The Art of the Cultural Revolution Period

By the 1960s, the theory of class struggle led China’s “art workers” to further engage in political struggle. In 1966, when the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” broke out in an all-round way, Red Guards completely smashed the cultural and artistic institutions, and under the influence of Jiang Qing and her colleagues on the basis of Mao Zedong’s Talks, art characterized as fulfilling the criteria of “red, light, and bright” (hong, guang, liang) or “tall, big, and total” (gao, da, quan) appeared, and the depiction of images of the leader and of workers, peasants, and soldiers became the supreme theme of art. The Cultural Revolution lasted for 10 years, and the art of this period pushed art to the extreme of serving politics and completely abandoned the previous policy of “letting a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend.” Paintings and sculptures in different materials became historical documents recording this special historical period.