XI JINPING’S SPEECH ON THE ARTS

[This article was posted on October 15, 2015, on The New York Times]

A year ago, President Xi Jinping discussed the role of the arts in China at a meeting in Beijing with leading artists, propaganda officials and representatives of the armed forces. In the days that followed, state news media released reports of officials diligently “studying” Mr. Xi’s speech, drawing parallels to a landmark talk on culture that Mao Zedong delivered in 1942. Zhao Benshan, a popular actor, was so moved by Mr. Xi’s words that he couldn’t sleep, according to state news media.

Since he assumed power nearly three years ago, Mr. Xi, widely considered China’s most powerful leader in decades, has overseen a crackdown on civil society and dissent. His views on art and literature offer a window into his vision for Chinese society. In his speech, Mr. Xi reiterated the Communist Party’s longtime belief that the arts must serve a social purpose, which for him appears to be moral education.

A section of ‘A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains’, by Wang Ximeng, a court painter of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Source: WIKIPEDIA.

Part of ‘Ten Views of a Lingbi Stone’ by Wu Bin,
The 11.5m long work depicts a strangely shaped stone from 10 perspectives by Wu Bin,
a court painter of the Ming Dynasty,
The work set a record for Chinese calligraphy in the late 1980s.
Source: CHINA DAILY, VN EXPRESS

Here are some excerpts from Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech on art:

New Age of Cultural Prosperity
“Our nation’s writers and artists should become the savants, the pioneers, the early advocates of their era. Through more substantial, moral, warmhearted artistic work, they should write about and document the people’s great path, the era’s requirements for progress, highlight the beauty of convictions and integrity, carry forward the Chinese spirit, bring together China’s might and inspire all of the nation’s people of every ethnicity to vigorously march towards the future.”

‘Cultural Garbage’
“In some of their work, some artists ridicule what is noble, distort the classics. They subvert history and smear the masses and heroes. Some don’t tell right from wrong, don’t distinguish between good and evil, present ugliness as beauty, exaggerate society’s dark side. Some are salacious, indulge in kitsch, are of low taste and have gradually turned their work into cash cows, or into ecstasy pills for sensual stimulation. Some invent things and write without basis. Their work is shoddy and strained, they have created cultural garbage.”

Art as Public Service
“Art and culture will emit the greatest positive energy when the Marxist view of art and culture is firmly established and the people are their focus. To focus on the people is to make meeting the people’s spiritual and cultural needs the starting and ending point of art and culture and the work in art and culture, to make the people the subject in artistic representations, to turn the people into the critics and judges of artistic aesthetics, and to make serving the people the bounded duty of artists.”

Qi Baishi (1864 – 1957), ‘Flowers and Fruits’,
Ink and colour on paper, set of four, hanging scroll,
Signed, inscribed, with 9 seals of the artist
Each 283.8 × 54.2 cm, 111¾ × 21⅜ in (4)
Part of the inscription, Loquats and Plantain Lilies: ‘When my contemporaries paint,
they distinguish the leaves from the branches for the benefit of the ordinary viewer.
I want to confuse matters, and paint differently from them. Baishi Laoren.’
Source: Sotheby’s

Wu Guanzhong (1919 – 2010), ‘Bamboo grove’,
Ink and colour on paper, framed
Dated 1979, with 1 seal of the artist
79.7 × 68.5 cm, 31⅜ × 27 in
Source: Sotheby’s

Cure for All Ills
“Our society is at a moment of great intellectual activity. It is an era of big collisions of ideas and blending of culture, which has generated quite a few problems. One of the most prominent is that some people lack values. There is no good and evil in their views, there is no bottom line to their actions, they dare to do everything that violates party discipline and the nation’s laws. They dare to do everything that is unethical. There is no sense of nation, sense of community, sense of family. There is no right or wrong, no knowledge of beauty and ugliness, no distinction between fragrant and odorous, there is ignorance and extravagance. This is the root cause for all kinds of problems in society. If these are not effectively solved, it will be difficult to move forward in the Reform and Opening and the socialist modernization drive.”

Zhang Daqian (Chang Dai-chien, 1899-1983)
‘Pink Lotuses on Gold Screen’
Splashed ink and colour on gold paper, two-panel screen
Signed YUANWENG, dated mid-autumn festival of guichou year, 1973,
with six seals of the artist, source: Sotheby’s

Xu Beihong, ‘Put Down Your Whip’
Oil on canvas, source: Sotheby’s

Acceptable Criticism
“What art criticism needs to be is just criticism. It cannot be all praise or even cheap flattery or adulation. It cannot indiscriminately apply Western theories to reshape Chinese aesthetics or use commercial standards in place of artistic ones, completely equating art works with ordinary merchandise and embracing the belief that ‘the positiveness of a commentary is equal to the thickness of red envelopes’ [used to hold gifts of money].”