Illustration:
ill. 4.14 a (set: 4.14)
Date:
1988
Genre:
poster, New Year Print
Material:
scan, paper, colour, 77 x 53 cm
Source:
The Works of Marx and Engel’s are now Radiating Again, 1988 (Collection Pierre Lavigne, maopost.com 0794-001M). , Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
Pierre Lavigne
Inscription:
四宝图 (之二): 光耀乾坤
Keywords:
New Year Print, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, children, symbolism, Mao`s works, symbols of luck

Four Treasures poster (2nd): Brilliant light shines on the world (Si bao tu (zhi er): Guang yao qian kun 四宝图 (之二): 光耀乾坤)

There was a relative dearth of Mao's works on the market since 1982--due to some of the destructions of Maoist writings in the early 1980s and restrictions in their republication (Barmé 1996:10). The book with Mao's writings also disappears as a symbol from visual evidence throughout the 1980s and 1990s. There are only rare examples of books being held up, radiating like a sun in propaganda posters and other visual materials from this period. If found, there is one significant difference to Cultural Revolution practice which in itself continues what had been prevalent in the 1950s and early 1960s: Mao and his works are no longer exclusive heroes. As had been the case in the 1950s and into the early 1960s, in the 1980s and 90s Marx and Lenin's books (like here), too, or even a new marriage law, not just Mao's writings alone, may be seen to emanate sunrays.