1.Spence, Search for Modern China , pp 646-648.

2. Ibid., p. 643.

3. Gao Jingde, "Jianchi meishu lingyu de wenyi geming; buxu wei heihua fan'an" (Resolutely maintain the literary and arts revolution in the art world; it is not permitted to reverse the black painting cases), MS 1976, no. 1, pp. 11-12.

4. MS 1976, no. 3, pp. 30-31, 46. Other artists included Wan Qingli, Lou Jiaben, Xu Xi, Lu Chen, Lei Dezu, and Ye Xin.

5. MS 1976, no. 4, pp. 40-42.

6. Interview with AH. Richard C. Kraus, in "Arts Policies of the Cultural Revolution," analyzed the career of Yu Huiyong, who became Minister of Culture in 1975. Among the many parallels between the worlds of art and music are Yu's promotion of national music during the Anti-Hu Feng campaign, pp. 221-222.

7. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi , p. 309.

8 Qingzhu zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jianjun wushi zhounian: Meishu zuopinzhanlan tulu (Pictorial catalogue of the Art Exhibition to Celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the People's Liberation Army) (Beijing: n.p., 1977).

9. MS 1977, no. 1, front cover.

10. MS 1977, no. 2, front cover. Both works were exhibited in the February national exhibition, oil painting section; see Quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan tulu (zhongguohua, youhua) 1977: Relie qingzhu Hua Guofeng tongzhi ren zhonggong zhongyang zhuxi, zhongyang junwei zhuxi, relie qingzhu fencui 'sirenbang' cuandang douquan yinmou de weida shengli (Catalogue of the National Art Exhibition [ guohua and oil painting]: ardently celebrate Comrade Hua Guofeng's appointment as central party chairman and chairman of the Central Military Committee and ardently celebrate the great victory of smashing the ''Gang of Four's" plot to usurp the party and take power) (Tianjin: Tianjin People's Art Press, 1978), cat. nos. 19 and 35.

11. Quanguo meishu zuopin zhanlan tulu ( zhong guohua, youhua ): Relie qingzhu Hua Guofeng , front cover, and oil painting sec., cat. no. 1.

12. The work, With You in Charge, I Am at Ease , was painted in 1977 by Zhan Beixin, Huang Naiyuan, Tai Tianjin, and Liu Wenxi. For a reproduction, see MS 1977, no. 1, p. 17.

13. Interviews with IY and IZ.

14. Qingzhu zhongguo renmin jiefangjun jianjun wushi zhounian .

15. Interviews with AL, AM, and X.

16. See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi, 1985-1986 (Contemporary Chinese art) (Shanghai: Shanghai People's Press, 1991), p. 26. Unfortunately, this interesting tome was published too late for it to make substantial contributions to this book. Gao Minglu has also outlined his group's ideas in "Zhongguo dangdai meishu sichao" (Trends in contemporary Chinese art), Xiongshi meishu , no. 216 (1989): 90-99.

17 For discussions of the quasi-official and unofficial exhibitions, see Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu , pp. 317-319. Such summaries of interview material are important because Meishu rarely reported these sorts of activities. Chen's chronology of the quasi-official exhibitions differs slightly from other versions I have obtained, but his reportage is the most comprehensive available. Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan are also useful sources for this material (see Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi , pp. 308-316), as is Cohen, who discusses many of the exhibitions in the course of her biographies of individual artists.

18. These events are mentioned in Julia F. Andrews, "Wang Yani and Contemporary Chinese Painting," in Yani: The Brush of Innocence , ed. Wai-ching Ho (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1989), pp. 46-47.

19 Ellen Johnston Laing's article "Zhongguo de 'yuegui' yishu yu 'fandui' yishu" ("Deviant" and "dissident'' art in the People's Republic of China), Jiuzhou yuekan (Chinese culture quarterly) 2, no. 2 (Jan. 1988), contains a detailed analysis of the difference between intentional and accidental opposition to official policies.

20. Interview with X. Chen Yingde dates the exhibition to 1978 and writes that it included works not recalled by two participants.

