In Revolution There is Justice 造反有理,

7/1968

Painted in 1968, during the Cultural Revolution, <em>In Revolution There Is Justice</em> exemplifies a style of painting developed in deliberate reaction to the elite painting and calligraphy traditions of imperial China. Manifestos of the period reflected the demand that art serve the aims of the state. In contrast to the personalized tradition of literati art, the new paintings were often anonymous or, as in this example, signed by a factory division or a collective group. Other deliberate reactions to past styles included the use of bright colors and an industrial calligraphy script arranged horizontally to read from left to right. The painting is comprised of two different pieces of paper. The skilled portrait of Chairman Mao was likely painted by a sanctioned artist who specialized in images of the chairman; such portraits were distributed separately and incorporated into larger paintings by secondary artists and propagandists. Below the portrait is a figure of a man with upraised arms, holding a copy of the ­<em>Sayings of Chairman Mao</em>. Visible under the pigments are the faint gridlines that were used in transferring the image from a set model or pattern. The red four-character slogan "In Revolution There Is ­Justice" appears in the middle of the painting. Below, the inscription reads, "In the doctrine of Marxism there are one thousand principles and ten thousand guidelines, but in the final analysis it comes down to just one saying: ‘In Revolution There Is Justice.’"