Political art, in China, can take on a number of forms, subtle or not so subtle, serious or humorous, indignant or ironic.  A favorite that we have found, so far, is the Red Guard girls of Da Zhong Zhang.  During the Cultural Revolution of Mao, everyone was supposed to fit the mold defined by the state.  For example, politeness was forbidden under the premise that no comrade was more important or superior to any other, so there was no reason for politeness because being polite was to be deferential, which is unnecessary if all the workers were equals.  Even femininity was branded as a form of differentiation of people that was not good for the people, and women were encouraged to wear baggy shirts and pants, short hair, no makeup, and to hang their heads so as to hide their very femininity.

Da Zhong Zhang whose sister was a Red Guard girl when he was growing up was quite incensed by this mandate of the cultural revolution, and he has created a number of paintings depicting Red Guard girls who are beautiful, girlish, carefree and curvaceous.  He also includes some tongue-in-cheek messages in the graffiti contained on of the backgrounds of  some of the paintings, in the series.  Beyond the political message contained in these paintings, Da Zhong Zhang displays mastery of portraiture painting.  These portraits have the quality of photographs, adding yet another layer to the art, so they might pass a real photos from the era, even no such photos celebrating the femininity of the Red Guard girls could have existed.  We show one of the paintings in the series, titled :"The Stand", below.  You can see the other art that we have in our gallery by Da Zhong Zhang at https://www.redhill-china.com/catalogue_art_gallery/wall_art/da_zhong_zhang_page.htm