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Russian-Soviet literature had unparalleled influence on Chinese literature in the twentieth century in terms of literary creation, theory and criticism, cultural trend and social life. Russian-Soviet literature played an extremely important role in the emergence and development of modern Chinese literature, especially in the establishment of the concepts of literature, aesthetic appreciation and writing methods. Its influence is clearly traceable from “literature for life” during the May Fourth period, proletarian revolutionary literature and socialist realism to the New Era literature during the reform and opening up period. Its profound spiritual depth and unique aesthetic beauty function as powerful weapons against the more utilitarianism-oriented kitsch in contemporary Chinese literature.

Because the center of the island does not align with that of the Round Citadel, the bridge was built in a zigzag manner to unite the two parts.45 Yet in Li Keran's painting, the bridge is curved in the opposite direction, from east to west. According to the National Art Museum of China, the painting measures 49.5× 74.8 centimeters. 17. Sa found the image of Mao neither comparable to that of Stalin nor appropriate to the new Communist China. [...]the Communist Party decided to establish a standard portrait of Mao for both the national and the international stage. According to Elizabeth Ten Grotenhuis, this pictorial type is seen only in Japanese art; no example has so far been found in Chinese painting; see Elizabeth Ten Grotenhuis, ''Vision of a Transcendent Realm: Pure Land Images in the Cleveland Museum of Art,'' Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 7 (1991): 274-300.

While Gao Xingjian's discussions of acting and theatre have been analyzed in terms of postmodernism, Western modernism, the idea of exile, and traditional Chinese acting techniques, little has been said about Gao's place within the distinct theoretical, artistic, and material context of the rapidly modernizing pre-Maoist, post-Qing China in which he began his work. Chinese ideas of a distinctly Chinese modernity; the specific way in which China utilized Stanislavski; debates over the status of huaju (spoken drama) and various Chinese forms of theatre; and emergent ideas about the relationship of the state, religion, and the individual provide a seething cauldron of debate. In addition to engaging with Western notions of subjectivity, Gao's early work specifically maneuvers through the terrain of Chinese debates of the period in order to generate a curiously contingent modern Chinese subjectivity, and, in so doing, provides insights into the nature of Chinese modernity.

“In my entire life I did not produce a single painting that was uppermost in mind to create,” the celebrated painter Dong Xiwen (1914–1973) reportedly lamented on his deathbed. Dong may not have produced the dream piece that he would truly cherish, but he did create, albeit unwillingly, a deeply controversial work of art in his 1953 oil painting The Founding Ceremony of the Nation (Kaiguo dadian) (Figures 1 and 2), for it epitomizes the tension between art and politics in the People's Republic of China (PRC). In this famous piece, Dong portrays Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976) in Tiananmen Square on 1 October 1949, with his senior associates in attendance—Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969), Zhu De (1886–1976), Zhou Enlai (1898–1976), Gao Gang (1905–1954), Lin Boqu (1886–1960), and others. They are surrounded by huge lanterns, a Chinese symbol of prosperity, and a sea of red banners that declare the founding of a new nation. When first unveiled in 1953, the painting was widely hailed as one of the greatest oil paintings ever produced by a native artist. In just three months more than half-a-million reproductions of the painting were sold. But the fate of this work soon took an ominous turn, and the artist was requested to make three major revisions during his lifetime. In 1954 Dong was instructed to excise Gao Gang from the scene when Gao was purged by the Party for allegedly plotting to seize power and create an “independent kingdom” in Manchuria. During the Cultural Revolution in the mid-1960s Liu Shaoqi was accused of advocating a “bourgeois reactionary line” and subsequently was purged, and Dong was ordered in 1967 to redo his painting again and erased Liu from the inauguration scene. Then, in 1972, also during the Cultural Revolution, the radicals, commonly labeled the “Gang of Four,” ordered a third revision, namely, that Lin Boqu be eliminated from the painting for allegedly opposing the marriage of Mao and Jiang Qing (1914–1991) during the Yan'an days. By this time Dong was dying of cancer and was too ill to pick up the brush, so his student Jin Shangyi (b. 1934), and another artist, Zhao Yu (1926–1980), were assigned the task. These two artists, afraid of doing further damage to the original piece, eventually produced a replica of the painting, with the ailing Dong brought from the hospital for consultation on his embattled work. Though Dong died the following year, the ill-fated story of The Founding Ceremony of the Nation did not end: in 1979, with the demise of the Gang of Four and the Party's official rehabilitation of Liu Shaoqi, the images of Liu, Gao Gang, and Lin Boqu were restored in the painting. Because Jin Shangyi was on a foreign tour, Yan Zhenduo (b. 1940), a graduate of the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), was called upon to help reinstall the three leaders.

This chapter contains sections titled: Continuity and Change: Crossing the 1949 Divide New Rules and Directions Expanding Studios and Audiences Representative Works of Socialist Cinema The Cultural Revolution: Disruption and Growth Aftermath and Recovery

Earlier writers have described the economic and institutional changes that the Communist Party implemented in the Chinese art world after the establishment of the PRC and the novelty of the new political subject matter, but a major contribution of Ho's analysis is to recognize this universal artistic experience, including “mass sketching,” as a major source of artistic change and innovation in visual art between 1949 and 1976. [...]chapter 7 traces sketching practices that culminated in revolutionary romanticism, an achievement of early socialist China that leveraged the sublime of nineteenth-century European romanticism to triumphantly elevate Chinese revolutionary themes. An innovative and rhetorically refined text suitable for graduate seminars and advanced undergraduates, it is a welcome addition to the few scholarly studies of art in the PRC. 1 Yi Gu, Chinese Ways of Seeing and Open-Air Painting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020); Mia Yinxing Liu, Literati Lenses: Wenren Landscape in Chinese Cinema of the Mao Era (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019); Amanda Wangwright, The Golden Key: Modern Women Artists and Gender Negotiations in Republican China (1911–1949) (Leiden: Brill, 2020).

With the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule came a resurgence of Chinese national pride. Among China's economic and political reforms is a \"growing sphere of freedoms for its artists [that] could combine to produce a cultural renaissance\" (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR). Learn more about China, including its history, modernization and art.