and iconographic
analysis, this study looks at how the regime employed new symbols, traditional elements,and visual imagery to transform popular attitudes and beliefs in order to gain and maintaincontrol over the sphere of public discourse and thereby transform popular attitudes andbeliefs. The peasant paintings glorify the proletariat by depicting the heroic character andthe resilient strength of the people in building a great socialist nation. In doing so, it isinteresting to examine how the government redefined social values and created a newsocialist mystique.
Keywords: Peasant Painting, Huxian, Socialist Realism, Folk Art, China* Division of Humanities, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

biancayk@ust.hk

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The founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was not just theestablishment of a political regime. The leadership of the nascent Communist state
aimed at constructing a new social order and a new national identity based on
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. With reference to the Soviet model and the experienceacquired during its rule in Yan’an during the Resistance War against Japan (1937-1945),
the Communist leadership utilised art and literature to glorify the Chinese Communist
revolution and create the image of a socialist utopia. By depicting the heroic characterand resilience of the masses, which means peasants, workers and soldiers, the state
aimed at mobilising the people into building a socialist regime. In fact, mobilisation
through mass line is the golden rule in nation building in Maoist thought since the
Yan’an days (Selden, 1995). It is interesting to examine how the state defined newsocial values, thus creating a new socialist mystique through its cultural polices. This
paper examines how the Maoist regime transmitted its official ideas, values and norms
in creating optimistic imagery of a socialist revolution by constructing a new political
iconography through the manipulation of art, with special reference to peasant paintingsin Huxian (戶縣), Shaanxi province (陜西), as an example.
The political-socio-cultural background and the development of literature and art
policies of China since 1949 form the backdrop of this study. In addition to reading the1

iconographic messages of these paintings, how different art genres influenced them isalso examined. During the fanaticism of the socialist revolution and the subsequentsocialist construction, was the official literature and art theory of combining both
revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism a contradiction? How much truth
lay in the official insistent claim that these paintings were completed by amateur
painters? Was it pure peasant spontaneity or was Party mobilisation and organisation
behind it? To what extent were these paintings the peasants’ own voices or propagandatransmitted through their hands? To answer these questions, a review of thedevelopment of the literary and art policies in the People’s Republic of China is
necessary.

Development of the Literary and Art Policies in the People’s Republic of China
The Chinese Communist Party had been developing its literary and art theories
since the 1930s based on the Soviet model and the leftist literary movement led by Lu
Xun (魯迅). Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Arts and Literature” in 1942
laid the foundation for the literary and art policies after 1949. In recognising theessential nature of the cultural army, Mao’s talks aimed at ensuring the correct
developmental path of revolutionary literature and art. Adopting Lenin’s theory, Mao

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saw literature and art as a component of the whole revolutionary machine, powerfulweapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying theenemy (Mao, 1942, p.86). Therefore, Mao rejected art for art’s sake and subordinatedliterature and art to politics, thus subordinating the artists and writers to the Party. Afterthe establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the Party firmly grasped literature
and art in its hands. The Ministry of Culture monopolised art education, art association,museums and galleries and related art units (Cohen, 1987, p. 22).

Socialist Realism: the Ideological Foundation of Socialist Art
Positive imagery of socialist construction is the gist of the iconography of Maoist
China. The tenet of such construction is founded on socialist realism. As Communist
China looked to the Soviet Union as its model, it adopted the Soviet official doctrine of“socialist realism” as its cornerstone of literary and art policies. “Socialist realism”
became the Soviet official doctrine in the First Soviet Writers’ Congress in 1934. Its
artistic origin was Ilya Repin and his fellow “Wanderers” (“Peredvizhniki”) in thesecond half of the 19th century, which was based on 19th century French and German
academic and realist art such as the works of Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Rubens etc(Laing, 1988, p.15). The “Wanderers” rejected the classicism of the Russian Academy

3and viewed that art should have the function of serving the common man andexpressing humanitarian and social ideals (“Peredvizhniki,” 2007).

As stated in the statute of the Union of Soviet Writers, socialist realism is “thebasic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands of the artist thetruthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development.”
Its function is to ideologically transform and educate workers in the spirit of socialism(First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934, p.716 in Tertz, 1960, p. 24). Abram
Tertz, a contemporary Soviet writer noted, socialist realism is founded “on the conceptof Purpose with a capital P.” Being an “all-embracing ideal,” the Purpose of socialist
realism is to help transform people’s consciousness by literature and art for the sake ofthe revolutionary movement (Tertz, 1960, p.26). Such spirit of purposefulness isfounded in the teleological nature of Marxism (Tertz, 1960, pp.33-4). Mao’s ideas of“portray[ing] the bright side” and the educational purpose of art and literature in the
Yan’an Talks are the demands of socialist realism. As art was created for the purpose ofcarrying political messages to educate and transform the masses, artistic works done insocialist realism was narrative or anecdotal, in which the content was intended to be“read” (Laing, p. 20).
After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, socialist realism4was institutionalised in the Central Art Academy under the leadership of Xu Beihong.
Xu, who had studied in Paris and Berlin before, was a proponent of academicism.
Chinese art students were sent to the Soviet Union to learn to paint in oil and Soviet
masters came to China to teach in the 1950s. Konstantin Maksimov came to China in
February 1955 to teach in the Central Art Academy. Socialist realism was frequently
adopted in oil paintings though less in New Year painting and even less in traditional
Chinese painting (guohua 國畫) (Galikowski, 1998, p.15). The constitution of theArtists’ Association (1954) formally adopted socialist realism as its guiding principle inartistic creation.
Socialist realism frequently depicts the bright sides of the “new society,” “newheroes” and their revolutionary spirits. Maxim Gorky’s Mother (Mat’, 1906-7) has been
regarded as the cornerstone of socialist realism for its devotion to social change and its
portrayal of a revolutionary hero. Rufus Mathewson pointed out that the two “formulas”
in Mother were much followed by Soviet writers: the “conversion of the innocent into
an active revolutionary”(Nilovna, the mother of a revolutionary son Pavel, wasincreasingly drawn into the tide of revolution and became a true revolutionary) and“pattern of emblematic political heroism in the face of terrible obstacles” (Pavel). The
adherence of these heroic characters to the revolutionary cause is enshrined as5

