To Guo Moruo: Poetic Thoughts of Mao Zedong – (Fu Baoshi) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Fu Baoshi

Date: 1964

Size: 34 x 45 cm

Technique: Paper

In Mao Zedong’s poem “Reply to Comrade Guo Moruo,” the Monkey King, a character in the classical novel Journey to the West, is invoked in the battle against the skeleton spirits. The poem’s imagery alludes to the conflict between China and the Soviet Union that began in 1960. In Fu’s interpretation, dark swirling “demon clouds” obscure all but Beijing’s Tian’anmen Gate before the Monkey King arrives to clear the dust and force the skeleton spirits to retreat.