Culture of the Chinese revolution: symbolic and semiotic differences from the world culture of revolution

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines images of revolution in Chinese artworks within a global context. It argues that the theme of revolution in Chinese art can be divided into three movements: (1) Art of Scars, (2) New Wave ’85, from which political pop art and cynical realism took their roots, and (3) the modern twenty-first century trend of Mao and the Cultural Revolution. An analysis of political pop art identified a synthesis of academic and iconographic features and Western philosophical concepts, which can be found in the semiotic elements of the painting Maozedong: AO. Its cynical realism is similar to the satire of the American painter in his Daughters of Revolution. Both artworks depict images of the "citizen" in an era of historical change. This analysis of the painting in the style of Mao and the Cultural Revolution offers a rethinking of traditional Chinese canons as a response to the Western religious traditions influenced by a multicultural environment. The data can be used as an additional source to examine symbolism and semiotics in the artistic language of Chinese artists representing the culture of revolution.