Tiehua as Social Resistance

During its long and rich history, spanning from the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to modern day, tiehua has been a means of social resistance. This hold true for many art forms, but even in its origins with the blacksmith-turned-artist Tang Peng, there is a rebellious element. Wanting to paint just like others, Tang Peng resisted the notion that art is with paint and brush. The art form quickly transcended social classes and depicted lives of the literati and working class–from reactions to the new Qing Dynasty to resisting the hardships of late-Qing society. A stronger association with the working class (and by translation the class struggle) saved tiehua during the Chinese Communist Party’s tight grip on art and its commissioning of socialist realist pieces, which tiehua was harnessed for. These pieces, while made in the oversight of the government sought to resist old “bourgeois-landlord” ways while simultaneously glorifying the “New China” under the CCP. Today, tiehua has been part of resistant movements, but Chinese avant-garde art has struggled in the post-Tiananmen Square government controls and marketing itself in the new, very different world of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics.” View tiehua galleries form said periods below:

Eremitic and Remnant Subjects (1680s-mid-1800s)

Radicalization & Modernization (Mid-1800s-1940s)

State-Commissioned Mass Resistance Culture (1950s-1970s)

New, Old, & Dual-Constraints (1980s-Today)

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