Visualizing Resistance and Struggle: Murals as Propaganda in the Second Sino-Japanese War

The eight-year Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) brought extreme suffering to the populace. Facing the aggressive incursion of Japanese armies, Chinese people sought great nationwide unity in order to resist the enemy. When reexamining this tragic period, one can hardly fail to notice the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment among the populace. In popular media, this dynamic of uniting against a common enemy, which was mobilized by widespread propaganda, was characterized by the realistic portrayal of battlefield scenes and inflammatory images. The establishment of the Third Bureau of the Political Department in the Military Affairs Commission (hereafter the Third Department) in the city of Wuhan in 1938 symbolized the formation of a united front between the Chinese Communist Party (hereafter the CCP) and the Kuomintang Party or the Nationalist Party (hereafter the KMT). This unity was brought about by convening Chinese intellectuals and artists to propagate the idea of nationwide resistance at the home front. Artists from the Third Department made widely disseminated attempts to create propaganda through various media, including woodprints, cartoons, murals and other forms of visual art. This situation created an opening for real competition—not just between the CCP and the KMT but among other foreign forces —all of which involved playing with ideology and art forms to make their respective cases. Although there have already been some studies on the Second Sino-Japanese War propaganda art, most have concentrated on woodprints and cartoons for their strong popular and political functions. These media were largely dominated by the left-wing CCP. The intent of this study, however, is to look in depth at the little-known Huanghelou (Yellow Crane Tower) mural painting which only existed for one month and whose commission from the Third Department under the Nationalist government was overshadowed by the CCP regime in contemporary China. The research for this study was undertaken in an effort to better understand the visual effects of propaganda murals and the reasons for the mural becoming an efficient propaganda tool during the Sino-Japanese War. By using a historical lens to explore the visual languages of the Huanghelou mural project, this thesis sheds light on the national resistance by discussing the anti-Japanese fervor mobilized by the Huanghelou mural. It considers as well considering Huanghelou as an example of how the two conflicting ideologies of the KMT and the CCP coexisted in a single piece of art to fight against their common foreign enemy. Therefore, to understand propagandists’ decision to utilize murals as a popular art form during the Battle of Wuhan—and therefore to evaluate the dynamic between art and politics during the wartime—we must understand the mural’s visual effect in balancing the leadership and the masses, as well as the involvement of foreign influences such as Soviet socialist realism and Mexican muralism.