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.

The Political Propaganda Posters in China generally refers to the Posters that created after Mao’s Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art. The target groups of the Propaganda Posters were the workers, the peasants, the soldiers, and the revolutionary cadres, who were the vast majority of the population in China. The goal was to use the Political Propaganda Posters as a “culture army”, for uniting China’s own ranks, defeating the enemy and helping the Chinese revolution. Hence, the topics of those Posters were related to the Historical events that happened at that period of time, and the Posters will either “reduced the domain of China’s feudal culture and of the comprador culture which serves imperialist aggression” or praising the revolution or Political Policies held by Mao at the corresponding period of time.  Because these Posters were serving for the variety of uneducated masses, the style of the Posters were mainly with bright colors and easy to understand. Sophisticated painting skills and Westernized skills were criticized by Mao, and the protagonists in the Posters will always be the masses and Mao. This is one of the Political Propaganda Posters during the Great Leap Forward, showing how People’s Commune policy led Chinese people into a happy life.

“The commune is like a gigantic dragon; production is noticeable awe-inspiring.”

made by Wu Shaoyun, Zhang Yuqing and Lu Zezhi. 1959, September. Shanghai renmin Meishu Chubanshe published

My name is Yueqin Chao, you can call me King or King Chao instead of full name. I am an Asian Study Major History minor Junior student who interested in the 19th century China History. Because I think that period of time was a period of revolution and changes, and to understand the modern Chinese society we should first know about that period of history. I choose this class because I think this will be very helpful for me to researching the poster and propaganda during Mao Years, how to analyze it within and without the political ideas, which might be my senior research.