Chinese cultural revolution and its affects on art

Yue Minjin, Freedom leading the people, 1996

Mr. Yue was born in 1962 in the far northern Heilongjiang Province of China and as a child moved to Beijing with his parents. He studied oil painting at the Hebei Normal University and graduated in 1989, when China was rocked by student-led demonstrations and their suppression on Tiananmen Square in June of that year. “My mood changed at that time,” he said. “I was very down. I realized the gap between reality and the ideal, and I wanted to create my own artistic definition, whereby there could be a meeting with social life and the social environment.” (Bernstein, "An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It?", 2007)

“The first step,” he added, “was to create a style to express my feelings accurately, starting with something that I knew really well —myself.” (Bernstein, "An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It?", 2007) That was the first step toward forging what has become the image that has now made him famous. The second step was to devise the laugh, which, he said, was inspired by a painting he saw by another Chinese artist, Geng Jianyi, in which a smile is deformed to mean the opposite of what it normally means.“So I developed this painting where you see someone laughing,” he said. “At first you think he’s happy, but when you look more carefully, there’s something else there.” “A smile,” Mr. Yue said, “doesn’t necessarily mean happiness; it could be something else.”(Bernstein, "An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It?", 2007)

The smile has been variously interpreted as a sort of joke at the absurdity of it all, or the illusion of happiness in lives inevitably heading toward extinction.Karen Smith, a Beijing expert on Chinese art, suggests that Mr. Yue’s grin is a mask for real feelings of helplessness.

“In China there’s a long history of the smile,” Mr. Yue said. “There is the Maitreya Buddha who can tell the future and whose facial expression is a laugh. Normally there’s an inscription saying that you should be optimistic and laugh in the face of reality.”(Bernstein, "An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It?", 2007)

Execution is a 1995 painting by Chinese artist Yue Minjun.
The piece was inspired by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989

“There were also paintings during the Cultural Revolution period, those Soviet-style posters showing happy people laughing,” he continued. “But what’s interesting is that normally what you see in those posters is the opposite of reality.”(Bernstein, "An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It?", 2007) Freedom leading the people is of course a parody of liberty leading the people a painting by french artist Eugène Delacroix in 1830, a painting showing the peasants, working class and middle class people rising up against the Bourgeoisie and the tyranny of french monarchy. In essence it embodies the core qualities of a propaganda painting, which makes it perfect for an artist like Yue to parody. In previous interviews Yue's use of smiles is tied to the smiling and happy faces found in the propaganda paintings made during the cultural revolution of china, portraying it as a courageous movement for the people, yet the realities beg to differ and these happy smiles are simply to hid the reality. In Yues work he exaggerates these smiling faces believing a smile can many many things  instead of just happiness.

Gao Xiohua, Why? (1978)

Years after Mao Zedongs death in 1976 critiques of the cultural revolution proposed and enforced by Mao began to emerge from the woodwork, with works of art depicting the true realities of the revolution and the result. Gao Xiaohua marked the beginning of this period now refered to as scar art, picturing an artists personal experiences in the political battles. As Gao states " I am also the the witness, the participant, and the sufferer of tragedy, and we have scars engraved in our hearts as the evidence. We have the right and responsibility to record and tell history"(Szczepanski, 2019). The painting simply titled as Why? depicts the youth of the red guard as disillusioned youth. The guard were a mass student led political movement formed in support of Chairman Mao, composed of both university and high school students who were known as the re guard formed in the wake of the cultural revolution proposed by Mao Zedong. As the Cultural Revolution gained momentum, mostly younger workers and peasants joined the movement as well. Many were no doubt motivated by a sincere commitment to the doctrines espoused by Mao, although many speculate that it was a rise in violence and contempt for the status quo that motivated their cause. (Jiehong, 2007) The Red Guards destroyed antiques, ancient texts and Buddhist temples. They even almost destroyed entire animal populations like the Pekingese dogs, who were associated with the old imperial regime. Very few of them survived past the Cultural Revolution and the excesses of the Red Guards. The breed nearly went extinct in its homeland. (Jiehong, 2007) The Red Guards also publicly humiliated teachers, monks, former landowners or anyone else suspected of being "counter-revolutionary." Suspected "rightists" would be publically humiliated — sometimes by being paraded through the streets of their town with mocking placards hung around their necks. (Jiehong, 2007) In time, the public shaming grew increasingly violent and thousands of people were killed outright with more committed suicide as a result of their ordeal. The final death toll is not known. Whatever the number of dead, this kind of social turmoil had a terribly chilling effect on the intellectual and social life of the country  even worse to the leadership, it began to slow the economy.

An image of the Chinese Red Guard

After Maos Death Scar painting began to emerge showing the disillusioned youth and the responsibly the have in this, Gao shows them as sympathetic injured by a gutter all looking unsure of their own actions. Many of these artists themselves were apart of this cultural revolution, with some being in favour, or apart of the red guard, and with the passing of Mao many began to open there eyes and realize that what they are and were doing is wrong.

References

Bernstein, R. (2007, November 13). An Artist's Famous Smile: What Lies Behind It? Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/13/arts/design/13smil.html

Jiehong, J. (2007). Burden Or Legacy. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=AI5rrbJEW5cC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=GAO+XIAOHUA+political+work&source=bl&ots=YqNIYxwc86&sig=ACfU3U2364ajwa5rRjsq25en9E6-8ARiIg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinv974j9TkAhW67XMBHazECu8Q6AEwDHoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=GAO XIAOHUA political work&f=falseSzczepanski, K. (2019, February 20). Who Were China's Fierce Red Guards? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/who-were-chinas-red-guards-195412

Szczepanski, K. (2019, February 20). Who Were China's Fierce Red Guards? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/who-were-chinas-red-guards-195412