City of color
The arrival of spring conjures up one of the most scenic moments in Jiangnan, the region south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, where the mountains, waters and architecture, engulfed in mist and rain, seem touched by celestial elegance.
A classical painting exhibition now on at the Nanjing Museum provides an impression on paper of the city in Jiangsu province, which has been an historical and cultural center of the Jiangnan region since ancient times. Running through to April 8, First City in Jiangnan is an exhibition of landscape paintings by great artists from the 14th century until today. It captures the varied scenery throughout the year at Nanjing's famous spots, including Jiming Mountain, Mochou Lake, Zhongshan Mountain and the Yuhuatai area.
9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays.321 Zhongshan Donglu, Xuanwu district, Nanjing, Jiangsu province.025-8480-7923.
Timeline of painting
The great leaps in technology have transformed the method and presentation of artistic creativity, but although no longer as dominant as it was once, painting remains the main canvas — quite literally — upon which many express themselves.
Questionings on Painting: a World Task, an exhibition at the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, examines the multiple orientations five artists have been exploring with paint over the years. Their paintings are representative of the painterly language of both established and emerging artists of varying ages. Chen Lei's work is grounded in the images, half-figurative and half-abstract, preserved in his memories. Chen Xi revisits a running rabbit as her main motif to demonstrate the changing mentalities of people in a world that is quickly evolving. Dai Zengjun opens up a dialogue on life with a vibrant palette and strokes of passion. Wu Xiaohai dwells on the spirituality of nature and lives lived in the wild, while Wang Xiyao's work shows the influence of living and working in a globalized context.
The exhibition is the first of its kind to be mounted by the Research Center of Contemporary Art Critics and Curation at the Central Academy of Fine Arts since its recent establishment. It runs until April 20.
9:30 am-5:30 pm, closed on Mondays. 8 Huajiadi Nanjie, Wangjing, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-6477-1575.
Evolving art
A touring exhibition of selected Western art from the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, showing the dynamic evolution of painting over the past four centuries, is now on in Chengdu, Sichuan province.
Where the Gaze Reaches assembles work by important figures and their studios, such as French painters Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Jacques-Louis David, the Italian-born American artist John Singer Sargent and Austria's Gustav Klimt, whose pioneering brushwork kept ushering the languages of painting to new frontiers.
The exhibition is being held at the Chengdu Art Museum through to June 23 and was previously shown in Shenyang, Liaoning province, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, Guangdong province, with the support of Art Exhibitions China.
10 am-8 pm, closed on Mondays. 181 Huayan Lu, Jinniu district, Chengdu, Sichuan province. 028-6306-8368.
