Shen Yaoyi's red classic piece Again We Make Strides. [Photo provided to China Daily]

There are also artworks, which hail grassroots figures who contributed to social progress.

In his oil painting of 1984 called Chalk Stick, Cao Xinlin from Zhengzhou, in Central China's Henan province, honors teachers.

The work features a white-haired teacher who stands near a large blackboard. Dressed in a plain suit, he holds a book in his left hand and a chalk stick in his right hand.

The blackboard takes up nearly three fourths of the composition.

"It feels like a wide silver screen. It is also the teacher's monument, where he keeps writing notes and erasing them," says Cao.