RED “红”

The western view of Chinese art had not changed for centuries, that Chinese art represented to the West a world of dazzlingly beautiful porcelain and jade or unreadable cursive calligraphy and paintings layered with poetic reference.

Color is important in my art making approach. Red is a color I respond greatly, especially when doing some works about identity, conflicts, and the sense of living.

I didn't think much about the reason why I used the color of red in some certain projects. I just know when I need explain something with Chinese cultural references and intensionally adding more dramas, I will choose the color of red. In my understanding, red is the color of China. Or in other words, the "Chinese Red" is a part of the identity of China. At first, I think the reason for my choice is that Chinese national flag is in red. Just like how Americans see their color is blue and red standing for their flag, we Chinese people take the fresh, bloody red as our national color. Such dramatic color might represent passion, love, proud, and the historical heritages of traditional Chinese culture.

Honestly, I didn't think about the relationship between red and Chinese political history, especially the Cultural Revolution, until I read the book "Revolution Continues". Apparently, the color of red is used a lot in the art making way before the Cultural Revolution. Many meanings refers to richness, power, or even luxury, such as what red means in "Hong Lou Meng"(means Red Mansion Fantasy). Besides, the color of red always reminding people of bloods and death, and therefore suggests the notion of tragedy or romances in somehow. 

Even though I have no personal experience to Cultural Revolution, and my academic knowledge towards that topic is very limited due to the censors from government, I can still visualize that part of history clearly in my mind. The color was red.

Just as what was read from the most popular slogan, "the whole country being awash with red" in that time. The color of red represented the people's enthusiasm for a communist utopia. Such relationship between communism and red can be talked back to the Soviet revolution, which is something happened outside from China. However, the red is a color that has strong roots in traditional Chinese culture. Just as I mentioned above, the color has been inherited. And at the certain period of history, the color was reinterpreted and reborn throughout China, oscillating between the visual language of folk life and political society, tradition and modernity. 

Basically, during Cultural Revolution, the color of red was used for its symbolic significance glorifying the regime, urging on the believers, and heightening the sense of "Chineseness". The scale of the red phenomenon in Cultural Revolution was executed enormously. Red dominated spaces both public and private. The flags and slogans were everywhere in public, while Red Son Mao, Red Guards, and Red Books or red armbands swallowed all individuals. Red then far outweighed the literal meaning of a physical color to became a complex trigger suggesting fanaticism and terror, glory and agony, illusion and disenchantment. 

In June 1966, red became a signal of individual social status. 

"We were born under the red flag, grew up in the red family, and received a full red revolutionary education.

  We are not only the born-red, but we are also red in the present, red in the future, red forever, and red to the end, worldwide," they proclaimed.