Work on the monument formally started on August 1, 1952. Numerous Chinese artists, including both sculptors and many painters, contributed to the design of the relieves on the monument and spent four years in the whole creative work. The eastern side of the relief shows the historical events of “Lin Zexu’s burning of opium stocks in Humen Beach” and “Jintian Uprising;” The southern part represents the scenes in “Wuchang Uprising,” “The May 4 th Movement” and “The May 30 th Movement;” On the western side are the relieves of “Nanchang Uprising” and “Anti-Japanese Guerrilla War;” And the northern part includes three scenes known as “crossing the Yangtze River to liberate the mainland of China,” “supporting the soldiers engaged in the front” and “welcoming the People’s Liberation Army.” The relieves are two meters high and 40.68 m long, with about 20 heroic figures in each relief that are the same size as real ones and have different appearances, looks and postures from each other. The ten relieves, while demonstrating the merits of every sculptor, has a relatively uniform artistic style.
As the decoration for architectures, the relieves melt into the monument, which gives themselves a unique value for appreciation. A majority of the artists who created the Monument to the People’s Heroes were those returned from Europe, the overall style of the relieves, therefore, mainly reflects the western techniques. Though some artists tried traditional sculptural methods, the features only display in the carvings of clothes veins.
Besides such huge relief work as the Monument to the People’s Heroes, some important public architectures and the relief work that went with them appeared as well. For instance, the group sculpture of “Celebrating the Harvest” created by Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in 1959 received high praise from the sculptural world. Though the sculpture was somewhat intended to follow the fashion, it went beyond the profound influence of the western classical and Russian sculptural styles and demonstrated strong traditional features and cultural grandeur. That made it a “masterpiece combining both revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism.” Concise in style, the group sculpture displayed a sense of strength that couldn’t be checked.
The group sculpture of “Rent Collection Courtyard” was among the excellent sculptural works of the 1960s. The artwork gave rise to a very interesting phenomenon in the history of sculpturing given the great attention it received at home and the extreme passion the audience showed, as well as the disputes arisen from its use in modern art.
In June 1965, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts was designated by the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee to create the clay sculpture of “Rent Collection Courtyard.” Then, the teachers and students of the sculpture department as well as the team from the gallery quickly initiated the work that later lasted for nearly four months. The group sculpture was arranged within the fences of a rent collection courtyard, which was 118 m in length and eight m in height. The contents of the sculpture included four parts— “forced to pay rents,” “counting the rents,” “press for rents” and “going to fight” and involved 114 figures.
The continuous plot was a typical feature of the group sculpture. The “Rent Collection Courtyard” was quite different from average sculptures. It resembled a series of pictures more than a single sculpture for pure entertainment or the group sculpture for commemoration. It has four parts, with each part somewhat independent but subject to the theme of the sculpture thanks to the elaborately designed transitions between the parts.
Another feature of the “Rent Collection Courtyard” was the ingenious use of the courtyard as a background. This helped create a sense of reality and further gave play to the realistic style. As for the sculptural techniques, the sculptors, on one hand, expressed the traits of the sculpture based on the academic principle of art, and on the other hand, used the traditional Chinese sculptural methods for “clay Buddha” for reference and adopted straws, rough clay and fine clay mixed with cotton and sand as basic materials.
Swarms of farmers came to visit from places miles away even when the work was under construction. And the group sculpture, after accomplished in October 1965, created a sensation in neighboring areas. The concerned authority quickly decided to make a replication and send it to Beijing for exhibition. When part of the replication and all the pictures of the original one were displayed at the National Art Gallery in Beijing on December 19, 1965, thousands of audience went to visit every day. With influence totally beyond the boundary of art, it has won higher and higher praise.
In the 1960s, conceptual idealism began to emerge, and identical outer forms, single artistic style and exaggerated techniques prevailed in the sculptural world. Due to the peculiar political and ideological factors, many sculptors had to follow such a sculptural way. Some artists, still “encouraged” by the excessive revolutionary enthusiasm, were extremely passionate about sculptural creation and were trying to pursue a sort of “revolutionary” beauty that was out of touch with reality. Such works become artistic forms that were formulary, conceptual or even ridiculous, and the trend peaked in the period of “cultural revolution”: The “greatness” of leaders was exaggerated infinitely, and the hero worship evolved into a religious fanaticism. A great many sculptures of leaders were built in an instant. Huge sculptures of Mao Zedong, who was sanctified, could be seen everywhere from urban squares, parks to transport hubs and even schools. A movement of “creation of immortals” spread across the whole nation till the end of the “cultural revolution.”