revolutionary spirit (Mathewson, 1975, p.67 in Scherr, 1988, p. 44).
In fact, socialist realism depicts “positive heroes” who are not just good men but
men of purpose. The positive hero was first found in Gorki’s novels in the 1910s such as
The Petty Bourgeois, characterised by the hero’s self-assurance and straightforwardness
towards his future goal. The Petty Bourgeois shows that “only men who are as pitiless,straight, and hard as swords will cut their way through” (Tertz, 1960, p.50). The positive
hero embraces the ideals of “ideological conviction, courage, intelligence, will power,
patriotism, respect for women, self-sacrifice.” The essence of such a positive hero is hislack of hesitation and inner doubts in striving directly towards the socialist purpose(Tertz, 1960, pp. 48-9). The image of the positive hero has undergone changes andachieved its full stature as “big and sturdy” in the early 1930s, when socialist realism
was officially recognised by the Soviet Union. Socialist realism’s demand “to represent
life truthfully as its revolutionary development,” as commented by Tertz, is a summons
to depict the truth in the ideal and thus to represent the world and man not as they are
but as they should be (Tertz, 1960, p.76). Thus, the ideal of socialist realism embodies
romanticism (Tertz, 1960, p.77). The relationship between socialist realism andromanticism was not treated as contradictory by the Chinese Communist authorities, solong as the artistic content was to glorify the heroic characters of the revolution and the6happiness of the people living in the new socialist world. Such a connection wasformalised in the new art theory of “revolutionary realism and revolutionary
romanticism,” which was proposed by Zhou Yang (周揚) (Zhou, 1958, pp. 60-66), achief Chinese Communist cultural spokesman in 1956, based on the theory of
revolutionary romanticism by Soviet ideologue A.A. Zhdanov who proclaimed in 1934,
that “socialist art and literature must be rich in ideals and must to a high degree combine
truthfulness and revolutionary fervour” (Laing, 1988, p. 30). It also meant that artistic
works had to fulfil the task of “the glorification of new things, new men” (Birch, p. 35,
1965 in Laing, p. 30). In fact, such a task contradicts to one of the criteria of “realism”
in painting—being a challenge, sometimes may be implicitly political, to the existingsocial hierarchy (Nochlin, 1971 in Clark, 1991, p.2).
As noted by Maria Galikowski, the difference between socialist realism andrevolutionary romanticism is not about nature but degree. Whilst revolutionary realism
still maintains some degree of objective representation, revolutionary romanticism’s
inclination to romantic dimension would often lead to “absurd and implausible
over-exaggeration” (Galikowski, 1998, p. 102).

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The Creation of the “New Socialist Man”
Parallel to the construction of “positive heroes” by the Soviet Union, the creationof the image of “new socialist man’ in Communist China was also a product of“socialist realism.” The promotion of new socialist heroes and heroines was important
for the Communist regime to inspire the people to heed the socialist cause. The driving
force behind this was the quest for a new national identity for China in the modern
world. Facing imperialistic aggression, internal disorder and the influx of Western ideas
such as social Darwinism, nationalistic concerns about China’s survival in a competitive
modern world had become a major intellectual concern since the late Qing period, andreached a climax during the May Fourth Movement in the late 1910s and 1920s. Amongthese nationalistic discourses, Liang Qichao’s discussions on “new nationals” in
Xinminshuo (《 新 民 說 》), written from 1902 to 1905, had been influential in the
1920s and 1930s among intellectuals such as Hu Shi and Mao Zedong (Huang, n.d.).
Liang’s discussions on “new nationals” were driven by a deep sense of crisis amidst thepolitical chaos during the late Qing period. Placing China in an international
competitive context in terms of Social Darwinism, with “survival for the fittest” in mind,
Liang called for the making of “new nationals” to save China. His discussions on public
virtue (論 公 德 ), state ideology (論 國 家 思 想), and the collective (論 合 群 )8etc., can find echoes in the Communist ideals of “socialist new man.” Liang argued thatas the basis of national power rests in the morality, wisdom and strength of the people, it
was important to modernise such qualities in them for the purpose of strengthening thenation (Liang, pp. 6-7). He further elaborated that what Chinese people lacked the mostwas public virtue, i.e. care for public rather than private interests, which he defined as
the foundation of the nation. He regarded the root of the decline of China lay in theselfishness of the people, thus he called for the invention of a new ethic (新 道 德),which was based on public virtue and from which arose the new nationals (新 民)(Liang, pp. 13 & 15).
Liang’s call for making individual sacrifice for the interests of the collective foundechoes in the new socialist ethic constructed by the Chinese Communists. In fact, during
the Yan’an period, the Communists had already initiated the creation of a socialist
society.1 As early as 1938, as part of the programme of promoting production, theCommunists promoted “model workers” (勞動模範) or “hero workers” (勞動英雄) as
examples to be imitated by the residents in the border region, most of whom were
illiterate peasants. For example, an exhibition on the products of Yan’an workers washeld in January 1938 as a kind of competition of production revolution in Yan’an. A

1

For further details, please refer to Mark Selden, China in Revolution: the Yenan Way Revisited (Armonk,
N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, c1995).
9group of “hero workers,” such as Wang Huachun (王化純) (shoe maker) and Wang Liu(王六) (blacksmith), were praised by Mao Zedong as the “vanguards of strategic
economic construction” (“國防經濟建設的先鋒”) (Zheng Yi, 1938/1988, p.3). These“model workers,” who had achieved “turn-over” ( 翻 身 ) under the auspices ofCommunist rule, were not just hardworking, they were also selfless to devote theirenergy to the collective. The most famous example of peasant heroes was Wu Manyou(吳滿有). The official recognition of these socialist heroes, such as Zhao Zhankui (趙占魁), Zhang Chuyuan (張初元) and others, in Yan’an was repeatedly reported by the
Liberation Daily, from early 1943 to early 1944, and formed a popular culture. Such aneffort reached its height in 1943 when 180 “model workers” were honoured in the First
Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region Labour Hero Meeting held in Yan’an (Hung, 1994, pp.
263-6).
After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, more systematic effort
was put into creating “socialist heroes.” One example is the promotion of female tractor
drivers. The tractor was a symbol of prosperity and progress of rural villages in Socialist
China. Women operating tractors was regarded as a progressive sign of women’sliberation. The image of female tractor drivers not only signified women freed from theshackles of the old feudal society, but also hope and good life under Communist rule.

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The early 1950s was a period of collectivisation of agriculture. The construction of suchnew heroines could exemplify the progressiveness of new China (M. L. Yu, 2004, pp.
3-4).

