Arts
During the Cultural Revolution, there was an overhaul of many of the arts, with the intention of producing new and innovative art that reflected the benefits of a socialist society. As a part of this, many artists whose work was deemed to be bourgeoise or anti-socialist were persecuted and prevented from working.
At the same time, other art forms flourished in the People's Republic during the Revolution. One of the most notable examples of this was the Peking opera, which saw “some amazing achievements in those years” under the leadership of such figures as Yu Huiyong. One of China's most important playwrights and directors of the late twentieth century, Zhang Guangtian, has argued that during the Cultural Revolution, the innovations that were encouraged in the Peking Opera—which primarily involved “the formalism and style of simplification and concision”—led it into one of its greatest periods.
Another form of the arts which was influenced, much in the same style as was the traditional theatre, was popular song. Many revolution-themed songs, such as "Ode to the Motherland", "Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman", "The East Is Red" and "Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" were either written or became extremely popular during this period. "The East Is Red", especially, became popular; it de facto supplanted "The March of the Volunteers" as the national anthem of China, though the latter was restored to its previous place after the Cultural Revolution ended.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Revolution, Policy and Effect
Famous quotes containing the word arts:
“The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment.”
—Joyce Cary (1888–1957)