Art and Music



        The Cultural Revolution changed art greatly from past dynasties. All art was made to support the Cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao Zedong. Revolutionary heroes such as Red Guards and farmers replaced usual subjects such as birds, landscapes, and flowers. Oil paint replaced ink for paintings. Ink painting had been the most respected form of painting before the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, artists that used ink were tortured and publicly humiliated. Paintings that supported Mao were turned into posters and used as propaganda. The posters were hung everywhere in China- schools, stores, workplaces, even on walls in alleys and streets.

   

          Plays were also used to support Mao Zedong. Mao’s wife Jiang Qing controlled productions during the CR. She wrote eight operas and attendance to those operas were mandatory. The main characters in these operas were revolutionary heroes. One of the operas was called “The Red Woman’s Army”. It was about women fighting for a better, equal China.




This is a poster advertising an opera during
the Cultural Revolution. Notice the woman's
body position and what she is holding.