Chinese Art of The Early People’s Republic: A Transitional Period

Abstract

The four image of Mao that I focus on in this book were produced between 1949 and 1953, commonly recognized as a time of transition. This period and its place within the first sixteen years of the socialist China that led to the Cultural Revolution have drawn increasing attention from scholars of modern China. Jeremy Brown and Paul Pickowicz caution against any generalizations about the time, arguing that its extraordinary complexity and diversity make it “impossible to provide a definitive answer to the question of whether the early 1950s represented a relatively peaceful ‘honeymoon’ or an ominous foreshadowing of disasters to come, a time of dashed promises and betrayed hopes” (2007: 8).