Story of Ink and Wash - Remembering Nineteen-sixty

December Issue of Hi Art, 2009

Even the hottest dumpling will cool down with time going by. Time is objective and impartial: as years passed, everything will get clear, obvious and easy to judge. I have mentioned that during the Great Leap Movement in 1957, there was a tendency towards boasting and exaggerating. Then people said that the grain yield had reached 18, 478 kilograms per acre and 3.079 kilograms per square foot. However, the actual yield then was less than 100 kilos per acre and 15 grams per square foot, which was just enough for making a dumpling wrapper. On August 27th, 1958, People’s Daily published an editorial, Grain Yield Just Lies in Our Imagination and Courage, and later on September 30th, New China News Agency announced to the world, “By 1958, China’s total grain output has reached 1.75 trillion kilograms, which is ten times as much as that in 1957. China has become the biggest grain producer in the world.” Then artists and intellectuals created numerous paintings and poems expressing the happiness brought by “good harvest” and the life “abundant in food”.

However, only several months later, China entered “the period of three years of natural disasters” lasting from 1959 to 1961, during which the national economy dropped from the “crazy leap” into the unprecedented depression. Almost half of factories closed, with more than 20 million workers sent home. A critical shortage of grain occurred, and many rural people starved to death. Then tens of millions people died abnormally, and in certain places cannibalism appeared. The three years are called “the most miserable period” in Chinese history. Indeed, the “natural disasters” during that time, was, as Liu Shaoqi said, “disasters caused by people more than natural ones”. According to Floods and Droughts in China, from 1959 to 1961, the average degree of air dryness was rather normal. In 1960 the degree of air dryness exceeded the average level a little and arid areas increased when compared with 1959, but indeed the drought had lessened. The national climate in 1961 was fairly normal. What is more, according to Floods and Drought Levels All over China between 1895 and 1971 compiled by experts, there were no disasters at all during the period. A weather report from Japan also stated that in those years the climate in China was rather normal: the so called “natural disaster” was nothing but a lie made up to conceal the real reasons for food shortage.

During that time, although the grain yield reported to the government was false, the requisition on farmers was real. Then grain requisitioned accounted for 39.6% of the total output, which had reached the limit of farmers. What were requisitioned also included the farmers’ food and seeds reserved for the next year. More exaggerated announcement a place had made, more miserable it would be. For instance, Henan boasted most, and over the three years abnormal deaths had exceeded 2 million, with about 740 thousand animals decimated. A lot of villages as well as 4.4 million acres of fields in that province were deserted; edema broke out and numerous farmers fled or starved to death. Then Xinyang Incident, which had ever rocked the nation, flared up. Wang Renzhong, who was assigned by the central government to investigate Henan, recalled, “In a county of Xinyang, more than 10 thousand people were attacked, resulting in above 7000 people running away and a death toll of more than 300. How cruel it was! ” Later Henan Provincial Party Committee also made a self-criticism, “Xinyang then had become a horrible and dark world.”

On April 8th, 2009, Guangzhou Daily interviewed Yuan Longping, an eminent rice scientist. Then Yuan said, “During the three years of natural disasters, tens of millions of people died for starvation. In the Great Leap Movement trees were cut to temper steel, which had destroyed the ecology. Then a serious drought happened in 1959 when forty or fifty thousand people starved to death. I saw, with my own eyes, 5 bodies of the starved lying by the farmland, under bridges and beside roads. That was really a tragedy.” For another province which was “active” during the movement then, according to Cambridge History of China, “Anhui Province might have suffered the greatest decline in population. The provincial abnormal death rate in 1960 soared by 68% compared with the previous year, which was 3.5 times more than the national average degree.”

Then during the three years, what were artists and intellectuals doing? Unexpectedly, no traces of “natural disasters” can be found in historical documents or major works created in that time. In 1959, Fu Baoshi and Guan Shanyue drew a jumbo traditional Chinese painting, The Land Is So Rich in Beauty, for the Great Hall of the People, and then Mao Zedong inscribed its title on the painting himself. Some theorist wrote, “The significance of The Land is So Rich in Beauty does not lies in its giant size or the unique background of its creation, nor in the creating method that combines typical revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism. Rather, the creation of that painting has helped landscape painters form new creative ideas, allowing them to find a subject matter leading to success in a particular social environment.” There are also other works created under such creative ideas, such as the series of Mountains Are Reddened by Li Keran, and On Chairman Mao’s “Waves Washing the Sand” by Pan Tianshou. As to Li Keran’s Mountains Are Reddened and Woods Are Tinted with Deep Red, some theorist pointed out, “The painting indicates that Li has fully mastered the skill of expressing Mao Zedong’s poems with his own way of drawing, through which the appearance of his landscape paintings has been determined.” Then almost all painters would take Mao Zedong’s poetry as their subject matter, and paintings on Mao’s poems were fairly safe. In 1960, traditional Chinese artists organized a Traditional Chinese Painting Work Team which spent 3 months on visiting Henan, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Hubei and Hunan, with a journey of 23 thousand miles. Artists then proposed that “Painting methods should change with the improvement of our thoughts”. Then they had nearly covered all sacred places of revolution and former residences of Chinese leaders in their works, just omitting the fact of the “natural disasters”. Following are annals of Chinese art circles during “the period of three years of natural disasters”:

