Tunnel+War--Luo+Gongliu

=**Tunnel Warfare**=



Title: //Tunnel Warfare// Artist: Luo Gongliu Date: 1951 Country of Origin: China Medium: Oil on canvas Dimension: 138 cm x 167.5 cm Museum/Collection: The Chinese National Art Gallery
 * Identification**

Luo Gongliu is a Chinese painter born in 1916 in Guandong, China. The artist has had a career thoroughly intertwined with the Chinese Communist Party and it's primary institution of art and propaganda, the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). A member of the Communist Party since 1938, Luo Gongliu studied at the Lu Xun Art Academy during the 1930's and 1940's and later, after the unification of China under the Communist Party, became a member of the Faculty at CAFA (Andrews 1994, p.244). During the period leading up to his tenure as a key member of the faculty at CAFA, Luo worked in both oils and woodcuts at the Lu Xun Academy. The artist also made trips during World War II into Chinese guerilla controlled areas of the countryside to hold political discussion meetings and show woodcut exhibitions away from Japanese lines of communication and areas of control (Sullivan, 1996, p.102). It is with this history in mind that the topic of //Tunnel Warfare// becomes to life. //Tunnel Warfare,// shown as a snapshot of a group of Chinese rural guerillas who are on the brink of entering into combat with Japanese invaders, portrays the elements of style--artistic and political--that Luo uses throughout his long career as an artist.
 * Introduction**

Commissioned by the Museum of Revolutionary History, Luo Gongliu completed //Tunnel Warfare// in 195. (Andrews 1994). It is an oil painting on canvas that depicts eight Chinese guerilla troops gathered together in a nondescript room. The title suggests that they may be drawing their attention to the Japanese troops outside the room, but the viewer is only confronted with the view in the room. The painting style is soft, but realistic. The color palette is very warm but full of great contrast. The browns and reds of the wood and brick allow the contrasting black and white elements of the uniforms to stand out. There is not a distinct focal point although the viewer tends to focus on the soldier in the center, perched on the brick structure, who is armed and anxious for what is to come next.
 * Descriptive Analysis**

It is difficult to place this scene in a continuum of action. These soldiers might be on the brink of a scrimmage, but they also may remain in these poses for hours, days or weeks on end.

Influence from Socialist Realism can be seen in the illuminating light on all of the subjects. This illumination symbolizes two important themes. First, the light portrays the subjects with a sense of heroism and purpose, similar to the use of lighting to portray religious inspiration in Western art. Second, the lighting portrays the symbolism of the Communist Party illuminating the world around them and driving China's enemies back. The Communist Party is emerging from the darkness of nationalistic, imperial rule of China into a lighter day. Luo uses this dramatic Socialist Realism to illustrate imminent combat by a group of Chinese Communist guerillas and Japanese troops during World War II, (Sullivan 1996).

Obviously drawn from personal experiences with rural guerillas during his exhibition and political education trips to the Chinese countryside during the war, the subject matter speaks of peasant struggle and victory in the light of a imperialistic, if not Western or Nationalistic, oppressor. In the work, the Chinese guerillas have their attention drawn towards the Japanese who are just out of frame. Their facial expressions communicate anticipation of the imminent clash. Fear is not present on any face, and the characters appear eager to expunge the Japanese from their location, and ergo, from China as a whole.
 * Formal Analysis**

The inclusion of subjects encompassing multiple ages and genders shows the egalitarian mindset that the Communist Party wished to portray to China. Luo's exclusively uses the proletariat in his subjects, in this case, an officer-less cadre of guerillas, which is compelling to the viewer and highlights the equality of the Communist Party. The painting was commissioned to portray one of the key events in the founding and success of the Communist Party, so it is unusual that no key members of the Party were included in the work, as opposed to //Mao Zedong Reporting on the Rectification in Yan'an// produced in the same year by Luo Gongliu (see below) (Hung 2005).

It is important to note that the works called for in the commission for a Museum of Revolutionary History, or at the minimum, the works most praised by Jiang Feng who headed CAFA, we completed by senior faculty at CAFA, including Luo Gongliu and his piece, //Tunnel Warfare//.

As a member of the faculty of CAFA, and a member of the five person inner circle of Party members who in reality controlled CAFA even though Jiang Feng was the nominal head (Galikowski 1998), Luo was in a unique position to commission his own work through consensus, and control the subject matter in order to nominally benefit the Party as a whole. This alone gives a political edge to any of his work, and at least to most Westerners, creates an overly skeptical eye towards the subject matter and the quality of the work. And although //Tunnel Warfare// was praised by Jiang Feng in 1953, thereby codifying the then recent history of Chinese art (Andrews 1994), it does not lift the stigma of propaganda from the work, even though the execution, and skill and professionalism present allows it to stand with other great works in oil of the same period.

Also worth noting is the emergence and dominance of Socialist Realism in Luo's works at this time. While //Tunnel Warfare// shows the inspiration of Socialist Realism in its base creation, it lies in contrast with //Mao Zedong Reporting on the Rectification in Yan'an// (below)//,// also created by Luo within the same year, and often noted as one of the first Chinese oils to be heavily influenced, and subsequently widely praised because of, or in spite of, Socialist Realism. And although Luo did not travel to Leningrad in the Soviet Union until 1955 to officially study, and refine, his use of Socialist Realism (Andrews 1994). And while this is a logical step in an artists career, it was apparent by this point that his utilization and early mastery of the style was already apparent to both his contemporaries and Jiang Feng.

After Luo's return from Leningrad, his mastery of the style truly emerged with works such as //Behind the Fallen Are Endless Successors//, completed in 1959, and // Mao Zedong at Mount Jinggang // completed in 1961. However, with these two works, the strict compliance with the Soviet style of Socialist Realism can be seen to begin to fade, as relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated during this period. These later works also show a definite move towards the Sinicization of the Socialist Realism style, and can be compared to more traditional Chinese landscapes and artists in both brush strokes and color palette, in addition to perspective.










 * Bibliography**

//Print Sources//

Andrews, Julia Frances. (1994) //Painters and Politics in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1979.// Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Galikowski, Maria. (1998) //Art and Politics in China.// Hong Kong: Chinese University Press

Hung, Chang-Tai. (2007) Oil Paintings and Politics: Weaving a Heroic Tale of the Chinese Communist Revolution. //Comparative Studies in Society and History.// 49(4):783–814.

Hung, Chang-Tai. (2005) The Red Line:Creating a Museum of the Chinese Revolution. //The China Quarterly.// 184:914-933

Sullivan, Michael. (1996) //Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China.// Los Angeles: University of California Press

//Online Sources//

History of Art #690: Twentieth-Century Chinese Art: The Maoist Period (1949-1976). Retrieved March 1, 2009, from The Huntington Archive. Web Site: http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/studypages/internal/HA690/maoperiod/socrealism/oilptg/indx/socoilptg.htm

Yang Yingshi. Old, new, real, surreal. //China-Gallery//. Retrieved March 25, 2009. http://www.china-gallery.com/en/yang/ev_oldnew.htm.

Luo Gongliu. //China Oil Painting Museum//. Retrieved March 25, 2009. http://www.copm.net/artist/lgl/e_index.html.