The Use of Folk Art in Creating the Socialist Iconography
The adoption of folk elements in art by the Chinese Communist Party can be traced
to 1939 in the use of New Year paintings for propaganda purposes (Jiang, n.d., in Wang,
2005, p. 461). Themes like resisting Japanese aggression, such as “Support Our Own
Army” (“擁護咱們老百姓自己的軍隊”) (Gu Yuan 古元, 1944), “Cooperation between
Soldiers and People, Victory at War” (“軍民合作, 抗戰勝利”) (Yan Han 彥涵, 1944)
and the embellishment of socialist life in the border region under Communist rule
“Bumper Harvest and Abundant Livestock” (“五穀豐登, 六畜興旺”) (Wo Zha 沃渣,1942), “Know a Thousand Words” (“識一千字”) (Zhang Xiaofei 張曉非, 1944) were
all popular at this time. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the use offolk art for propaganda use was encouraged by the authorities. As early as November
1949, Mao ordered the launching of New Year painting work (Shen, 1949). The
Communist authority was aware of the “feudal ideas and concepts,” such as deities andfolklores, associated with New Year paintings. Regarding the New Year paintings as a11tool of transmitting feudalistic ideas, the Communists called for reform and creation ofa new type to educate the people. In this directive, new themes of “the birth of a new
China”, “the great victory of the people’s war of liberation”, “the life and struggle of theordinary labouring people” were singled out (Galikowski, 1998, pp. 25-26). In 1951, theCommunist government extolled twenty-five New Year paintings in a nationwide New
Year painting competition. The themes of the winners such as “Peasants and Tractors”(“農民和拖拉機”) (Li Qi 李琦), “Celebrate the Founding of the People’s Republic ofChina” (“慶祝中華人民共和國成立”) (Gu Qun 顧群) and “Children in New China”(“新中國的兒童”) (Zhang Ding 張仃) demonstrated what imagery the nascent state
wanted to present.
The Communist Party was aware that peasant romanticism demonstrated in New
Year paintings, as in the projection of peasants’ hope of bumper harvests and happy
family life, suited the optimistic sentiments of the new era and therefore desirable to be
utilised to glorify the socialist revolution and construction. Given its popularity among
the population, folk art, as in the example of New Year paintings, has propaganda
potential to transmit political messages to the masses more effectively.
Other than its grass-roots origin and romantic flavour, folk art was linked to thesearch for a new modern Chinese identity as discussed by Chang-tai Hung (Hung, 1985)

12and Felicity Lufkin (Lufkin, 2001). The term “minjian meishu＂(民間美術) wastranslated from “folk art” (volkskunst). Folk art was considered to be pure, simple,
spontaneous and as a collective creation of a harmonious community. The creation offolk art was an outcome of the collective wisdom and effort of a community rather than
individual genius (Lufkin, 2001, p. 5). The concept of folk art was imported from theWest during the late 19th and early 20th centuries against the backdrop of foreign
aggression, the rise of romantic nationalism and the importation of Social Darwinism.
In Hung’s Going to the People: Chinese Intellectuals and Folk Literature 1918-1937,
folk meant peasants whilst primitive was associated with the minorities (Hung, 1985, pp.
8-9). The interest in folk art was related to the Folk Literature Movement in the late1910s-1920s initiated by folklorists such as Lin Fu, Zhou Zuoren and Gu Jiegang at the
Beijing University (Hung, 1985, p. 1).
Unlike Europe in which the discovery of the folk by intellectuals was related to therise of nationalism and the nation-building movement in 19th century Europe, Chinese
intellectuals’ interest in the folk was a result of the iconoclastic spirit of the May Fourth
Movement (Hung, 1985, pp. 16-7). Radical intellectuals believed that the political chaosand social ills of China were caused by deep-rooted cultural problems. They believedthat unless there was a total transformation of culture, no political and social reforms

13could be successful. Regarding Confucianism, the representative of “high” or “elitist”
culture, as the root of all evils, they found the culture of the common people, “lowculture,” as seen in folk literature, could provide resources for cultural and socialtransformation. Such a romantic view of the folk and its culture (mainly peasant), andthe elevation of the status of common people were unprecedented (Hung, 1985, p. 10).
The legacy of intellectuals’ appreciation of folk art and their recognition of it as acommunal creation which should come from the people and hence be used to serve thepeople was inherited by the Chinese Communists. When the People’s Republic of China
was established in October 1949, the government proclaimed that literature and art
should serve the people and inspire their political enlightenment and enthusiasm forlabour (Andrews, 1994, p. 37). Mass art, amateur artistic creations of workers andpeasants, was encouraged. As early as 1950, there were circular exhibitions of amateur
art of workers in various factories in Beijing. (Jianyan, 1950, pp. 25-27)

The Great Leap Forward, the Emphasis on National Art and Mass Participation in
Artistic Activities
The official promotion of mass art reached an unprecedented scale during the Great
Leap Forward (1958-1960). This demonstrates how art was manipulated to construct a14

socialist utopia within the context of Mao’s ideas of socialist revolution. The “GeneralLine of Socialist Construction” of the Great Leap Forward was formulated in 1957 after
the successful Five-Year Plan and the Anti-Rightist Movement. Mao had been searchingfor a unique way for China to achieve Communism. His sinicisation of Marxism during
the Yan’an Rectification Campaign in the early 1940s was a prologue to his creation of
an indigenous Chinese road to Communism freed from Soviet influence. After thedeterioration of Sino-Soviet relations since 1956, Mao was eager to surpass the Soviet
Union in achieving Communism. Mao’s ambitious plan of a nationwide steel-making
movement and the founding of the People’s Communes were based on his belief in thesubjective initiative of people against objective laws and obstacles. With high target
aspiration to be achieved rapidly by means of mass campaign, the whole propaganda
machine was involved and the masses were mobilized in artistic activities (Galikowski,
1998, pp. 80-82).
As Mao was searching for a unique Chinese way to achieve Communism,traditional Chinese painting and folk art were encouraged because of their indigenous
origin. Mao had been conscious of the value of folk art and their nationalistic appeal
since the 1930s. He did not favour entire Westernisation of arts. In a forum of music
workers in the mid-1950s, he pointed out that Chinese national arts should “make the15ancient serve the present, and make the foreign serve the Chinese” (“古為今用, 洋為中用”). Based on Chinese artistic cultural heritage, art workers should selectively andcritically choose Western elements to employ so as to enrich Chinese arts. Mao
criticised blind adoption as “doctrinism” (“ 教 條 主 義 ”) and blind rejection as“conservatism” (“保守主義”). In general, art should be more Sinicised, rather thanWesternised for him (Mao, 1956/1992, pp. 90-8). Hence, traditional Chinese paintings(guohua 國畫), which had been overshadowed by Soviet socialist realistic oil paintings
in the early 1950s, was transformed according to Mao’s principle of “making the past
serve the present” (古為今用), to suit the propaganda needs of the Party. Figure
paintings replaced landscapes, bamboo, flower and bird paintings. To meet the demand
for realism, models were to be drawn from life. In addition, symbolic meanings of
traditional motifs were stressed, to make guohua relevant to the revolutionary society(Sullivan, 1996, p. 139).
Zhou Yang, the vice-minister of the Ministry of Culture, had repeatedly called forthe development of national art from 1951 to 1953 (Laing, 1988, p.20). The debates on
traditional Chinese painting (gouhua) during the Hundred Flowers Campaign in 1956
and the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957, resulted in the disgraceful dismissal of Jiang
Feng (江豐), who was claimed to have condescending views on gouhua, confirmed the16Party’s recognition of gouhua.
Given the surge of nationalism, the Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s and thelimitations of guohua in demonstrating socialist construction realistically, peasantpaintings became a rising star in the search for indigenous forms of visual art to meet
propaganda needs. Moreover, as guohua has a long tradition of literary painting, which
was blacklisted as “bourgeoisie” and “rightist,” it was not politically correct to be usedas propaganda for the sake of the “proletariat.” Contrary to guohua which were drawn
by professional painters, peasant paintings were created by the amateur peasant painters.
The “class content” of the authors, and hence the subject matter, were supposed to be“red” and “pure.” Its direct ways of presentation were easy for the working class tocomprehend, especially as the peasants had little or no experience in painting, andpeasant painting had hardly existed before (Sullivan, 1996, p. 147).Unlike guohua
which was a well-established genre with a traditional artistic canon, peasant paintings
were easily moulded to meet the Party’s propaganda needs.
During the Great Leap Forward, masses were mobilised to participate in artistic
activities. Artistic training was given to the masses by art professionals who were sent tothe countryside. Just like agricultural and steel production, production of artistic works
was set to achieve high targets in a relatively short time, with competitions among17

