Literature Takes a New Stand in China, as Does Music and Art

Art:
Art during the Cultural Revolution was very productive. There was an overflow of paintings and drawings, but of what exactly? Since Mao Zedong had started the Cultural Revolution, he was considered a god. Therefore many painting were drawn of him. The one below on the left is a picture of Mao Zedong on his way to An Yuen. If you look, it appears to be that Mao is bigger than the mountains, regardless of foreground and background. This symbolizes his power. And now, on the right we have a picture of Mao leading people who appear to be low class, to the mountain top. This was because people thought he saved millions by giving poor people wealth.



http://when-we-were-young.tripod.com/artgallery/8061.jpg
Photo taken by: unspecified



             



http://when-we-were-young.tripod.com/artgallery/8022.jpg
Photo taken by: unspecified



                                                                                        

Music:

During the Cultural Revolution, many more musical pieces were created. Not like today though, where there is a variety in music. All the songs back then had to do with how times were changing for the better, how great Mao was, or even about the working class. Times changed after the revolution, and much of the music became strongly less popular.

Literature:

Expectantly, lots of literature was written during the Cultural Revolution. New types of literature, at that. One thing written many times over and over was something called da-zi-bao. This was a type of writing where one would write mean and often untruthful things about someone. Most of the time the victim was forced to read the dai-zi-bao out loud, or their house was vandalized with it. Other than this, nothing much else was written.