21. Interview with X.

22. [Shen] Jiawei (pseud.), "Han Xin qiren qihua" (Han Xin, the man and his art), Meiyuan , ser. no. 37 (1987, no. 4): 42..

23. Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu , pp. 319-310; Zhang Shaoxia and Li Xiaoshan, Zhongguo xiandai huihuashi , p. 312; Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi , p. 690.

24. Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu , pp. 317-319.

25 Jiang Feng, "Xinchun huazhan" (New spring painting exhibition), in JFMSLJ , pp. 126-127.

26. Jiang Feng, "Wenyi xuyao minzhu (Literature and Arts Require Democracy)," reprinted from RMRB , Feb. 20, 1979, in JFMSLJ , pp. 139-142.

27. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, "Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu," p. 104.

28. Meishu fenglei , no. 1 (1967): 14-15.

29 MS 1977, no. 3, pp. 24-25, 28-29.

30. See his article on Feng Xuefeng, "Budan shi weile aishang—huainian wuchang jieji geming zuojia Feng Xuefeng" (Not only for sadness—mourning the proletarian revolutionary writer Feng Xuefeng), in JFMSLJ , pp. 163-166, which com-plains about the erroneous case against Feng, but not about the party.

31. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, "Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu," p. 104

32. See Cohen, New Chinese Painting , pp. 76-81, for a further discussion of the group; and for Chen Danqing, see pp. 103-104.

33. MS 1979, no. 3, pp. 3-5.

34. MS 1979, no. 10, p. 5.

35. In a 1980 article about his work, the artist describes the two most important influences on his graduation picture as the Dunhuang murals and a set of seventeenth-century woodcuts, Chen Hongshou's Bogu yezi . See Yuan Yunsheng, "Bihua zhi meng" (The mural dream), Meishu yanjiu , 1980, no. 1, p. 5. We assume, based on stylistic affinities with his work, that Yuan was most interested in the early Dunhuang murals (similar to the one we reproduce in fig. 33), which share with Chen Hongshou's prints a figure style in which human forms are elongated for aesthetic or psychological effect.

36. Yuan is explicit about his abstraction and manipulation of form for expressive purposes. Yuan interpreted the water-splashing festival itself as an expression of humanity's pursuit of and yearning for freedom and happiness. See "Bihua zhi meng," p. 7.

37. For some examples of Art Deco-influenced Shanghai commercial art, see Minick and Jiao, Chinese Graphic Design , pp. 152-153. Such work is the most likely source for the languorous outline-and-color styles of the 1980s, though the details of its survival and revival have not yet been explored.

38. See chapter 2, note 31.

39. Wang, Zhao, and Zhao, "Zhongyang meishu xueyuan lishi, fulu," p. 103.

40. Meishu fenglei , no. 3 (1967): 28.

41. Interviews with the artist, Los Angeles, 1985 and 1987.

42. Interviews with Jiang, Los Angeles, 1987; and with Yuan, New York, 1987 and 1988. For Jiang, see Cohen, New Chinese Painting , pp. 73-74; for Yuan, p. 43.

43. Some critics, including Gao Minglu, refer to this as "critical realism" ( pipan xianshi zhuyi ). See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi , p. 691.

44. Their work was first exhibited in Chongqing in October 1979 as part of the Sichuan Provincial Exhibition to Commemorate the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic, and some pieces appeared in the National Art Exhibition to Commemorate the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China, held at the Chinese National Art Gallery in February 1980. See Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi , p. 691.

45. Spence, Search for Modern China , p. 611.

46. For a reproduction, see MS 1980, no. 1, p. 22; Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi , p. 36.

47. Gao Xiaohua, "Weishemme hua Wei shemme ?" (Why paint Why ?), MS 1979, no. 7, P. 7.

48. "Feng" (Maple), adapted from a short story by Cheng Yi, illustrated by Chen Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, Lianhuanhuabao , 1979, no. 8, inside front cover, pp. 1-2, 35-37, back cover.

49. Cheng Yiming, Liu Yulian, and Li Bing, "Guanyu chuangzuo lianhuanhua 'Feng' de yixie xiangfa" (Some thoughts on creating the lianhuanhua "Maple"), MS 1980, no. 1, pp. 34-35.