regions (Galikowski, 1998, p. 85). The popularisation of art in the countryside coincidedwith the establishment of rural communes. The setting up of communes aimed atminimising the differences between urban and rural, manual and mental labour (Laing,
1988, p. 29). The official encouragement on the training of worker-peasant-soldierartists was proclaimed in the directive from the Ministry of Culture in January 1958,
ordering that culture be “brought to the countryside” (Laing, 1988, p. 31). The proposalof the Artists’ Association in 1958 responded to the official call to carry out training ofworker-peasant-soldier artists by professional artists (“Meixie xiang fenhui he meishujia
tichu changyi,” 1958, p. 5). The official heightened emphasis on class (proletariat) and
its anti-elitist inclination was reflected in the goal to develop a student body with 60 or
70 % from worker-peasant class within five years. These “leftist” students would, inturn, replace the “rightist” instructors. Accordingly, around 80% of students entering theCentral Art Academy in 1958 were from the worker-peasant-soldier class (Cohen, 1987,
p. 211). Such anti-elitist, populist sentiments can be traced to the folk literature and art
movement during the 1920s and the 1930s as discussed above.
The promotion of mass participation in art was carried down to the lowest
organisational level in the countryside. Every commune was to have rural cultural clubs
and art training classes provided to the peasants under local party leadership. Village18mural painting movements saw the initiation of peasant paintings. Peasants were
mobilised to paint murals in the whole country as the slogan “all villages would havemurals, and slogans would be everywhere” goes. (“Meixie xiang fenhui he meishujia
tichu changyi,”1958) Village murals attracted the attention of the authorities because of
their peasant origin and highly visible nature. Murals can be produced economicallywith low levels of artistic skills. Although some rural murals were produced during theResistance War against Japan, its propaganda potential had not been fully recognised by
the Communist government as its attention was directed to the promotion of New Year
paintings (Cohen, 1987, p. 211). Pixian (邳縣) in Jiangsu province (江蘇) was regarded
as the pioneer in the village mural movement (Duan, 2005). In mid-August 1958, theeditorial office of Fine Art journal organised a visit to Pixian. Village mural movements
quickly became a nation-wide effort under official promotion. Fine Art, throughout
1958, published increasingly more works produced by “artists from the masses,” thanthose by professional artists. Besides, the People’s Fine Art Publishing House released awhole series of worker, peasant and soldier painting albums in 1958 and 1959
(Galikowski, 1998, p. 86). The exhibition in Beijing in September 1958 displayeddrawings, paintings and photos of peasant wall paintings (Laing, 1988, p.31). The
public spotlight enjoyed by the village mural movement demonstrates how the Party

19

manipulated the cultural machine efficiently to serve its propaganda needs.
The content of peasant painting was directed by the authorities. The Directive from
the Ministry of Culture in 1958 demonstrates how the government directed art increating images of socialist construction. Themes like construction and maintenance ofwater conservancy projects, the accumulation of manure and the struggles against thefour evils (rats, sparrows, mosquitoes, flies) and similar tasks were stated in the
Directive to be carried out in cultural work (Laing, 1988, p.31). For example, “Catching
Moths” (ca. 1958), a painting drawn by a peasant called Hu Guilian, answered the callof the government of eliminating the “four evils.” Besides, traditional peasant wishes
for bumper harvests can also be seen in peasant paintings, as in Cai Jinbo’s “Big Fish”(ca. 1958). The picture depicts a giant fish as a boat with a woman on it paddling with ahuge wheat stalk. Fish is an old motif of “plenty.” The exaggerated size of the fish andthe wheat stalk showed peasant romanticism and their hope of food abundance. Anotherpicture of “More Gears to the Wheels, More Water to the Fields” (ca. 1958) by ananonymous peasant painter depicts how mechanisation of irrigation can ease peasant’s
workload in farming. The images of food abundance and mechanisation of agriculture
were important elements of socialist construction (Laing, 1988, pp.31-2).

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Huxian Peasant Paintings: Final Effort of the Construction of the Iconography ofSocialist Revolution during the Maoist Era
Huxian peasant paintings in Shaanxi province originated from the promotion ofmass art during the Great Leap Forward. Though the tide of promoting mass art recededwith the failure of the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s, peasant paintings
survived and developed during the Socialist Education Movement (1964-1966). A large
scale Huxian peasant campaign started in 1964 due to official re-emphasis on
proletarian art—worker, peasant and soldier art. To echo the Socialist Education
Movement, Huxian Cultural Hall organised “Three Histories” exhibitions under the xian(county 縣) party leadership as a means for peasants to “remember the bitterness (of theold society) and remember the sweetness (of the new society)” (憶苦思甜) and to
reinforce their class consciousness (階級覺悟). The “Three Histories” (“三史”) meanfamily history (家史), village history (村史) and commune history (社史) (or village
history ( 村 史 ), the turn-over history of poor peasants ( 貧 農 翻 身 史 ), and the
exploitation history of landlords (地主剝削史). (Duan, 2005, pp. 14-5). Training classes
were organised at Taiping steel-making site (太平煉鋼工地) and Ganyu reservoir
construction site (甘峪水庫工地) by Chen Shiheng (陳士衡), a young teacher sent by
the Xi’an Art Academy (西安美專) in 1958. Training classes were extended in scale21and duration and trained many peasant painters. A good foundation was laid for its
further development during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (Duan, 2005, p. 15).
During that time, Huxian peasant paintings were cherished as a “new-born thing” (“新生事物”) and advertised by the official foreign press (Duan, 2005, p. 47). In 1973,
twenty out of the twenty-two communes in the county had amateur art groups (業餘美術小組). Over five-hundred people of both sexes and different ages participated inartistic activities. Around 40,000 works were said to be produced (Journalist from
Xinhua News Agency, 1973/1975).
Exemplified as a good model of rural artistic activities to be emulated byprofessional artists, Huxian’s peasant painting movement was glorified as arevolutionary cult of “learning from Dazhai in agriculture” and praised for “stepping out
ahead in fine arts” (Foreword in Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County, 1976). Highlevel official sponsorship gave Huxian peasant paintings momentum during the Cultural
Revolution. Under the auspices of the Cultural Group of the State Council (國務院文化組), in which the “Gang of Four” (Jiang Qing and her close associates) had muchinfluence, a national exhibition of Huxian Peasant Paintings was held in Beijing in 1973.
As a “model” to be emulated nationwide, the paintings were exhibited in eight cities andvisited by around two million spectators. These high-profile official receptions at

