Respecting the aged and loving the young is one of the traditional Chinese virtues, and a significant aspect of new socialist morals and important basis for the construction of a harmonious socialist society. It is a story on everybody’s lip that Chairman Mao Zedong honored the old and the wise so much that he specially invited the elders in Shaoshan, his long-separated hometown, for dinner during his short stay in 1959. As the proverb goes, “respecting my own elders, and extending this respect to the elders of others; caring for my own children, and extending this care to the children of others.” It is a civic duty of every citizen in our society and also the order of the day to “respect the elderly”. Many volunteers, military officers and soldiers and students often visit the homes for the aged to serve the elders and listen to their stories. “It is the responsibility of each generation to pass down the history to our young people.” The Bayi (August 1st) Home for the Aged in Yan’an, together with the comic strips named Home for the Aged by Tang Yifang, was created at that time.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, artists have liberated their minds from the literati stereotype of staying aloof from politics and material pursuits, and nurtured genuine intimacy with natural landscapes and realities in the baptism of the new era for the motivation of their passion towards realistic expression. Chen Yuandu, a senior painter born in Meizhou who learned painting from Jin Cheng in 1917, was adept at traditional Chinese paintings, especially figure paintings. He also had great contributions to comic strips, and was widely beloved by the general public with his multiple well-received classics. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, Chen worked hard to keep abreast of the times and created many traditional Chinese paintings to eulogize a great and thriving motherland. New Year’s Feast in the Home for the Aged was among them, where the artist, full of enthusiasm towards his great motherland and compatriots, expressed an endless artistic pursuit as well as his own aspirations. In retrospect of the history, political influence has made way for the increasingly prominent aesthetic power. As the artist found the proper place in the new era, he improved his painting language in new composition and conveyed feelings in new context, thereout highlighting the permanent power of art.

(Edited by Li Hanning & Yang Zhige, 2021)