[SEE. THINK. ACT.]

During China’s Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s Chairman Mao really excelled at being a jackass. He stomped on the intellectuals, and imprisoned or killed hundreds upon hundreds of people who got in the way of his cultural reform (read: cleansing). Even though Mao was actually busier raising up China’s industrial and agricultural efforts to greater socialist standards, he always found time to get angry at and imprison artists.

One such unlucky artist was Huang Yongyu, who painted this “winking owl” in 1973. Mao’s wife saw the owl and was extremely offended. Not surprisingly, Mao had the artist thrown in prison.