22

national level further confirmed its special status and helped it win national acclaim.
As a component of the revolutionary propaganda machine, which was often reported
in newspapers such as the People’s Daily, Huxian peasant painting movement wasclaimed as a part of the proletarian art following the guidance of Mao’s Yan’an Talks. In
these news reports, the political correctness and high quality of the Huxian peasantpaintings echoed the official line of the Anti-Lin Biao and Anti-Confucius campaign of
the Cultural Revolution. Huxian peasant paintings were given the political task ofdenouncing the theories of “revisionist line in art”2 and “idealist theory” of “innate
genius” and “the highest are the wise and the lowest are the stupid,” said to be held by
Lin Biao and Confucius, by demonstrating their creativity in art (Foreword in Peasant
Paintings from Huhsien County, 1976).

The Glorification of Peasant Painters as Socialist Heroes
The official discourse glorified Huxian peasant painters as masters of the socialist
new culture, who, armed with revolutionary enthusiasm, occupied the ideological and2

The condemnation of “black paintings” as counterrevolutionary, bourgeois styles and subjects was an
attack launched by Jiang Qing against Zhou Enlai, who sponsored fine arts that were not of Jiang Qing’s
type. Zhou initiated decorations for the new wing of the Beijing Hotel in April 1973 after the visit of an
American table tennis team in 1971. In addition, he also exported Chinese paintings for foreign exchange.
He justified this by separating these paintings as “outer art” for foreigners, therefore not necessary to havepolitical contents that were compulsory for “inner art,” which was for Chinese consumption. By the endof 1974, Jiang Qing had held exhibitions of “Black Art” in Shanghai and Beijing to mobilise national
criticism against these “wild, strange, black and reckless” paintings (Andrews, 1974, pp. 368-376).
23

cultural field (Foreword in Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County). As poor andlower-middle class peasants stated in an official publication of their works, all of themwere people’s commune members, including “women, youngsters and old people, Party
secretaries, production team leaders, militia company commanders and accountants”(Foreword in Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County). Taking up painting as aspare-time activity only, they worked hard to build a socialist utopia (Foreword in
Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County). The official discourse emphasised that thepeasant painters were “all path breakers in production and at the same time an advanceforce in culture. With hoe in one hand and brush in the other and taking the Party’s basic
line as their guide to action, they are active in the three great revolutionary movementsof class struggle, the struggle for production and scientific experiment and in carryingout the central task at each step of the revolution” (Foreword in Peasant Paintings from
Huhsien County). The purpose of their paintings was said to condemn revisionism andthe bourgeoisie. Their art was said to be revolutionary “for uniting and educating thepeople and for attacking and destroying the enemy” ( “團結人民, 教育人民, 打擊敵人, 消滅敵人”) (Foreword in Peasant Paintings from Huhsien County). The classcontent of peasant painters and its revolutionary zeal as demonstrated in their artistic
activities suited the image of socialist heroes who struggled for the socialist cause. As

24the slogan goes, “(in order) to paint a revolutionary painting, (one has to) become arevolutionary first” (“要畫革命畫，先做革命人”) (Duan, 2005, p. 148).
The emphasis on the amateur status of the peasant painters and their combining art,
as a spare-time activity only, while continuing their normal working lives served todemonstrate that these peasant paintings were art of the masses. As “proletarian art” wasthe only acceptable art to Mao, who had already in the Yan’an Talks stressed thefundamental importance of literature and art serving the masses, the “redness” (politicalcorrectness) of the peasant painters must be given significance. Their peasant classstatus and the spirit of peasants were highly valued, as demonstrated by the slogan, “notjust being among the workers and the peasants and painting the workers and thepeasants, (one should) learn from the workers and the peasants humbly” ( “身在工農畫
工農，還要恭恭敬敬學工農”) (Duan, 2005, p. 148).
Were all peasant painters from the poor and middle peasant class in the people’scommunes as claimed by the official discourse? As educated urban youths had
previously been sent to rural villages, could they possibly have been remoulded aspeasants and counted among the “peasant” painters? According to Liu Qunhan (劉群漢),
an instructor at that time, there were more than twenty educated urban youths
participating in Huxian peasant painting movement (Duan, 2005, p. 152). Educated25urban youths were sent to farms and factories during 1968-1976 to gain personal
experience of proletarian life. Many amateur paintings were said to have been createdby these rusticated youths (Andrews, 1994, p.352). In Huxian, the most renowned
educated urban youth peasant painter was Li Zhenhua (李振華). Her painting “Brigade
Ducks” (“大隊鴨隊”) was among the works to be sent to Beijing for national exhibitionin 1973 and circular displays in eight cities in 1974 (Duan, 2005, p.155).
In fact, professional help was given by the Party to the rural community to foster
the peasant painting movement. In Huxian, the County Cultural Hall and the Shaanxi
Academy of Art offered training to peasants. Art students from the Hangzhou Academy
taught there in order to improve peasants’ painting skills (Duan, 2005, p.155). In 1958,
Chen Shiheng (陳士衡), an art teacher and graduate from the Xi’an Art Academy, wassent by the Academy to investigate the demand for art by rural villages and peasants.
His report was expected to be used for educational reform of the Academy according to
Mao’s call that education must combine labour and serve proletarian politics. Chen
organised two training classes in Huxian, one in Taiping steel-making site and anotherone in Ganyu Reservoir construction site (Duan, 2005, p.7). The aim of these classes
was to train over one hundred peasants in the art of painting. Government-sponsoredtraining was continuously made available to peasants, by art teachers and students from26

different art bodies. (Zhongguo Huxian nongminhua zhanlanguan, n.d.) For example,
Wang Youzheng (王有政), Guo Quanzhong (郭全忠), Kang Long (亢瓏), Gao
Minsheng (高民生) from the Mass Arts Hall of Shaangxi Province (陜西省群眾藝術館); Cheng Zheng (程征) from the Arts Hall of Xianyang District (咸陽地區藝術館);
Ding Jitang (丁濟棠), Liu Qunhan, Ma Hongzhi (馬宏智) of Huxian (Duan, 2005, p.71).
Mao had already stated, in the Yan’an Talks, that “raising standards” (提高) was asimportant as “popularisation” (普及) (Mao, 1942, p. 83). Mao denounced art “lacking inartistic power” as “poster and slogan style” (Mao, 1942, p. 90). Therefore, by inference,the standard of amateur art should also be upgraded to render sophistication.

