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A representative from the Beijing Students’ Federation came to the Central Academy on May 27, requesting a large scale statue and offering 8,ooo yuan for materials and expenses. The artists were to finish by May 30th when a great demonstration was planned. 15 undergrads took on the request.

As americans, we all probably notice a resemblance to the statue of liberty. There is, I would say, a dialogue between the goddess and lady liberty, but the sculptors weren’t looking to be too openly pro-america. They wanted to create a new work of universal appeal.

Their aim was to portray the goddess as a healthy young woman, but the chinese sculpture tradition offered no models...so instead, they turned to a tradition favored at their Academy, the Russian School of Revolutionary Realism. They were mainly inspired by Vera Mukhina’s statue, A worker and Collective Farm woman.

The statue was placed on an axis with heavy symbolism, set up just across the broad avenue from Mao, so that it would confront the Great Leader face to face. The Goddess was constructed in parts and then stacked, and plaster was poured into the hollow core to lock it onto a vertical iron pole to keep her upright. Then the exposed supports were cut away.

The statue was deliberately made so that once assembled it could not be taken apart again, but would have to be destroyed all at once.

The long occupation of Tiananmen Square ended in brutal military action on June 4 1989. The deaths that day are difficult to number, but some estimates have proposed as high as three thousand. Millions would continue to be harmed by the government meant to protect them in the following months.

On that June morning, tanks paved a bloody path through Tiananmen Square. Former soldier Chen Guang, tasked to work with his unit’s cameraman, witnessed the statue’s demise by the armored vehicles as they attempted to break the Goddess of Democracy. She fell after four or five crashes, her death recorded on film and seared into the hearts of millions.

I’ve included a list of some of the reproductions which have been made. You should note that the first sculpture was begun within the same year as the massacre. It’s also important to note that these replicas vary in appearance, such as their style of rendering and positioning. They also were often much smaller in scale.