Love of art(2)

Xinjiang Transport Corps, oil on canvas, by Dong Xiwen, 1944. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The Founding Ceremony of China portrays chairman Mao announcing the birth of New China from the rostrum at Tian'anmen Square in 1949.

Mao is said to have seen the original piece and praised it for projecting China's rise.

But three political figures standing behind Mao in the 1952 painting were changed in subsequent years.

In 1955, the National Museum of China asked Dong to delete then vice-president Gao Gang from the painting, in which he was shown standing in the first row behind Mao. Dong Xiwen used a flower pot to replace Gao, who had been expelled from the Communist Party of China the year before.

In 1971, Dong was asked by the same museum to remove Liu Shaoqi, a former vice-president who was reviled by a section of the Party during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), from the piece. At the time, the artist replaced Liu with Dong Biwu, another founding father of the CPC.

The following year, Dong was instructed to remove Lin Boqu from the painting. Lin was then general-secretary of the Central People's Government Committee and had a falling out with the leadership. But by then, the painter was taken ill by stomach cancer. He, in turn, asked Jin Shangyi, one of his students, to reproduce the painting without Lin in it.

Finally, the oil painting was restored to its original look in 1979, with the three political figures back in place. This version, which is the collective work of several artists, including Jin, is now most often viewed by the public.