Content of Huxian Peasant Paintings
Huxian peasant paintings have to be considered within the context of the Great
Leap Forward, which was launched in May 1958, the Socialist Education Movement(1964-1966) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). To echo Mao’s slogan asking
people to “go all out, aim high and achieve greater, faster, better and more economical
results in building socialism,” (“鼓足幹勁, 力爭上游, 多快好省地建設社會主義總路線”) in order to “surpass Great Britain and catch up with the United States,” (“超英趕美”) furnaces were set up in work units, schools, farms etc. to increase steel

27

production during the Great Leap Forward. Fig. 16 depicts an idealised steel-making
scene in the campaign. Ambitious agricultural and steel production targets were set up.
Mao strongly believed that human will could overcome any obstacles in building asocialist utopia, which was within reach under the Great Leap Forward. Though theGreat Leap Forward ended up with a horrendous famine, Mao was undeterred in his
belief and insisted that the Socialist utopia was within reach.
Within such a context, positive imagery of socialist construction is a central theme
in Huxian peasant paintings. “A Painting in the Class-Education Exhibition, Niutung
People’s Commune,” (No. 5) (fig. 1) illustrates people in the commune engaging incollectivised labour work. The picture comes with the inscription: “Yan’an’s (Yenan’s)sons and daughters, with firm fighting will, dare to give the land a new look. They work
hard and fast to gain a rich harvest. Dazhai (Tachai) flowers’ perfume spreads
everywhere.” Drawing reference to the Yan’an and Dazhai’s paradigms of revolutionary
production cults, the painting demonstrates that manpower in unity, with little or no aid
of machines, can still do well in socialist construction. Mao’s famous dictums, such as“human beings can surpass nature,” (“人定勝天”) and “a lot of people is good forwork,” (“人多好辦事” ) come from his firm belief in “people’s power,” (“人民的力量”)
and “man’s subjective initiative” (“人的主觀能動性”) (Y. F. Chen, 2001, p. 701).

28

By the same token, excessive optimism in the capability of manpower inovercoming natural hindrances with use of a low level of technology is conveyed in“Today’s ‘Foolish Old Man’ Create New Scenes,” (Scrolls 1-4) by Cheng Minsheng (程敏生) and Zhang Lin (張林) (figs. 2a & 2b). This scene depicts the nationwide
irrigation works from Autumn 1957 to Spring 1958. Relying on manpower rather thantechnology, one billion labourers were mobilised (Y. F. Chen, 2001, p. 700). In thepainting, plenty of people are working on the construction of a reservoir. Men andwomen irrigate the fields. Harvest is abundant and ducks are swimming in the
newly-made pond. The theme “Foolish Old Man Can Move the Mountain,” was used by
the painter Xu Beihong (徐悲鴻) during the Anti-Japanese War to eulogise Chinese
resilience in overcoming the impossible.
The heroic depiction of workers, with their strength, resilience, unity, sacrifice andfighting spirit in encountering all the hardship in building a socialist utopia, reflects theglorification of the proletariat since Mao’s Yan’an Talks and the making of socialist
heroes. With regard to the question whether to expose and condemn or extol, Maostipulated: “all the dark forces harming the masses of the people must be exposed andall the revolutionary struggles of the masses of the people must be extolled. They should
never expose the masses despite their shortcomings. They should help them to29overcome these shortcomings by criticism and self-criticism (Mao, 1942, p. 91).
Moreover, they should eulogise “the people, the creators of the history of mankind,proletariat, the Communist Party, New Democracy and socialism” (Mao, 1942, p. 93).
According to Mao’s literature and art theory of “combination of revolutionary
realism and revolutionary romanticism,” literature and art should reflect life on a higher
plane to render more intensity. Subject elements can be concentrated to produce a more
typical artistic model, thus being more idealistic and universal than actual everyday life
(Mao, 1942, p. 82). Developing from the “revolutionary romanticism” of the Soviet
ideologist Zhdanov (Sullivan, 1996, p. 145), Mao further elaborated it to make literature
and art reflect combined revolutionary optimism and revolutionary heroism (革命樂觀主義與革命英雄主義結合) (Zou, 2002, p. 7). The optimism and heroism of people’s
power in Huxian peasant paintings were a reflection of this.
The optimistic imagery of socialism can be seen in the depiction of bumper
harvests and serenity of country life. “Golden Hills, Silver Sea” by Li Shunxiao (李順孝) (fig. 3) depicts abundant harvests of crops and cottons. Peasants are dancing happily
around. Other than crops, side-line production often appears in Huxian paintings.
“Brigade Pig Farm” by Liu Xuxu ( 柳 緒 緒 ) (fig. 4) shows pig-rearing in thecollectivised commune. “Flourishing Side-Line Occupations” by Bai Tianxue (白天學)30

(fig.5) portrays basket-making, handicraft textile and raising pigs and goats in a vivid,
indigenous way. “Commune Fish Pond” by Dong Zhengyi (董正誼) (fig. 6) portrays anenormous harvest of fish. The cooperation of communal members, men and women, oldand young, echoed the cooperative spirit of commune. The abundance of chickens in“Brigade Chicken Farm,” by Ma Yali (馬亞莉) (fig. 7) and harvest of cabbage in“Cabbage,” by Jiao Caiyun (焦彩雲) (fig. 8) also show super abundance in communal
village life. The affluence in food demonstrates the utopia of village life. Other thanadhering to the official dictate of combining revolutionary optimism and revolutionary
heroism, these rosy pictures often projected peasants’ ideals and hopes, as commonly
found in folk art like New Year paintings. In fact, Huxian peasant painters were advisedby Chen Shiheng, the first instructor, as early as 1958, to draw inspirations from their
daily life by close observation. Chen laid down the principles of “drawing reality,”“drawing from memory,” and “drawing ideal” (畫現實, 畫記憶, 畫理想) for thepeasant painters to follow (S. H Chen, 1999, p. 141 in Duan, 2005, p. 213). Therefore,
Huxian peasant painting had a touch of sincerity and warmth of life that was not often
found in propaganda posters produced by professionals.
Other than abundance, modernisation of agriculture is also illustrated in Huxian
paintings. Modernised irrigation is a popular theme. Like portraying “good harvest”

31

during famine, Huxian paintings also delineate profusion of water during periods ofdrought. In “Sprinkling” (fig. 10), a big electric water pump is sprinkling water
extensively into the field. Drinking water in jars and bowls are waiting by the field side.
Besides, as the tractor was a symbol of agricultural modernisation at that time, “Buying‘Iron Oxen’”(fig. 11) depicts plenty of tractors in the “Huxian agricultural machinescompany” ( “戶縣農業機械公司”). “Iron oxen” was a familiar term for tractor used bypeasants. As the state was promoting women’s liberation, the two tractors in the painting
are being operated by women, while men are passengers only.
The official advocacy of women’s liberation is also frequently seen in Huxian
peasant paintings. Women were “liberated” to work as productive members in thepeople’s communes for the construction of socialism. “Women Hold Up Half the Sky”
by Cheng Minsheng (fig. 12) is dedicated to promoting women’s liberation. In thepainting, people gather in front of a wall covered in posters looking at one entitled“Shattering the age-old iron chain, women can hold up half the sky”( “砸碎千年鐵鎖
鏈，婦女能頂半面天”). The poster delineates a fisted, determined woman speaking for
women’s liberation. The spectators are mostly women of different generations. These
women are engaged in different occupations, including a postwoman, tractor driver,
medical doctor and farmer.

