A new visual culture emerged in China after the 1949 revolution which re-defined what could and should be seen. Official imagery, somewhat like commercial advertising, provided models for individual appearance and behavior, and prescribed behavior for clothing, hairstyle, expression, language, culture, etc.
Visual methods were used in part because of their power and immediacy, as well as because of the low level of literacy in the countryside.
The Great Leaders - Mao, Marx, Lenin, Stalin,
Also Jiang Qing, Lin Biao, Sun Yatsen, Lu Xun, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi,
Deng Xiaoping
The Worker (Steel worker, Coal miner, construction worker are favored)
See also Daqing.
The Peasant - Chen Yonggui(see also Dazhai)
The Soldier - Lei Feng, Ouyang Hai, Wang Jie
The Ethnic minority
The Foreign Friend? Norman Bethune.
Class Enemies and Bad Elements
The Old Regime and its allies - KMT, capitalists
(banker, factory owner), landlords
Foreign imperialists - Uncle Sam &
the Americans, the "Banker" (top hat, suit and cigar - taken from Soviet
socialist imagery)
Political opponents - Liu Shaoqi,
Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Qing & the 'Gang of Four' Soviet Revisionists: Kruschev,
Breshnev, Kosygin
Red Star, Red Sun, Red Flag, hammer & sickle (adopted by Soviets in 1918 - see page 25 in "Iconography of Power"by Victoria E. Bonnell, University of California Press, 1997), peace doves, etc.
Revolutionary Sacred Sites and Monuments
Yenan, Tiananmen, Shaoshan, Dazhai, Daqing, Ludeng Bridge, etc., Martyr's monument in Tiananmen Square (Attch Simon Leys article)