On March 24th, 1959, Cai Ruohong, Vice Chairman of National Art Association and Wang Chaowen, the standing director of the association, attended and spoke at “Plastic Art Exhibition of Socialist Countries”, a 3-day forum held in Moscow. On December 23th, 1959, the exhibition “Posters Created over the Last Decade”, which was hosted by National Art Association and People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, opened in Zhongshan Park, Beijing. On January 20th, 1960, “New Year Picture Exhibition” hosted by National Art Association inaugurated in Zhongshan Park, with 179 works being displayed. On March 2nd, 1960, Anhui Branch of Art Association was established; Lai Shaoqi was elected as the chairman, with 28 directors and 5 standing directors. On March 16th, 1960, Jiangsu Chinese Painting Institute was founded, electing Fu Baoshi as the dean and Qian Song? as the sub-dean. On September 30th, 1960, Selected Works of Mao Zedong: Volume IV was published; Qian Ruohong, Liu Kaiqu, Wu Zuoren, Wang Chaowen and Wu Jingting joint the first reading club organized by CFLAC (China Federation of Literary and Art Circles). On December 29th, 1960, the Apprenticing Ceremony of Worker-and-Peasant Institute was held in Shanghai Chinese Painting Institute. On January 18th, 1961, National Art Association held a standing council, defining the major work in the first half of the year as supervising the creation of works offered to CPC 40th Anniversary as presents. On June 2nd, 1961, “Forum on the Creation of Revolutionary-History Paintings” was held in Beijing. On October 25th, 1961, Guo Moruo, in the name of chairman of CFLAC, addressed to Picasso, the French painter, celebrating his 80th birthday.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the edition of 1999, the famine caused by the Great Leap Movement was one of the two greatest famines in the 20th century. On the 50th birthday of the People’s Republic of China, a public-opinion survey was conducted by People’s Daily, New China News Agency, Information Office of the State Council, and Beijing Daily, where people ranked the most important events that occurred since the foundation of new China, with the Cultural Revolution standing first on the list and “three years of natural disasters” coming second.

Zhu Wei

Sunday, November 22th, 2009

水墨的故事 温故一九六O

《HI艺术》2009年12月号

再热的饺子也有凉了的时候，再烫嘴的豆腐也有不烫嘴的时候。时间是客观的，公正的，随着岁月的推移，任何事情都会变得清晰，明了，容易判断。上回书说到，一九五七年大跃进、放卫星，粮食平均每亩三万六千九百五十六斤，平均每平尺六点一五八斤。当时农民实际的收成平均每亩不到两百斤，每平尺三钱多一点儿，也就刚够擀一个饺子皮儿。一九五八年八月二十七日，《人民日报》发表社论《人有多大胆地有多大产》，九月三十号新华社向全世界宣布，“中国一九五八年粮食总产量达到三点五万亿斤，是一九五七年的十倍，成为世界第一大产粮国”。艺术家、文化人为此创作了大量的歌颂丰收喜悦、吃不了兜着走的图画和诗篇。

短短几个月之后，一九五九年到一九六一年，中国社会迅速进入了“三年自然灾害时期”，国民经济由前一年的疯狂跃进陡然跌入空前的萧条低迷。工厂关停近半，两千多万工人被赶回农村。粮食奇缺，广大农村爆发大面积的饿死人的现象，出现了数以千万计的非正常死亡人口。个别地方甚至出现了人吃人的惨况，被后世称为历史上最苦难的三年。所谓三年自然灾害，用刘少奇的话说：“三分天灾，七分人祸。”据《中国水旱灾害》：一九五九年至一九六一年，全国干燥度距离平均值均在正常变化范围之内。一九六O年全国干燥度略大于平均值，干旱范围比一九五九年略大，但干旱程度减轻，一九六一年从全国来看属于正常年份。据气象专家编制的《一八九五至一九七九年全国各地历年旱涝等级资料表》表明，这三年没有发生严重的自然灾害，属于正常年景。日本的气象报告显示，中国当年的气象并无什么异常，他们怀疑所谓自然灾害乃是编造出来的，为的是掩盖食物短缺的真正原因。