32

In fact, political messages are often infused in these peasant paintings. “Listening
to the Good News” by Liu Zhigui (劉知貴) (fig. 13) portrays workers gathering
together to attend a political class after work. The hoes and hammers beside them
indicate that they are having a break after their day’s labour. A female worker holding aflag of “8th March Team” (三八隊) signified women’s liberation. “The Whole Family
Studies the Communiqué” by Du Zhilian (杜志廉) (fig. 14) illustrates a peasant family
reading the communiqué (the party’s newspaper). This picture subtly conveys an ideal
family in a traditional sense: three generations of grandparents, parents and children (anelder daughter and a younger son are symbolised by “good” (好) in Chinese character).
Reading the party’s newspaper shows that this family is politically aware. The sewing
machine, radio and bicycle in the picture show that this family is well-provided for. Thekang (炕) (heated bed) and the surrounding wallpaper suggests that the setting is in a
traditional Northern Chinese village home. By putting the ideal family in such a local
setting, the painting cleverly conveys to the peasant audience that socialism is good.
“Party Class” by Liu Zhigui (劉知貴) (fig. 15) is more direct in conveying thepolitical message. A little blackboard with Mao’s slogan “the issue of line: must be
articulated every year, every month, every day” (“路線問題: 必須年年講, 月月講, 天天講”) gives the gist of this picture. A group of peasants gather in a peasant’s home33

after work (hoes and hats are put in the corner) at night to attend a political class. They
are eagerly listening to the speaker whilst taking notes. It contains not only traditional
peasant life elements such as the kang and the corn hanging outside the window: signsof harvest, the world map and the internationale poster hanging on the wall also draw
peasants into the world proletarian revolution, which would have little importance totheir daily lives. Whilst showing the infiltration of party propaganda into villages, thepainting also reflects politicised peasant life and widespread revolutionary enthusiasm
during the Maoist period.

Visual Characteristics of Huxian Peasant Paintings
Huxian peasant paintings were influenced by Chinese and Western sources. As
peasants were surrounded by folk art like New Year paintings and paper cut-outs in theirliving environment, their paintings demonstrated folk art characteristics. One of theimportant sources of influence was New Year paintings. Realistic in style, they are notconfined to photo-like realistic depiction (Zou, 2002, p. 29). Due to official
encouragement, New Year paintings became more folk like since 1956 as a respect fornational heritage and a reaction to Western influence. Elements from paper cut-outs (剪紙) were adopted. Lines became more decorative and the colour was rich. While34

parallel layout structure was retained, character depiction became more formalised. The
coexistence of simplicity and exaggeration was characteristic. New Year paintings inYangliuqing (楊柳青) had already been influenced by Western perspective in depicting
complex architectural elements. Under the Communist reform, a new type of New Year
painting emerged, which adopted strong Western perspective, Western figuralarrangements and new dramatic gestures (Andrews, 1994, pp. 60-1).
Similar to New Year paintings, which often have decorative elements, peasantpaintings often repeat a pattern. For example, the repeated patterns of corn and cotton,
in fig. 3, show the abundance of the harvest and exhilaration. Marked by brightly-huedcolours and xianmiao (outline drawing 線描), Huxian peasant paintings manifest astrong traditional Chinese flavour. “Cabbage” in fig. 8 is full of a repeated pattern ofcabbages. The chickens in fig. 7 are also rendered in recurrent patterns. The treatment ofrepetitive patterns gives a sense of exuberance. Rather than being monotonous, thepaintings are vivid and joyful because of the luminous colours and variations of colour
tone and small details.
As in New Year paintings, paper cut-outs also influenced Huxian peasant paintings.
The lines and the red colour of fig. 5 in depicting the three patches of goats, pigs,
hanging textiles and basket-making, have a strong traditional paper cut-out flavour.

35

The levels of skills vary among Huxian peasant paintings. Some are clearly moreamateur as the spatial perspective is not quite correct. For instance, the ponds andembankments in figs. 2a and 2b do not have accurate perspective in depth and distance,
and are also inconsistent. Despite different levels of proficiency in handling perspective,
scale and proportion, these paintings are generally realistic.
Realistic representation was influenced by Soviet socialist realism in oil paintings,
which was the Chinese official favourite in the 1950s. Some of the more sophisticatedHuxian peasant paintings have adopted elements of Western paintings, such as
three-dimensional drawing, perspective, triangular composition, light and shading andattention to proportion and fine detail. Fig. 14 is a triangular composition, which makes
the picture looked balanced and focused. The perspective system has the vanishingpoints meeting at the light bulb in the window. Placed below the vanishing point is a girlin red. The audience’s sight lines will be drawn to her, the most important person in thepainting, as she is reading the Communiqué. The sewing machine on the right and thebicycle on the left serve to balance the structure. This artistic treatment helps todemonstrate the theme.
Triangular composition is also seen in fig. 13, in which two triangles are extended
from the two red flags. The long queue holding red flags on the left hand side, other36

than suggesting the never-ending revolutionary force, form a tripartite composition withthe two triangles. On the one hand, three-dimensional effects, rational human body
proportion and shading are adopted from Western paintings; on the other hand, outline
drawing, absence of a single light source and the textual strokes (cunfa 皴法) of therocks in the lower right hand corner, show the influence of Chinese paintings. The
combination of Western and Chinese painting skills and realism are characteristics ofmore sophisticated Huxian peasant paintings, whose painters had no doubt obtained
professional training.
Moreover, during the Cultural Revolution, the principles of the “Three
Prominences” (三突出) of Jiang Qing’s model operas became the golden rules inartistic creation: positive characters were given prominence among all characters;
heroes and heroines were given prominence among all positive characters; the principal
hero or heroine was given prominence among all heroes and heroines (H. J Yu, p. 111 in
Galikowski, p. 165). Therefore, Huxian peasant paintings also adopted the presentationof the characters of model operas. The central speaker in fig. 9, with his raised fisted
right arm, adopts the typical heroic posture of a revolutionary. The actual and impliedvisual lines converging on him also emphasise his revolutionary greatness.
In Huxian peasant paintings exaggeration is also used, often as a romantic

37

demonstration of abundance of food. “Commune Fish Pond” (fig. 6) portrays anenormous harvest of fish in vivid colours. The oval-shaped composition makes thefishnet look three-dimensional. In order to exaggerate the abundance of the fish harvest,
the fishnet and the catch seem to be elevated and thus are not observed in a true ratio.
Such romantic sentiments are commonly found in Chinese folk art.

