Illustration:
ill. 5.32 b (set: 5.32)
Author:
Li Qi (1928-) 李琦
Date:
1960
Genre:
painting
Material:
scan, paper, colour; original source:
Source:
Li Qi, The Chairman is everywhere, 1960, (DACHS 2009 New New Years Print), Heidelberg catalogue entry
Inscription:
主席走遍全国， 山也乐来水也乐，峨眉举手献宝，黄河摇尾唱歌。主席走遍全国，工也乐来农业乐，粮山棉山冲天，钢水铁水成河。 ？河北民歌 郭沫若题
HeidICON Image ID:
85976
Keywords:
Mao Zedong, Mao portrait, Cultural Revolution, restriction, traditional Chinese painting style, straw hat

Li Qi: The Chairman is everywhere (Li Qi: Zhuxi zoubian quanguo 主席走遍全国)

During the first half of the Cultural Revolution, one sees no newly publicized compositions of MaoArt in a style comparable to that of Li Qi’s 李琦 (1928-) 1958 painting Mao at the Ming Tombs Reservoir 在十三陵水库工地上 just seen before (ill. 5.32a), or his oft-quoted 1960 image of Mao with the straw hat, with the significant title, The Chairman goes Everywhere 主席走遍全国 as seen here. Both paintings are in so-called guohua style 国画 (national style), retaining the loosely-brushed qualities of traditional painting, the first even inclusive of a four-word archaizing poem—praising how under Mao’s rule “all hearts (are) united” 心连心.

In these paintings, traditional techniques are used for the depiction of contemporary social settings. Oral history suggests that this Li Qi picture of Mao with a straw hat remained a visual presence throughout the Cultural Revolution decade. Li Qi himself, however, did not fare so well: not only had he painted portraits of Liu Shaoqi which became dangerous for any Chinese artist in the early years of the Cultural Revolution (Andrews 1994: 328), but the very “aristocratic” style of “national-style” painting which he employed, painting with traditional Chinese pigments on traditional Chinese paper, was, at least officially, condemned during the early years of the Cultural Revolution (Hawks 2003).