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For Xiaogang Zhu, the first two years of his college education were during the Cultural Revolution. French Impressionism seemed to be the dividing line with the authorities. Anything done in a style before that period was okay. Xiaogang had a friend who worked in the Beijing Library. The friend sneaked a book of French Impressionist reproductions out of the library for Xiaogang. The book was forbidden. "I really liked it," he says, "it was a strong influence" Once the Cultural Revolution was over, and he was finishing up his last two years of college, French Impressionism was allowed.
After Mao Zedong's death in 1976, the situation for artists bettered in China. In 1979 the Fourth Congress of Artists and Writers met and issued a statement that represented a kind of compromise between party control and artistic freedom. "The Chinese National Artists Association will legally defend the artist's right to individual expression as long as the artist does not subvert the goals of the Communist Party." From this point on, besides a loosening of subject matter, other styles and techniques of painting were allowed.
The reign of Social Realist art was over. It's style of realism was marked not so much by technical perfection but more by its subject matter and search for unifying themes. Like Russia, China is a huge country made up of cultural diverse ethnic cultures. The Social Realist art was used to generate a national spirit. Although the stifling of artistic freedom that went along with it was not good, Social Realism brought China out of a stale academic tradition toward an art that was accessible to all strata of society. It revitalized portraiture and landscape and gave them a contemporary appeal.
Now, according to Xiaogang, today it's not the government that is the problem. "There is more restriction from older artists, the more conservative, because they still paint the social realism style. They don't like paintings fairly loose, impressionistic, or abstract. They are not very happy to see that type of work. The main reason for restriction on art is their influence, not the government. Right now China is very free."
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