Conclusion
According to Mao’s “Yan’an Talks,” artists and writers were to develop “a massstyle” for the proletarian audience, who provided the source of creation of art andliterature. With socialist realism as the only acceptable style, Mao denounced any othercreative mood that was “alien to the masses of the people and to the proletariat,”whether it was feudal, bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, liberalistic, individualistic, nihilist,
art-for-art’s sake, aristocratic, decadent or pessimistic (Mao, 1942, p. 94). As art was
manipulated by the Party to serve as propaganda with socialist realism as its guiding
principle, the iconography during the Maoist period was full of optimistic imagery of
the socialist revolution. Peasant Paintings were associated with Mao’s ultra-leftist line, aproduct of the Great Leap Forward, the Socialist Education Movement and the Cultural
Revolution. The importance of this genre lies not only in its optimistic imagery of the38socialist construction, but also the value of peasants and the mobilisation during the
Chinese Communist Revolutionary Movement. Mao had long regarded peasants, thebulk of the Chinese population, as a dormant potent force which should be released forbuilding China’s future. His mass line theory became the cornerstone of state-building.
The struggle and hardship of the peasants provided the fuel for the revolutionary
machine. They were mobilised and driven by the bright vision of the future provided by
the Communist Party. In the pre-1949 Communist revolutionary bases, peasantsprovided manpower for the Red Army and economic construction. Their art, as in thecase of New Year paintings, provided ideas and forms for Communist propaganda. As
image is easier than words for people to understand, the Party recognised theimportance and effectiveness of using visual propaganda to get the political message
across to peasants, who were mostly illiterate or just had some rudimentary education.
The Party sophisticatedly conveyed the message through popular visual propaganda thatit had fulfilled peasants’ dreams of abundance and happiness under its adroit andingenious leadership.
In Mao’s Thoughts, the masses were not just passive consumers of art. Under
proletarian dictatorship, the masses were upheld in official discourse as the lord andcreator of culture (Mao, 1942, pp. 76-7). The proliferation of mass art, especially39

peasant painting, was a result of official encouragement since the Great Leap Forward
and the official condemnation of “expert,” “bourgeois” art of “professionals.” Thepeasant painting movement, as in the case of Huxian, would not have existed without
official organisation. When mobilising the peasants to paint, the Party indoctrinatedthem and involved them in political movements. Such a political education process was
also an effort to remake the apolitical peasants, who were distrusted by Lenin as having“petit bourgeois” mentality (Fitzpatrick, 1993, p. 751), into active supporters of theParty and socialism.
During the peasant painting movement, peasants were not passive receivers ofpolitical messages, they became creative transmitters of them. Drawing and viewing thepaintings became a part of political education for them. As peasants were instructed to
combine their daily life experience in their artistic creation, they often took inspirations
from everyday experiences (Duan, 2005, pp. 8-12). Such a touch of life not only makes
the paintings vivid and lively, the paintings are also telling stories to the audience andthus are easier to comprehend. As these paintings are presenting good life undersocialism in everyday story-settings, such subtlety and liveliness is more sentimental
than overt shouting of monotone, straight-forward slogans and easier to be internalisedby peasants, as painters and audience, that socialism is good.

40However, were peasant painters really conscious of their roles as “revolutionaries”
just like the slogan “(in order) to paint revolutionary paintings, (one has to) become arevolutionary first” (“要畫革命畫，先做革命人”)?

Rather than going into in-depth

analysis of these peasant painters, the case of Li Fenglan (李鳳蘭), a model female
peasant painter in Huxian, gives insight into how peasant painters were shaped by theofficial discourse as revolutionaries. As a married woman with a heavy family burden,
Li was assigned to work in the Ganyu Reservoir construction site where she joined thepainting class of Chen Shiheng in 1958. As well as working in the field, she had theextra burden of childcare and housework, yet she painted in her “spare time,”whichmeant either while cooking or staying up late at night. In 1972, before Li becamefamous for her painting “Spring Plough” (春鋤) (1973), Li was chosen by the county
authority as a “model” because of her typical qualities—being a woman with a heavyfamily burden (Duan, 2005, p. 174). According to Li, as a woman, she had achieved“turn-over” (翻身) and became a “lord,” (“主”) in contrast to being a “slave” under the
exploitation of a landlord, after years of participation in peasant paintings and social
activities (village and brigade woman officer, commune representative). She regarded
that women engaging in farm work was “turn-over” (Duan, 2005, p. 14). Her
understanding and experience of “women’s liberation” was in line with the Party’s

41

discourse on women’s liberation and “turn-over” of poor peasants under Communist
leadership. In Party rhetoric, which is based on Friedrich Engels’ The Origins of the
Family, Private Property and the State, the prerequisite of women’s liberation lies intheir participation in labour. The promotion of women’s liberation cannot be separated
from the Party’s mobilisation of women in the agricultural collectivisation campaign(“Mobilise Women to Join the Agricultural Collectivisation Movement,”1955). Li’s
sense of dedication to the Socialist revolution against all odds (heavy family burden andthe social stigmatisation on women) was extolled by the Party as a model to be imitatedby the people. She stated that “if I do not draw the revolutionary spirit of everyone, I
have not fulfilled the political responsibility as an amateur painter” (K.C. Chen, 1976, p.
46). As she fitted neatly in the right image of a liberated, devoted revolutionary that the
Party was promoting, she was raised to an honorary position in the National People’s
Congress in 1975 ( 全國人大代表, 第四屆全國人大常委會委員) (Duan, 2005, p.
175). Li’s case shows that other than possible internalisation because of everyday
indoctrination, there was political manoeuvring behind the scene in the making of Li
Fenglan as a stereotype to be modelled upon for the whole nation.
We can see from the case of Huxian peasant paintings how state sponsorshipmanipulated folk art in making an idealistic socialist iconography. The discovery of the42

value of the folk (peasants) was a result of the elevation of the status of the masses.
Such a discovery, which fostered the growth of the Folk Literature Movement in the
1920s and 1930s, initiated Chinese intellectuals to the beauty and the usefulness of folk
art in transmitting social and political messages to the masses. Folk art, as in the case ofpeasant paintings, was fostered and sponsored by the state under sophisticatedorganisation and manipulation. When art under the dictate of politics and realism isdeprived of its allegorical function, can a well-designed official construction of an
optimistic imagery of socialist life serve the interests of the proletariat?

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Illustrations

Fig. 1

Fig. 3Fig. 2aFig. 4

Fig. 2bFig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 9Fig. 7

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Fig. 8

Fig. 16
Fig. 12Fig. 13

Fig. 14

Fig. 15