Chinese Revolutionary Art: Relationship between chinese revolutionary art & Chinese traditional art

In 1966, Mao launches the Cultural Revolution. He used the youth to came back to the head of the Parti. The cultural aspect of this movment, mainly strategic & politic, was marginal.

But the consequences on the Chinese cultural patrimony was far from being insignificant. Indeed, Mao wanted the ancient work of art to be destructed. He wanted to deeply renew the arts & to eradicat the remains of the past. Mao’s Yanan talk on “Literature and Art” summerizes his positions on arts.

Old intellectuals, once respected, were denigrated. Instead, the creative power of young communist artists was celebrated. Ink painting were forbidden. Several themes, like orchids, were excluded from the revolutionary works of art. All the creation too obviously influenced by traditional Chinese arts became illegal. For instance, a group of artist painting small landscape joined in an underground organization called “No Name” during the cultural revolution.

One could observe that the revolutionary paintings are done with oil and not with ink. The style is completely different from the traditional style of painting. The color are more bright for instance. In general the ancient painting are more suggesting the feelings whereas the revolutionary painting are expressing clearly the joy of the workers or the glory of the Party.

However, one should concede that some revolutionary arts have been influenced by traditional Chinese arts. This is the case of the ballets or the revolutionary songs. Traditional instruments & flok Chinese dances are mixed with new features. For instance revolutionary songs blend traditional music & classic western music (instruments & opera voices).

To sum up the nature of the relationship between Revolutionary arts and traditional arts we want to sort out some major similarities and differences.

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- Similarities

Obviously, thousands of year of art practice, and hence art heritage, cannot be totally abandoned, consciously or not. That is why, even if Mao wanted to eradicate every style of art inherited from the past, some remain. To draw the comparison and sort out common points between the past and revolutionary art, we will focus on the examples of the Chinese communist architecture and the communist ballets, songs and operas, where similarities are the most visible.

National art gallery in Beijing constructed in the early 1950’s is one of the finest examples of Chinese communist architecture. The use of the Chinese classical architectural style is obvious: main body in the style of traditional pavilion, multi-eaved roofs, and yellow glazed tiles in traditional Chinese style…

The same inspiration from Chinese classical style can be found in the architecture of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities was build by the master of contemporary Chinese architecture Zhang Bo. House body is white, with peacock blue glazed tile roof eaves decoration.

Concerning songs, traditional instruments and Chinese folk dances are mixed with new features. For instance revolutionary songs blend traditional music & classic western music (instruments & opera voices).

Concerning operas and ballets, traditional costumes or instruments, for examples, are still used.

To put it in a nutshell, the form of the art is conserved, whereas the burden is different as the main idea is to expand the communist ideology.

- Differences

The differences in the form are mostly visible in the art form of paintings/posters. Indeed, ink is replaced by oil, landscapes and natural themes (plum trees, bamboos and animals) are replaced by human figures, and the general style of painting passes from light colours (often black and white), detailed drawings and delicate brush touches to the social realist style entailing bright colours and crude representation.