Everyday Articles with Motives from the Model Works

Pretty much all throughout the period now habitually described as the “Cultural Revolution,” the model works were everywhere, and it was not long before they had proliferated into every possible form, too: one could buy them on cheap LPs, and as comic books; one could see their heroes on posters, post-cards, and stamps, as well as on cushions, plates, teapots, cups, and candy wrappers, as cut-out and ceramic figures and plaques; on washing basins, handbags, cigarette packs, on vases and calendars, in short, on almost all the paraphernalia of daily (if perhaps predominantly urban) life and use.

The plate shown above carries a scene from the model work The Red Lantern 红灯记 Hongdengji with piano accompaniment, including Mao’s 1964 phrase “To wield through the old to create the new and through the foreign, to create a Chinese national art“ 古为今用洋为中用. The candy wrapper below shows Iron Maiden from The Red Lantern on the left and the White-Haired Girl on the right.