Les racines populaires de l’art de la propagande communiste en Chine : des gravures sur bois du Mouvement pour la nouvelle xylographie (xinxin banhua 新新版畫) aux nouvelles estampes du Nouvel An (xin nianhua 新年畫)

Abstract

This article discusses the folk origins of Communist political art in China which emerged in rural areas during the period of the anti-Japanese war (1937-1945). The introduction of the New Woodcut Movement in the mid-1930s in Shanghai and Canton under the supervision of the writer, Lu Xun, marked the beginning of artistic practices favouring the use of print media in order to establish a more direct contact with the lower strata of the population. But black and white woodblock, created by educated intellectuals in an urban environment, proved unappealing to peasant audiences after artists moved to the rural areas of North-West China due to the outbreak of the War. A shift occurred towards the popular language of the peasants’ New Year Prints (nianhua), in the liberated areas controlled by Communist troops. By adopting Mao’s pro-rural political discourse and appropriating folk visual practices, the urban origins of the woodblock were altered into a new visual idiom, which used formal elements derived from folk heritage, but was partially regulated by aesthetics associated with the artists’ previous academic training. The article concludes by arguing that the form of political art created in these circumstances has continued to influence the artistic production of the People’s Republic of China after its founding in 1949.