50. I have been influenced in this reading of the work by Jane Debevoise's brownbag talk on contemporary Chinese painting given in 1982 at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. See also Cohen, New Chinese Painting , p. 106; and my brief essay "The Peasant's Pen: Some Thoughts on Realism in Modern Chinese Art," Search, Research, and Discovery in the Arts (Columbus, Ohio) 8 (Autumn 1987): 6-9.

51. See chapter 2, note 32.

52. This account is based on interviews and the version published by Chen Yingde, Haiwai kan dalu yishu , p. 331; and Lü Peng and Yi Dan, Zhongguo xiandai yishushi, 1979-1989 (A history of Chinese modern art) (Changsha: Hunan Art Press, 1992), pp. 70-72. The latter was received too late to consult for other material.

53. Wang Keping's estimate has not been independently verified.

54. Interview with VV. The account in Lü Peng and Yi Dan, Zhongguo xiandai yishushi , pp. 70-72, refers to the painter Liu Xun as the official with whom the xing-xing artists negotiated, but fails to mention hoodlums.

55. See Cohen's excellent discussion of this event and the subsequent rise and fall of the group's reputation in official circles, in New Chinese Painting , pp. 59-63.

56. Interview, Beijing, 1986.

57. The female artist Li Shuang was later arrested for cohabiting with a French diplomat.

58. Contemporary documentation on the avant-garde movements of the mid-1980s is summarized in Gao Minglu et al., Zhongguo dangdai meishushi .

59. See above, p. 24. Also see Jiang Feng, "Huihua shang liyong jiu xingshi wenti."

60. Chu-tsing Li, Trends , p. 231.

61. Perry Link (ed.), Roses and Thorns , pp. 1-41; Stubborn Weeds , pp. 1-30. Richard C. Kraus, "Arts Policies of the Cultural Revolution," discusses effects of control in that period. See esp. pp. 224-235.

62. Examples of writers and artists who have suffered for their work can, of course, be found in the West. It might be interesting to compare the psychological effects on the artist or writer of being attacked by privately organized hate groups in the United States or Europe with those of being attacked by the Communist party bureaucracy in China. Even if similarities are found, as they probably would be, it is important to keep in mind that the legal and social basis of such attacks are fundamentally different. Such cases are far fewer in the West and generally reflect isolated abuses or failures of our system, rather than the systemic control under which artists in China labored.

63. Division of Chinese artists into "generations" became popular among Chinese critics in the mid-1980s. Deng Pingxiang, one of the first to write about this question, defined them as follows: third-generation artists were between twenty and thirty years of age and had emerged after 1976; the second generation entered the art world in the 1950s; and artists of the first generation had become famous before 1949. See his "Lun disandai huajia" (On third-generation artists), Meishu sichao , no. 1 (Apr. 5, 1985): 3. Several months later, Gao Minglu refined Deng's definition of the third generation by describing it as consisting of rusticated youth (middle school graduates sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, thus slightly older than twenty to thirty years) or those who entered art academies in 1977. He goes on to define the conceptual and stylistic differences between the third generation and a newly identified fourth generation, those who entered the art academies in 1981 and 1982. See Gao Ming (pseud.), "Dangdai huihuazhong de qunti he geti yishi" (Group and individual consciousness in contemporary painting), Zhongguo meishu bao , 1985, no. 9, p. 1. Wei Qimei, graduate studies director at CAFA, similarly contrasts the work of the fourth generation, which he described as artists in their twenties, with that of the third generation in "Xin yi dai" (The new generation), Zhongguo meishu bao , 1985, no. 16, p. 1.

64. Some of these works were exhibited at CAFA in the fall of 1990.

65. Perhaps a new phase will emerge after his prolonged hospitalization.

66. Li Keran's death in late 1989, however, is considered by most of Beijing's art world to be the tragic result of political pressure. He collapsed during an unannounced visit from officials investigating the 1989 student demonstrations, to which Li had donated a particularly fine painting.

67. Wai-kam Ho, "Aspects of Chinese Painting from 1100 to 1350," in Lee and Ho, eds., Eight Dynasties of Chinese Painting , p. xxv.