Culture of the People's Republic of China
Temples and churches were vandalized by the Red Guards; Confucian morality was frowned upon; and a cult of personality surrounding Chairman Mao Zedong was promoted.
Initially, only eight "Sample Acts", or propaganda performances, were allowed, along with the "Loyalty Dance", posters that deify Chairman Mao, and a large number of revolutionary songs such as The East Is Red.
The television stations in the PRC have in recent years produced numerous quality drama series, covering everything from imperial history to modern-day police actions, and are gaining immense popularity in mainland China.
This was brought about mainly by Lu Xun (1881–1936), China's first major stylist in vernacular prose (other than the novel), and the literary reformers Hu Shih (1891–1962) and Chen Duxiu (1880–1942).
By 1932 it had adopted the Soviet doctrine of socialist realism, that is, the insistence that art must concentrate on contemporary events in a realistic way, exposing the ills of non-socialist society and promoting the glorious future under communism.
After 1949 socialist realism, based on Mao's famous 1942 "Yan'an Talks on Literature and Art," became the uniform style of Chinese authors whose works were published.
The ability to satirize and expose the evils in contemporary society that had made writers useful to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before its accession to power was no longer welcomed.
Even more unwelcome to the party was the persistence among writers of what was deplored as "petty bourgeois idealism," "humanitarianism," and an insistence on freedom to choose the subject matter.
Intensely patriotic, these authors wrote cynically of the political leadership that gave rise to the extreme chaos and disorder of the Cultural Revolution.
During this period, a large number of novels and short stories were published; literary magazines from before the Cultural Revolution were revived, and new ones were added to satisfy the seemingly insatiable appetite of the reading public.
[2] This changed with the 1981 FIVB Volleyball Women's World Cup where the Chinese team won the gold medal amid enormous public attention.
The acting is based on allusion: gestures, footwork, and other body movements express such actions as riding a horse, rowing a boat, or opening a door.
Similarly, the attack in November 1965 on Beijing deputy mayor Wu Han and his historical play, "Hai Rui's Dismissal from Office," signaled the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
In the 1930s, theatrical productions performed by traveling Red Army cultural troupes in Communist-controlled areas were consciously used to promote party goals and political philosophy.
In late 1985 Sha Yexin was accepted into the CCP and appointed head of the Shanghai People's Art Theater, where he continued to produce controversial plays.
After the 1942 Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, a large-scale campaign was launched in the Communist-controlled areas to adapt folk music to create revolutionary songs to educate the largely illiterate rural population on party goals.
A number of orchestras from Eastern Europe performed in China, and Chinese musicians and musical groups participated in a wide variety of international festivals.
The Legendary Four is a group of four composers—Tan Dun, Ye Xiaogang, Guo Wenjing, and Qu Xiaosong—who studied composition at the same time in the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution.
At the beginning of the revolution, they were all required to leave home and work on farms, where they gathered incomparable compositional experiences through the influences of traditional Chinese folk music.
In imperial times, painting and calligraphy were the most highly appreciated arts in court circles and were produced almost exclusively by amateurs — aristocrats and scholar-officials — who alone had the leisure to perfect the technique and sensibility necessary for great brushwork.
In the Song dynasty (960–1279) times, landscapes of more subtle expression appeared; immeasurable distances were conveyed through the use of blurred outlines, mountain contours disappearing into the mist, and impressionistic treatment of natural phenomena.
Emphasis was placed on the spiritual qualities of the painting and on the ability of the artist to reveal the inner harmony of man and nature, as perceived according to Taoist and Buddhist concepts (see Hundred Schools of Thought).
Animated films using a variety of folk arts, such as papercuts, shadow plays, puppetry, and traditional paintings, also were very popular for entertaining and educating children.
The shadow play is a form of puppetry that is performed by moving figures made of animal skins or cardboard held behind a screen lit by lamplight.
Another popular folk art is the quyi, which consists of various kinds of storytelling and comic monologues and dialogues, often to the accompaniment of clappers, drums, or stringed instruments.
Variety arts, including tightrope walking, acrobatics, animal acts, and sleight of hand, date back at least as far as the Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) and were very popular in the imperial court.
Troupes have been established in the provinces, autonomous regions, and special municipalities, and theaters specifically dedicated to the variety arts have been built in major cities.
During the Chinese Civil War, New China Booksellers (Xinhua Shudian) published a large amount of Marxist literature and educational materials in the communist-controlled areas.
Mobile bookshops made regular visits to factories, mines, rural villages, and People's Liberation Army units, and service was provided in those locations through which individuals could request books.
In 2014 all "tainted artists" were blocked on all Chinese broadcasting platforms by order of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.
