What's on

Art of perseverance

Liang Yunqing, a retired professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, compares himself to a snail that "always moves forward with perseverance, despite facing difficulties and challenges". In his teens, Liang drew posters for cinemas in his native Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. He enrolled in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1952 and was later sent to Germany, where he spent seven years studying fresco and oil painting. There he was introduced to expressionism, and he decided that mural painting would be the focus of his future career. Unique Charm, an exhibition running at the Central Academy of Fine Arts' museum through Sunday, reviews the artist's efforts to develop modern mural art and education. The collection of more than 40 paintings is largely comprised of works donated by Liang to his alma mater last year. As well as oil paintings and drafts of murals he was commissioned to create, Liang also exhibits a series of color ink paintings dating back to the 1990s that show his exploration of a more abstract style.

9:30 am-5:30 pm, Tuesday-Sunday.8 Huajiadi Nan Jie, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6477-1575.

Spring show

After seeing the 1961 Spring Exhibition of Painting, held at the Beijing Fine Arts Academy, noted novelist and dramatist Lao She said that the works on show presented "a new air and new glow" and "passionately, the painters depicted the unprecedented achievements the country has achieved in socialist construction".The latest installment of the annual exhibition, now underway at the academy's art museum and set to run through April 24, offers a review of the progress of Chinese art, to which the academy has stayed committed over the past six decades. On show are classical Chinese paintings from the mountain-and-water and flower-and-bird genres, ink figure paintings and oil works by 31 resident artists. The exhibition was first organized in 1959 to carry on Chinese cultural traditions and open up new paths to make Chinese art even more diverse.

9:30 am-5 pm, Tuesday-Sunday. 12 Chaoyang Gongyuan Nan Lu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6502-5171.

Meticulous realist

Dai Honghai is known as a master of the meticulous gongbi genre of classical Chinese paintings, which demonstrate a characteristically careful realism. The 80-year-old created several popular works, including a picture book, titled Liu Yi Delivers Letter, which illustrates a Tang Dynasty (618-907) tale, and the design for a set of stamps depicting Sanguo Yanyi, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the classic Chinese novel. An exhibition now on at the Zhejiang Art Museum, which runs through April 22, reviews Dai's accomplishment in the inheritance of the gongbi art legacy. It brings together 150 works, including classic Chinese paintings, illustrations, stamp designs and illustrations for lianhuanhua, palm-sized picture books. At the heart of the show is a nine-meter-long scroll on which Dai vividly presents the dynamic cityscape of Lin'an as the capital of Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), today's Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. The work reflects the realistic tradition of Chinese ink painting and an influence of genre paintings.

9:30 am-5 pm, Tuesday-Sunday. 138 Nanshan Lu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. 0571-8707-8700.

Strike up the band

Under the baton of conductor Yu Feng, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will give a concert as part of the ongoing China Orchestra Festival. Repertories will include Chinese composer Lyu Qiming's Ode to the Red Flag, Tian Feng's Snow to the Tune of Qin Yuan Chun, which has been re-arranged by Zou Ye, and Hao Weiya's Let's Run to the Sea and Look up at the Starry Sky Together. Soprano Zhou Xiaolin will feature in the concert.

7:30 pm, April 15. National Center for the Performing Arts, 2 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng district, Beijing. 010-6655-0000.

Revolutionary woman

The New Paintings of Flowing Water and High Mountains, an exhibition to be hosted at the He Xiangning Art Museum from April 18 to May 30, will zoom in on a great woman's diverse world of art and her extensive connections in cultural circles. It will show paintings by He Xiangning, a revolutionary, social activist and avid advocate of women's rights, as well as works produced in collaboration with other artists. The exhibition is intended to provide a distinctive perspective into the extraordinary life and high morality of a woman, whose commitment to the progress of modern China went along with her artistic evolution.

9:30 am-5 pm, Tuesday-Sunday.9013 Shennan Da Dao, Nanshan district, Shenzhen, Guangdong province. 0755-2660-4540, 2691-8118.