What's on

Landscape inspiration

Nature has been an infinite source of inspiration for landscape artists. Fan Kuan, for example, who lived more than 1,000 years ago, enjoyed the mountains and waters of his native home in today's Shaanxi province, and the atmosphere created by clouds and mist. He once said, "nature is a more superb teacher than man." Fan created an oeuvre of works that depict the grandeur and extensiveness of landscapes in his hometown, which made him one of the best landscape painters during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). One of Fan's surviving productions of refinement, Snow-covered Scene and Cold Forest, is in the collection of Tianjin Museum. The painting is getting attention at Reenactment of Peaks, an ongoing exhibition of artifacts from the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) dynasties, at the museum. The original work was on display until Feb 26 and replaced by a reproduction thereafter. The long-term exhibition is a celebration of the diversity of the cultural scenes of the two dynasties, covering ceramics, jade objects, bronze ware, engraved seals and articles used in a study, among others. Most of the exhibits are on show for the first time.

9 am-4:30 pm, closed on Mondays.62 Pingjiang Road, Hexi district, Tianjin. 022-8388-3000.

Home province

Qi Baishi (1864-1957), a master ink artist, spent most of the last four decades of his life in Beijing while missing his home village in Hunan province, where he started from humble beginnings and struggled for a living as a carpenter, not knowing what his future would be. One can sense these nostalgic feelings through his paintings, in which he depicted peach blossoms, oil lamps, fresh lotus roots and other objects in reminiscence of the life in Hunan. He once engraved a seal on which he carved: "A guest in a strange place sees the moon shed its light on the mountains in his hometown." This has inspired an exhibition that is now on at the Hunan Art Museum in Changsha, with more than 140 paintings of Qi on display. These works show how landscapes and folk customs of Hunan shaped the artist's character and art style. Qi's most beloved paintings often juxtapose small insects, plants, rural scenery and agricultural tools. He shared his rural family background proudly in his work, showing the fun, peaceful aspects of the countryside, as well as a love for his people back home. The paintings are from the collection of the Beijing Fine Art Academy, where Qi was the first and only honorable president. The exhibition runs through to April 10.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 2 Jinjiang Road, Yuelu district, Changsha, Hunan province.0731-8278-1500.

'Export art'

Through the 18th and 19th centuries, Guangzhou, in South China's Guangdong province, was a gateway and window to connect the hinterland of China and the world as Chinese products were traded to other continents, and meanwhile, foreign art and crafts were introduced to the country. The techniques of oil painting and watercolor were adopted by many local artists as a means of living. They made artworks depicting Chinese landscapes and folk life that were sold to clients in Europe. Acclimation of Art, an exhibition at Guangdong Museum, in the provincial capital Guangzhou, zooms in on such cultural communication between China and the West. It shows examples of the genre of "export art" at the time, made in a typical style to cater to the demands of the European market. Works on show are drawn from the collection of several museums in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao. The exhibition ends on March 26.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 2 Zhujiang East Road, Tianhe district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province.020-3804-6886.

China Daily