The commune is like a gigantic dragon, production is noticeable awe-inspiring

公社如巨龙, 生产显威风

Gongshe ru julong, shengchan xian weifeng

This political poster was made in 1959, September by Wu Shaoyun. The poster is 53×77 cm’s large, painted by oil, and published by the Shanghai renming meishu chubanshe. It was created during the Great Leap Forward Period to publicizing the “success” of People’s commune. The Great Leap Forward was the period of time when Mao decided to use three years to catch up British and five years to catch up America in both agriculture and iron production aspects. And the people’s commune was an important part for accessing this goal. In the commune system, masses worked together, ate together and lived together to get credits. It was a period of public ownership society. In this Poster, there’s totally five people in the middle who carrying a large basket. They were all peasants, soldiers, workers, party cadres and students, which corresponding to Mao’s Yan’an Talk that the art works should serve the peasants, soldiers and workers. The Dragon was the symbol of the commune, which implied that the commune system would eventually success. Masses who stand on the Dragon raises a huge basket with plenty of foods, showing the prosperities and huge rise of agriculture production that commune system could attain. The plenty of foods also implied that the agriculture production was excess the goal, which could stimulate masses to engaging in the agriculture work. In the right side there’s a door named “跃进门”, the “Leap Forward Gate”, which corresponding to a Chinese saying that “鲤鱼跃龙门”. This was the symbol that People’s commune will successfully achieve Mao’s plan to catch up Western countries in just several years, and it was the Great Leap Forward movement that leading masses to the prosperity life.  The background of the painting was depicted exaggerated, with realistic style of depictions with human characters. This was the academic realism style which started in the 1950-60s. The author used bright colors to draw the happiness emotion to the audience, and people’s facing are full of smiles, both implies their positive attitude toward the Great Leap Forward Movements.

References:

The commune is like a gigantic dragon, production is noticeable awe-inspiring | Chinese Posters | Chineseposters.net

Julia F.Andrews and Kuiyi Shen. The Art of Modern China, University of California Press, 142-144.