Illustration:
ill. 5.4
Date:
ca. 1968 / 1969
Genre:
poster, propaganda poster
Material:
scan, paper, colour; original source: poster, colour
Source:
Galikowski 1998: Galikowski, Maria. Art and Politics in China: 1949-1984. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1998:fig. 14, insert before p.1., Heidelberg catalogue entry
Courtesy:
Maria Galikowski
HeidICON Image ID:
52182
Keywords:
Mao Zedong, Mao as a god, Little Red Book, Cultural Revolution, Mao´s words, Mao´s writings, masses, model portait, Mao portrait, leadership

Attack the Headquarters Hail the Victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Pao silingbu, wuchan jieji wenhua da geming quanmian shengli wansui 炮司令部, 无产阶级文化大革命全面胜利万岁)

Mao would, in many depictions, appear in giant size, not unlike a god, suspended in the sky, as an otherworldly, powerful guide overlooking and helping the revolutionary activities of his people: In a 1968–69 painting entitled Attack the Headquarters, Hail the Victory of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (炮司令部, 无产阶级文化大革命全面胜利万岁) he holds a red brush in his hand and is writing propaganda slogans. His people in turn appear, minute in size for greater effect, washed in the red of the Little Red Books and flags they are waving. While Mao appears, by size or by symbolic abstraction, aloof from his people, otherworldly, his power to show the way and to lead the teeming masses is emphasized. (See also DACHS 2012 Propaganda Poster “Attack the Headquarters”).