Black Painting incident

The "Black Painting" incident, also known as the criticism of the Black Painting movement, was a political movement during the cultural revolution in mainland China.^[2][3][4] In the few months following January 1974, Yao WenYuan, Jiang Qing, and others launched a criticism of Chinese paintings they considered problematic, exhibiting hundreds of "Black Paintings" in the Great Hall of the People, the National Art Museum of China, and other places. They were exhibited to the head of the central government as well as the revolutionary masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers so that the groups could criticize the paintings.^[2][3][5][6] There is no uniform definition of "Black Painting", though most Black Painters were accused of distorting, vilifying, or attacking socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat; catering to the Western bourgeoisie and revisionism; or remembering Lin Biao.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The entire art circle in mainland China, including hundreds of painters such as Li Keran, Huang Yongyu, Lin Fengmian, Feng Zikai, and Li Kuchan, were implicated. Among them, Huang Yongyu's painting "Owl" was listed at the top of the "Black Painting Exhibition".^{[2][3][5][6][7]} The "Black Painting" incident is related to the criticism of Lin Piao and the Confucius movement as it pertained to Zhou Enlai, then Premier of the State Council^[2][3][8][9]

History

Background

In 1966, Mao Zedong and others launched the Cultural Revolution in mainland China ^[10][11] As early as 1964, Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and others criticised the late master of traditional Chinese painting Qi Baishi. In the early stage of the Cultural Revolution, Qi Baishi was "down", and Huang Yu became the first Black Painter to be publicly criticised ^[12][13][14] In the late Cultural Revolution, from 1971 to 1973, because the "highest instructions" could not be imposed on others in diplomatic activities, Zhou Enlai, then Premier of the State Council, instructed several times that the artworks arranged by major hotels should conform to the national style and contain the spirit of the times. He also said they should reflect China's artistic level.^[4][8][12] At the same time, Zhou Enlai and others presided over the recovery and development of foreign economy and trade and resumed foreign exports in 1972. Zhou Enlai, Li Xiannian, and others believed that exporting paintings could earn foreign exchange, but found few buyers of revolutionary propaganda paintings. Instead, they printed publications and published a large number of paintings by artists such as Li Keran.^[5][15] It included the picture album of "Chinese Painting" compiled and printed by the Shanghai Arts and Crafts Branch of China Light Industry Import and Export Company, with eight-colour printing and Chinese and English comparison - a publicity product for export.^[2][3][6]

After the September 1st incident^{[clarification needed]} in 1971, Zhou Enlai transferred some well-known painters such as Wu Zuoren, Li Keran, and Li Kuchan back to Beijing in the name of the diplomatic needs for Nixon's visit to China in 1972.^[16][17] Zhou Enlai pointed out that it was inappropriate to hang portraits of Chairman Mao and Mao Zedong's Quotations everywhere in hotels that received foreign guests, including overseas Chinese, Hong Kongese, Macanese, and Taiwanese compatriots.^[12] At that time, most of the transferred painters were painting for hotels and were thus known as the "Hotel Painting School". A group arranged of them for art decoration for the recent building of the Beijing Hotel. The central hall of the building was surrounded by Yuan Yunfu, Wu Guanzhong, Zhu Da Nian, and Huang Yongyu.^[2][12][18] On October 1973, during a travelling sketch for this purpose, Huang Yongyu was invited to draw an owl, which was later listed as the head of the "Black Painting" movement on a page for Song Wenzhi, and was by chance at the painter Xu Linlu's home.^{[2][3][9][12][18]}

Timeline

On the evening of November 23, 1973, Wang Mantian (Mao Zedong's niece), then deputy leader of the Cultural Group of the State Council, Gao Jinde, Shao Yu, the head of the Art Department of the Cultural Group, and others raised the issue of "Black Painting" for the first time at a meeting at the Beijing Friendship Hotel.^[2][18][19] Since then, the forces of the Gang of Four have launched a national "Black Painting" tracing activity. On December 15 of the same year, the People's Daily published an article "We should attach importance to class struggle in the field of culture and art" signed by "Culan", in which^[2][18][20]

The overthrown landlord bourgeoisie refused to give up their ideological and cultural positions easily. In some corners, they were still stubbornly resisting. For example, in some places, some people play bad dramas, talk bad books, sing bad songs, and secretly or openly compete with the proletariat for ideological and cultural positions. ... We should mobilise the masses to consciously resist the spread of bad dramas, bad books, bad songs, and bad paintings, and use socialist literature and art to occupy the position, to effectively defend and develop the victory of the proletarian cultural revolution.