放卫星产量虽是虚报的，可是国家的征购却是实实在在，全国征购的粮食占年产量的百分之三十九点六，已经达到农村承受能力的极限，农民的口粮和下一年的种子也被征走了。放卫星最积极的地方也是景象最惨的地方，河南放卫星放得最多，三年中河南非正常死亡人口两百万以上，死亡牲畜七十四万头，荒芜土地为四百四十余万亩，很多乡村没有人烟，浮肿病大量蔓延，农民大量外逃或饿死，爆发了震惊全国的“信阳事件”。受中央委托去河南实地调查的王任重回忆说，“信阳地区的一个县因为放小麦卫星，受打击的有一万多人，打跑七千多人，打死三百多人，这是多么残忍的事情！”河南省委在向中央检讨时也称这个时期的信阳“一时间成了恐怖世界、黑暗世界”。

二OO九年四月八日，《广州日报》采访著名水稻科学家袁隆平时，袁表示，“三年困难时期饿死了几千万人。大跃进把树都砍了去炼钢铁，把生态破坏了，一九五九年大干旱，一年基本上没有收成，饿死了四五千万人。我看到路上有五个饿殍，倒在田坎旁边，倒在桥下和路边，我亲眼看见，那是很凄惨的。”另一个积极的省份安徽，据《剑桥中国史》记载，“安徽可能是人口减少最严重的，一九六O年全省的非正常死亡比率比上一年猛增了百分之六十八，为全国平均数的三点五倍还多。”

与大跃进相比，那么这段时间艺术家、文化人又干了些什么呢？寻找这一时期的历史资料、重要作品，丝毫看不出有任何“自然灾害”的影子和信息。一九五九年傅抱石和关山月为人民大会堂创作了巨幅国画《江山如此多娇》，毛泽东亲自为此画题写“江山如此多娇”。理论家这样写道，“《江山如此多娇》的意义并不在于它那巨大的幅面和一般作品所没有的特殊的创作背景，也不在它所表现出的典型的革命现实主义和革命浪漫主义相结合的创作方法，而是通过它启发了后来许多山水画画家的创作思路，找到了一个能够在特定社会环境中获得成功的创作题材。”属于这一创作思路的还有李可染的《万山红遍》系列、潘天寿的《毛主席浪淘沙词意》等等。关于李可染的《万山红遍 层林尽染》，理论家是这样指出的，“《万山红遍 层林尽染》的出现标志了他在运用自己的笔墨语言表现毛泽东诗意方面已经完全成熟，而且也以此确立了自己的山水画面貌”。当时的画家几乎没有不画毛泽东诗意的，毛泽东的诗意画是一条不会出错的途径。一九六O年，江苏国画家还组织了国画工作团，历时三个月，行程两万三千多里，先后到河南、陕西、四川、湖北、湖南、广东等地。艺术家提出，“思想变了，笔墨就不能不变”，艺术家们几乎画遍了所有的革命圣地、领袖故居，就是见不到“自然灾害”的影子。以下是“三年自然灾害”期间中国美术的编年史：

一九五九年三月二十四日，全国美协副主席蔡若虹、常务理事王朝闻出席了在莫斯科举行的为期三天的“社会主义国家造型艺术展览会”讨论会，并在会上发了言。一九五九年十二月二十三日，由全国美协、人民美术出版社联合举办的“十年宣传画展览”在北京中山公园开幕。一九六O年一月二十日，由全国美协举办的“年画展览会”在北京中山公园开幕，共展出一百七十九件作品。一九六O年三月二日，美协安徽分会成立。协会选举赖少奇任主席，并选出理事二十八人和常务理事五人。一九六O年三月十六日，江苏省中国画院成立。傅抱石为院长，钱松?为副院长。一九六O年九月三十日，《毛泽东选集》第四卷出版发行。蔡若虹、刘开渠、吴作人、王朝闻、吴镜汀参加文联组织的第一批读书会。一九六O年十二月二十九日，上海中国画院举行工农学院拜师仪式。一九六一年一月十八日，全国美协召开常务理事会，决定上半年的主要工作是抓建党四十周年的献礼创作。一九六一年六月二日，“革命历史画创作座谈会”在北京举行。一九六一年十月二十五日，郭沫若以中国文联主席的名义致信法国画家毕加索，祝贺他八十岁生日。

据一九九九年版的《大英百科全书》称，中国大跃进饥荒为二十世纪两次最大的饥荒之一。在中华人民共和国成立五十年之际，《人民日报》、新华社、国务院新闻办和《北京日报》联合举办了一次民意调查，请民众评选出建国以来最重要的事件：文革名列第一，“三年自然灾害”名列第二。

朱伟

2009年11月22日星期日