Never Forget Class Struggle

Han Xin’s use of color and course brushstrokes in this oil painting is unusual for works created during this period and shows a Fauvist influence, a style that was not acceptable by government standards. Han Xin was one of the youngest artists to be included in a “black paintings” exhibition. He was part of the “Devils of Painting, Old and Young” exhibition, held at the Shanghai Art Museum. The first “black painting” exhibitions were held in 1974 at the National Art Museum in Beijing after the Ministry of Culture determined that a group of artists, who mostly worked in ink painting, were ruining the socialist system.

The No Name Group began in the early 1960s as a collective of artists who were interested in painting their surroundings. The artists in this group pursued the idea of “art for art’s sake” in defiance of the prevailing idea that art should serve the people or the political ideology of the day. They created portraits, still lives, and landscapes; subjectivity and individualism were at the core of their artistic practice. Although active beginning in the 1960s, the group’s first exhibition took place in 1975. The No Name Group is now considered to be the first non-official art movement to have developed after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

West Lake illustrates the artist’s memory of Hangzhou where he served as President of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts for ten years. Lin Fengmain, who studied art in France, was forced to leave the Academy after a campaign to denounce western influences on art was launched in 1949, after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. During the Cultural Revolution, his works were criticized as “black paintings” for their gloomy, shadowy atmospheres. His home was raided and he was later imprisoned. Lin Fengmian is said to have destroyed many of his works, tearing them up and flushing them down the toilet, before Red Guards came to raid his home. He was imprisoned until 1972. Six years later he settled in Hong Kong where he lived until his death in 1991. He is considered to be a pioneer of modern ink painting.

In traditional Chinese painting, pine trees represent the noble spirit of the intellectual. The artist Shi Lu wrote in a poem: “I love the pines of Mount Hua, tall, noble, solemn, and dignified.”

Shi Lu was an important ink painter of the Chang’an School in Xi’an. His paintings are recognized for their expressive brushwork and highly individualized style. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he was publicly criticized, tortured, and sent to a labor camp where he incurred both physical and mental injuries from which he never fully recovered.