On January 2, 1974, Yao Wenyuan severely criticised the Chinese Painting album in Shanghai, which was regarded as the official beginning of the "black painting incident".^[2][3][18] At a meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, Yao Wenyuan accused the album of "Black Water in Montenegro", "Retance of Countercurrent", "Catering the Western bourgeoisie and Revisionism, and a local authentic "self-restraint" album". The "black painting" movement is linked to the "criticism of Lin, Kong and Zhou Gong", and the spearhead is aimed at Zhou Enlai.^{[3][4][8][9][12]} the Spring Festival in 1974, Wang Mantian led a group of critoes to Beijing Hotel, Liuguo Hotel and other places to select "Black Paintings",^{[2][4][12][21]} began to plan the Black Painting^[2][8] exhibition with the intent of "countering the re-back tide of literary and artistic black lines in the field". He also sent people to more than a dozen provinces and cities across the country to search for "Black Paintings". Despite this, there is no clear standard as to what constitutes a black painting. Ultimately, they selected more than 200 paintings and held a "Black Painting Exhibition"^[4][12] in Beijing in mid-February. The exhibition was called "criticizing the forest and criticising the Kong to contact the reality of the art front" and was held in the Great Hall of the People and the National Art Museum of China.^{[2][6][8][16]} It is said that it was exhibited in the Great Hall of the People at the Review. It was exhibited at the National Art Museum of China in early April for the revolutionary masses of workers, peasants and soldiers to visit and criticise.^[4][12]

At the same time, on March 29, Beijing Daily published an article titled "Assessed Paintings Created by Some Hotels and Hotels", making the crusade against "Black Paintings" public for the first time. In addition to criticizing Huang Yongyu's "Owl", The article also criticized the works of Zong Qixiang, Li Keran, Wu Zuoren and other painters.^[2] On April 5, "Beijing Daily" published a related report on Beijing Hotel's campaign to criticize "black paintings", titled "Resolutely Criticize "Self-restraint and Return to Rituals" in Contact with the Reality, and Resolutely Fight Against the Resurgence of Black Lines in Literature and Art", the report wrote:^[2]

Comrades from the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts sent two big-character posters to the hotel, sharply criticizing the hotel’s leadership for the problem of some black paintings on the traditional Chinese paintings that the hotel was preparing for the decoration of the rooms in the new building. They considered it a serious mistake to give the green light to the resurgence of the black line of literature and art. These two revolutionary big-character posters shocked the hotel leaders. They convened the party committee that night and organized employees to see the black paintings exhibition. Everyone was very angry after seeing the black and bad paintings, and quickly set off a critique of criticism. Within two weeks, they wrote 260. Many manuscripts were criticized, nine criticism meetings were held, and more than 70 people made speeches.

The "Black Painting" movement also spread to Shanghai, Shaanxi, Hubei and other places. Many critical articles appeared in newspapers and periodicals in various places, which affected the entire art world.^{[6][7][8][18]} In Shaanxi province alone, more than 20 painters were labeled with the "Black painting" term, including Shi Lu, then chairman of the Shaanxi branch of the Chinese Artists Association. The relevant departments in Shaanxi also set up a preparatory group to criticize "anti-animators" Shi Lu, and mobilized Xi'an Dozens of scholars from the fields of politics, literature, history, and fine arts came to comment on Shi Lu's so-called "black paintings", and produced a book "Annotation on Shi Lu's Reactionary Calligraphy and Painting".^[6][8][22]

Conclusion

In April 1974, when the campaign of criticizing "Black Paintings" reached its climax, Mao Zedong issued the "supreme instruction" on the issue of criticizing "Black Paintings", saying: "Chinese paintings, with splashes of ink, how can they not be black?... Owl One eye is open, and the other eye is closed.”^{[2][4][12][18]} Afterwards, the movement to criticize “black paintings” gradually cooled down. However, until the end of 1974, there was still a small amount critical articles being published regularly.^[2][18] On November 26, 1974, the "People's Daily" published an article signed by "Xiaoluan" "The Art of Fighting in the Picture Scroll of the Times - After Viewing the National Art Exhibition", which mentioned the criticism of "black paintings" in the following form ^[2][24]

