1st Edition

Chinese Propaganda Posters: From Revolution to Modernization From Revolution to Modernization

By Stefan Landsberger Copyright 1996

    Brightly coloured prints, portraying model behaviour or a better future, have been a ubiquitous element of Chinese political culture from Imperial times until present. As economic reform swept the People's Republic in the 1980s, visual propaganda ceased to depict the tanned and muscular labourers in a proletarian utopia, so typical of preceding decades. Instead, Western icons of progress and development were employed: high-speed bullet trains, spacecraft, high-rise buildings, gridlocked free-ways and projections of general affluence. Socialist Realism was phased out by design and mixed- media techniques that were influenced by Western advertising. This lavishly illustrated study traces the development of the style and content of the Chinese propaganda poster in the decade of reform, from its traditional origins to its use as a tool for political and economic purposes.

    TRADITIONAL AND MODERN PROPAGATION OF BEHAVIOUR IN CHINA, PRECURSORS OF VISUAL PROPAGANDA IN TRADITIONAL CHINA, PRECURSORS OF THE CHINESE PROPAGANDA POSTER, COMMUNIST VISUAL PROPAGANDA, THE COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA POSTER UNTIL THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS ERA, THE PROPAGANDA POSTER DURING THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS ERA, THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS ERA, POSTER ART AND THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS, THE FUTURE SYMBOLIZED: PROPAGANDA POSTERS OF THE FOUR MODERNIZATIONS ERA, AN ANALYSIS OF GENERAL SUBJECTS, AN ANALYSIS OF SPECIFIC TARGET GROUPS , THE FUTURE VISUALIZED: AN ANALYSIS OF SYMBOLISM AND IMAGERY, EPILOGUE

    Biography

    Dr Landsberger is a prominent Dutch sinologist at the Univeristy of Leyden, the Netherlands.