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201210 https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.2.N.201210 http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ All Rights Reserved 2025 329 pages Doctoral Dissertation Academic theses en Sun, Yiliang Brown, Claudia Baker, Janet Shen, Kuiyi Haines, Chelsea Arizona State University Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2025 Field of study: Design, Environment and the Arts In the short period of China's modernization, due to the harsh geopolitical situation and the introduction of extreme ideology, China entered into a standard modern totalitarian society for almost 30 years, from 1949 to 1979, which completely controlled all aspects of society from top to bottom. Under this regime, everyone’s life, according to their social class, was directed to an arranged path and outcome by the policies of the Chinese Communist Party and the will of its supreme leader; free will and self-choice played no role. Therefore, when artistic activities occurred in such a society, politics was almost the only reference for measuring their characteristics. The primary research basis of this dissertation is the sociological framework, which includes government documents, hydroelectric project reports, judicial/criminal archives, newspapers, and other sources to contextualize artworks during this period. The framework is also based on the historical fact and records that China entered modern totalitarianism. Almost all of the artworks and their analysis in this dissertation are made within this framework. This study aims to break through some previous misunderstandings about modern and contemporary Chinese art, examine and analyze the art phenomena that appear in it from a more historical-sociological perspective, and explore their interactive relationship with the political-social system of the time. Art History Construction Landscape Cultural Revolution modernization Scar Art Totalitarian China Violent Struggle Aspects of Art in Totalitarian China, 1949-1979