What's on

Intellectual sculptor

Hsiung Ping-ming, born in Nanjing and lived in France for 55 years until his death, taught Chinese culture, philosophy and calligraphy for decades at the Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations of the New Sorbonne University in Paris. He also drew, painted and made sculptures with great passion. His artworks show the influence of modern art movements prevailing in Europe, and also reveal the scope and depth of the studies he carried on in Chinese literature, philosophy and calligraphy, thereafter, leveraging his artworks to a philosophical height. The Returning Sculptor, an exhibition at the National Art Museum of China until May 11, commemorates the 100th anniversary of Hsiung's birth. It gathers more than 150 artworks from his oeuvre, transmitting a charisma of tenderness and modesty and the open mind of his scholar parents. The exhibits are from separate donations by Hsiung's family and C. N. Yang, the Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist and a lifelong friend of Hsiung since they were 7 years old.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays.1 Wusi Dajie, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6400-1476.

Hometown artist

Liu Xiaodong: Your Friends, the prominent painter's second solo show at the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, has been extended to May 15. Liu, one of the foremost portrait painters of his generation, has created a photographic style in his compositions and the loose brushstrokes, layers upon layers, revealed to his viewers a bigger picture of the dramatic social changes and the fate of people involved. At the current exhibition, he gives a profile of the individuals with whom he has close ties: mother, brother, wife and three friends. His works examine what these relationships mean to one's life, addressing eternal topics such as friendship, aging and death. "Nowadays, the life of an individual has become more and more important, and a person's experiences are too distinctive to be replaced," he says. Also on show is a 90-minute-long documentary that takes the audience to Liu's hometown, Jincheng, in Liaoning province's Jinzhou.

10 am-7 pm, Tuesday to Sunday.4 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5780-0200.

Ancient works

Nature has been a recurring motif in artistic creation to reflect people's takes on beauty, universal rules and the situation of human society. In classical Chinese paintings, artists in ancient times endeavored to present their vivid impressions of nature, and combined the figurative imagery of nature with their understanding of the rules of nature. By creating the half-real, half-imagined pictures, artists sought after harmony between human activities and the surroundings. Forests and Streams Resplendently Clear, a long-term exhibition at Tsinghua University Art Museum, reflects ancient Chinese representations of nature in paintings and their philosophical views on the relationship between humans and nature. Works on show include one attributed to Li Gonglin, an artist who lived between the 11th and 12th centuries, and one thought to have been made by Su Shi, an intellectual of the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. Tsinghua University, Haidian district, Beijing. 010-6278-1012.

River landscapes

Jiangnan, or the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, is known for its scenery and prosperity, and has inspired the creation of poetry and paintings. This cultural accumulation is seen in the work of Fang Jun, a late ink artist from the region. Mountains in the Hometown, a long-term exhibition at Jiangsu Art Museum in Nanjing, shows a vivid output of Fang in which he accentuated a poetic sense to present varying views of Jiangnan and nature, partially idealized. Fang not only depicted the landscapes of Jiangsu province, his real hometown, in his paintings, but also places farther, not only physically but also imagined lands.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays.333 Changjiang Lu, Nanjing, Jiangsu province. 025-8961-0840.