Examples of "Black Painting" Criticism

Huang Yongyu's "Owl" was listed at the top of the "Black Painting Exhibition",^{[2][3][6][16]} and there are documents that this work was characterized as "Tianzi No. 1 Counter-revolutionary Black Painting".^[4][12] Because of this, Huang Yongyu and his family were locked up in the bullpen.^[25][26] On March 29, 1974, "Beijing Daily" published an article titled "Assessing the Paintings Created by Some Hotels and Hotels", thinking:^[2]

You see, isn’t this picture of an owl with one eye open and one eye closed fully revealing the hostility of the creators who hate the reality of the socialist revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution? Before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the creators of this black painting had concocted a series of reactionary fables with animals as the theme, viciously attacking the dictatorship of the proletariat in the superstructure field as a "snap" of spiders, and abusing the Great Leap Forward as if "The donkey pulling the mill" can only circle in place, and so on. This is the man who has always been dissatisfied with the criticism of him by the revolutionary masses during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and even engraved the words "lawless" on the stamp, in a vain attempt to negate the law of the dictatorship of the proletariat and change the sky of socialism. The poisonous weed "Owl" is a concentrated expression of the reactionary psychology of the creators.

In the album "Chinese Painting", there is a picture titled "Welcome to Spring". The painter is Chen Dayu, and the painting is a rooster crowing in front of the winter jasmine flowers.^[27][28] In this regard, Yao Wenyuan wrote the following instructions:^[2][3][6]

The painting features a few pale winter jasmines at the upper end of the frame and an angry rooster is prominently depicted in the whole painting. This rooster's mouth is closed, its crown is erect, its neck feathers are flaring, its claws are scratching the ground, its eyes are rolled, and its tail is raised to the sky. Air and posture. ... This is not welcoming the spring, it is completely an extreme hatred of the socialist spring and the prosperous scene after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. On this angry rooster with its tail up in the sky, there is entrusted the dark psychology of a small group of "restoration fanatics" in today's society. They are not reconciled to their own failures and are ready to fight the proletariat anytime, anywhere."

On May 31, 1974, Shanghai's "Wen Wei Po" published an article signed by "Lin Chengfu" ""Black Mountains and Bad Waters" Hidden Harm", which focused on criticizing Li Keran's works:^[2]

In front of us is a volume of "Chinese Painting". The first thing that catches our eyes is a puddle of ink on the cover. After a closer look, it is a Chinese painting titled "Landscape". Such a painting of "Black Mountain and Evil Water" is placed on the cover, and it even occupies two-thirds of the cover, which shows how much the editor and printer valued it... You see, in this picture Up and near, there are many strange rocks and ghostly shadows, dark and eerie; in the distance, barren mountains like wolf teeth are wrapped in purple-gray clouds, and the only ray of sky is dark clouds, which are utterly oppressive. I can't breathe. At the bottom of the mountain is a twisting and turbid stream of sewage, and a few weak boats with broken sails are drawn crookedly. The whole picture is deformed and weird, with black mountains and black waters. Also in this album is a landscape painting entitled "Huangshan", an old work of this "famous artist" in 1963, and it is the same. In the middle of the painting is a dark pile, and a few sparse dead trees are dotted on the bald mountain and rocks. The lower left corner is still deliberately managed, and there is a pale ancient pavilion in the corner, and a villain who has been uglinessed like a ghost is even more black. It is ugly and unsightly. Under the writer's pen, the beautiful and lush Huangshan was ruined like this!

See also

• Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius
• Counterattack the Right-Deviationist Reversal-of-Verdicts Trend
• Struggle session
• Four Olds
• Literary inquisition

References

Further reading

• ihui: "Collage of Fragments in the Wind (1) - Tracing the Art Situation in the Early Stage of the " Cultural Revolution"" (archive), "Book City" Issue 29, October 2008. Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• "Xu Linlu's works were criticized as black paintings" (archive), "Beijing Evening News". Sina, August 16, 2011.
• "Li Hui Dialogue with Huang Yongyu: Art Needs Sincerity and Conscience" (archive), "Beijing News", September 28, 2012.
• Yueya Calligraphy and Painting: "Memories: The 1974 Criticism of the "Black Painting" Incident" (archive). Sohu, September 13, 2017.
• Song Yongjin: Why did Lin Fengmian paint "black paintings" at that time? "(archive), Artron Art Network. China.com, January 29, 2018.