Secular scenes

Tianjin Museum teams up with Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum to present an ongoing exhibition, Shiqing Wanxiang, at the former's venue, showing paintings from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties.

The show, running until May 5, reflects the prosperous cultural life, including artistic evolution, that was prompted by the development in social economics.

The dozens of artworks on display are from the collections of the two museums, depicting the diverse material life and spiritual world of the people living back then. The paintings are divided into four categories which investigate the folk customs, economics and productions, citizens' everyday life, and entertainment spanning centuries.

Highlights include a Ming facsimile scroll of the 10th-century masterpiece Night Revels of Han Xizai. The copy was made by Tang Yin, or Tang Bohu, a gifted painter of repute who, together with Shen Zhou, Wen Zhengming and Qiu Ying, was ranked among the Four Great Artists of the Wu School in the Ming Dynasty. The work shows the technical excellence of Tang, besides his mastery of landscape painting, in portraying figures.

Wanhu Chaotian Tujuan (Ten Thousand Tablets of an Imperial Audience), an important collection of Tianjin Museum, is also on show. Attributed to an anonymous painter, the scroll of some 17 meters reenacts the scenes of a southern inspection of Qing Emperor Qianlong in Suzhou, Jiangsu province.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 62 Pingjiang Dao, Hexi district, Tianjin. 022-8388-3000.

Xu's legacy

Xu Beihong (1895-1953) is recognized as a key figure in the modernization of Chinese art in the 20th century. Trained in China and France, he sought to bring reforms to the home art scene and art education through the integration of Eastern and Western cultural traditions.

He worked with both the mediums of ink and oil to create a body of paintings in which he explored motifs and an approach to realism that would attest to the changes of time and people's aesthetics. Especially during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), he painted a lot to raise funds for self-defense, and to motivate Chinese people to keep on resisting and not lose hope.

Legacy Through Time: Xu Beihong, an ongoing exhibition at Guangdong Museum of Art, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, through to June 15, centers around the formation of Xu's style in painting and his views on art and education. The works show his revisits of the lion and galloping horse, two themes that have made him popular, in which Xu embodied the spirit of perseverance and heroism when confronting enemies.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 19 Baietan Nanlu, Liwan district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province.020-8890-2999.

Profile of an era

Late realism artist Xin Dongwang once said, "I hope that my paintings would embrace a humanistic spirit. I hope that my paintings would show the temperament of my nation". The painter, with humble beginnings, endeavored to become a leading portrait artist. His early experiences drove him to portray people at the grassroots. His works profile the richness and subtlety of people's emotions in an ever-changing time.

The Ordinary World, an exhibition now underway at the Art Museum of China Academy of Art, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, pays tribute to Xin whose artistic accomplishments provide the insights of a sociologist, a historian and sometimes a psychologist. It runs until March 31.

Xin was born in rural Hebei province. He learned painting from an early age, and continued to hone his skills while teaching in schools in Shanxi province. He passed away in 2014 at the age of 51. He was then a professor of the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays.218 Nanshan Lu, Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. 0571-8716-4633.