A revolution in oils: patriotic art at the National Museum of China

If you ever visit the National Museum of China (and you absolutely must because it is fabulous), it’s worth looking at the permanent exhibition in Central Hall 1 entitled Masterpieces of Chinese Modern Fine Art. What this actually offers is a series of paintings depicting (mostly) events relating to the revolution. The style and subject matter are not everyone’s cup of tea but there’s no denying the power behind some of these works.

One eye-catching example is Lin Gang’s Joining of the Forces at Jinggang Mountain (above), said to depict a key moment in the revolutionary struggle when Mao’s forces made contact with those of a fellow commander. Everything is bright and breezy. The old lady on the left hobbles forward with a basket of supplies to support the cause. In the lower right background, a soldier brandishes his rifle and shouts the good news to comrades down the line.  Mao is taller than everyone else and quite improbably handsome. Even the horse (on the right) gazes at him with misty eyes. 

I was surprised to learn that this work was not created in the heat of revolutionary fervour but in the late 1970s, in the early days of the post-Mao era. Were such images still de rigueur then? Perhaps with the scandals of the Gang of Four trials, it was important to remind the public of the original aims of the revolution.

The most famous work on display in Central Hall 1 is Dong Xiwen’s The Founding of the Nation (below), depicting the moment when Mao announced the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. This is in the approved style with references to classical Chinese motifs, such as the clouds which are supposed to resemble the auspicious lingzhi fungus (don’t ask). And you can’t miss those gigantic red lanterns!

This piece has a particularly curious history. Since its unveiling in 1953, it has gone through multiple “updates” to insert or remove figures in the group on the left. According to historian Chang-Tai Hung*, the following changes were made:

- In 1954, the figure of Gao Gang, a senior party leader, was painted out after he was accused of plotting to seize power.

- In 1967, the figure of Liu Shaoqi, ex-Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, was deleted after he was condemned as a bourgeois reactionary.

- In 1972, the figure of Lin Boqu, a senior Politburo member, was deleted, ostensibly for opposing the marriage of Mao and his powerful wife Jiang Qing. As they had been married for 24 years by then, one suspects there were other reasons for Lin’s disappearance.

- And then in 1979, after the fall of Jiang Qing’s Gang of Four, all the above three figures were reinstated in the painting. One assumes that this is the final-final version, as everyone in it has been dead for some time.

Something else that’s interesting about this exhibition is the dominance of oil painting. Chinese artists in the 18^th and 19^th centuries tended to view oils as a strange foreign medium, inferior to the subtlety of ink brush painting. But this attitude changed in the 20^th century under the influence of European-trained artists like Xu Beihong and because of China’s developing alliance with the Soviet Union. Russian artist Konstantin Maksimov, who taught at the Chinese Academy of Fine Art in the mid-1950s, is often cited as a major influence. He was a proponent of Social Realism in art, and his painting Sashka the Tractor Driver in Virgin Lands (below) certainly has something in common with the works in Central Hall 1. 

Even if this sort of thing doesn’t appeal, I urge you to visit the National Museum if you can. If you’re pressed for time, focus on the lower ground floor collection which is misleadingly entitled “Ancient China”: this actually contains a vast treasure trove of objects from the Neolithic to the Qing period. And there’s a very good museum shop.

*Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol 49, No 4, Oct 2007, p.783