But no matter how Mao was depicted, he had to be painted hong, guang, liang
(红光凉，red, bright, and shining); no grey was allowed for shading, and
the use of black was interpreted as an indication that the artist
harbored counter-revolutionary intentions. His face was painted usually
in reddish and other warm tones, and in such a way that it appeared
smooth and seemed to radiate as the primary source of light in a
composition. In many instances, Mao's head seemed to be surrounded by a
halo which emanated a divine light, illuminating the faces of the
people standing in his presence.
As a super model, every detail of his
representations had to be preconceived along ideological lines and
invested with symbolic meaning. An extreme example of this is the
painting-turned poster Chairman Mao goes to Anyuan.
As a consequence of these creative rules governing the depiction of
Mao, the more god-like and divorced from the masses he became to be
portrayed, often hovering above those masses. And yet, despite this
apparent distance, there was something in the Mao images that struck a
chord with the people, something recognizable that turned him into an
EveryMao. Mao somehow remained united with the people, whether he
inspected fields, shook hands with the peasants, sat down with them,
and shared a cigarette with them; whether he inspected factories or
infra-structural works, joked with the workers, and possibly shared a
cigarette with them; whether he was dressed in military uniform,
discussing strategy with military leaders, inspected the rank-and-file,
or mingled with contingents of Red Guards; whether he stood on the bow
of a ship, dressed in a terry cloth bathrobe after an invigorating swim
in the Yangzi River; whether he headed a column of representatives of
the national minorities; or received a delegation of foreign visitors.
As the Cultural Revolution unfolded, Mao became a
regular presence in every home, either in the form of his official
portrait, or as a bust or other type of statue. Not having the Mao
portrait on display indicated an apparent unwillingness to go with the
revolutionary flow of the moment, or even a counter-revolutionary
outlook, and refuted the central role Mao played not only in politics,
but in the day-to-day affairs of the people as well. The formal
portrait often occupied the central place on the family altar, or at
least the spot where that altar had been located before it had been
demolished by Red Guards in the early days of the Cultural Revolution.
This added to the already god-like stature of Mao as it was created in
propaganda posters.
The days were structured around the ritual of
"asking for instructions in the morning, thanking Mao for his kindness
at noon, and reporting back at night". This involved bowing three
times, the singing of the national anthem, reading passages from the
Little Red Book in front of Mao's picture or bust, and would end with
wishing him 'Ten thousand years'. In the mornings, everybody would
announce what efforts they would make that day for the revolution. In
the evenings, people would report on their accomplishments or failures
and announce their resolutions for the next day. The rituals were often
accompanied by dancing the 'loyalty dance'
(zhongzi wu 忠字舞), which did not involve much more than
stretching one's arms from the heart to Mao's portrait. The movements,
originating from a folk dance popular in Xinjiang, was accompanied by
the song "Beloved Chairman Mao".
In the early 1970s, the extreme and more religious
aspects of Mao's personality cult were being dismantled. In propaganda
posters, proxies such as Lei Feng—or one of his reincarnations—and Chen Yonggui (the model Party secretary of Dazhai
Commune) often replaced Mao himself. This did not diminish the
adulation of Mao, who continued to lead the CCP as it was being
rebuilt. The excesses committed by the people during the heyday of the
Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, including the embarrassing habit
of "3,000 years of emperor-worshipping tradition" which Mao himself had
consciously promoted and in which he himself had basked, were
attributed to Lin Biao, who had—quite literally—fallen from grace in 1971. Similarly, the Army, the former "great school of Mao Zedong Thought",
no longer functioned as a model for the people. Instead, the "fine work
style" of the CCP and the masses were what the army needed to learn
from.
After the Cultural Revolution, the propagation of
the divine presence and the accomplishments of the supreme leader would
never again be repeated in the same intensity, sophistication, and
mind-numbing density. In the China of economic reforms and Open Door policy,
the production of posters containing ideological exhortations was
replaced more and more in the 1980s by those stressing economic
construction, or even ordinary commercial advertisements. In the early
1990s, a resurgence of the popular belief in the protective qualities
of a truly god-like Mao did take place. This MaoFever coincided with
the marking of the centenary of his birth. The continued importance of
Mao as a political symbol is attested to by the issuance of a new
100-yuan bank note in 1999 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the
PRC: the image of a youngish Mao graces the bill. He moreover appeared
in a special series of posters, also showing Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin (the so-called "three generations of leaders"), to mark the occassion.
The 110 commemoration of Mao Zedong's birth (December 2003) [in Chinese]
Sources:
David Apter & Tony Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao's Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1994)
Geremie Barmé, Shades of Mao—The Posthumous Cult of the Great Leader (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe 1996)
Dachang Cong, When Heroes Pass Away—The Invention of a Chinese Communist Pantheon (Lanham MD, etc.: University Press of America, 1997)
Guo Jian, Yongyi Song & Yuan Zhou, Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Lanham, etc.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2006)
Stefan Landsberger, "The Deification of Mao: Religious Imagery and
Practices during the Cultural Revolution and Beyond", in Woei Lien
Chong (ed.), China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—Master Narratives and Post-Mao Counternarratives (Lanham MD, etc.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002), pp. 139-184
Li Zhensheng , Red-Color News Soldier - A Chinese Photographer's Odyssey through the Cultural Revolution (London, etc.: Phaidon Press, 2003)
Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao—The Memoirs of Mao's Personal Physician (London, etc.: Random House 1996)
Lu Xing, Rethoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution—The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture and Communication (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004)
Helmut Martin, Cult & Canon—The Origins and Development of State Maoism (Armonk, NY, etc.: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 1982)
Melissa Schrift, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge—The Creation and Mass Consumption of a Personality Cult (New Brunswick, etc.: Rutgers University Press, 2001)
Frederick C. Teiwes, Politics and Purges in China—Rectification and the Decline of Party Norms, 1950-1965 (Second Edition) (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe 1993)
Frederick Teiwes and Warren Sun, The Tragedy of Lin Biao—Riding the Tiger During the Cultural Revolution 1966-1971 (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 1996)
Ross Terrill, Madame Mao—The White-Boned Demon (Toronto, etc.: Bantam Books 1984)
Roxane Witke, Comrade Chiang Ch'ing (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1977)
Yan Jiaqi & Gao Gao (translated & edited by D.W.Y. Kwok), Turbulent Decade—A History of the Cultural Revolution (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 1996)
Yang Kelin (ed.), 文化大革命博物馆 [Museum of the Cultural Revolution] (Hong Kong: Dongfang chubanshe youxian gongsi, Tiandi tushu youxian gongsi 1995)
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