Аннотация:This paper examines the way in which the fable The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (Yugong yishan 愚公移山) has informed the creative output of a range of major Chinese artists (Xu Beihong, Zhang Lin, Zhang Huan, and He Yunchang) over a period spanning the 1940s to the present. Drawing on the field of art history, it examines a variety of works that, despite responding to different or even antithetical positionings, demonstrate a utopian belief in the potentiality of the community or the collective, where perseverance and audacity are able to transform what seems impossible. These seemingly absurd artworks evince the audacity of these artists, as well as their determination to participate in communal projects aimed at changing society through symbolic interventions.
