Anna Zhao, Chen Hongjuan

    anna.whizh@yahoo.com

    TWENTY-SEVEN sketch paintings of Beijing in the 1950s by master painter Guan Shanyue (1912-2000) are on display at the art museum that was named after him near Lianhua Hill Park in Futian District, Shenzhen.

    The paintings, most of which are depictions of scenes and lives in the capital city after the founding of New China, provides precious insight into life more than six decades ago.

    Predominant in the paintings are elaborate depictions of the Summer Palace, Beihai Park and the Great Wall. The scenes under the painter’s brushes are usually tranquil but radiate with life’s vitality. For example, trees, which are a common subject in traditional Chinese painting, stand tall, straight and graceful.

    The paintings also ushered in an era of change for traditional Chinese painting in the 1950s and 1960s when painters in the genre began to incorporate more realistic depictions into their works.

    Starting with Guan, traditional Chinese artists began to focus on people’s lives instead of on landscapes that were desolate and uninhabited.

    Guan affectionately re-creates scenes from a new perspective in a refreshing way. Later generations say that his way of sketch painting was similar to photography and showed the perspectives of the working class.

    Curators of the exhibition also aim to reproduce the old Beijing scenes by combining visual and audio effect in the exhibition area.

    In the introduction area, an electronic map of old Beijing is on display that shows many of the locations featured in the sketches. Visitors can see digitalized sketches from different painters by tapping on the touch screen or hear explanations from professionals in digitized speeches.

    To give visitors authentic experience of what it looked like at that time, almost every painting can be compared to a recent photo of the same scene and to photos taken around the time Guan did the original sketch. The exhibition’s entrance is also decorated to simulate a park bench where Guan would sit and sketch while the music “Let Us Sway Twin Oars,” the theme song of a children’s movie “Flowers of the Country” in 1955, plays in the background.

    Ding Lanxiang, the exhibition’s executive curator, said the exhibition goes beyond a mere display of Guan’s works to a medium in which visitors can have a well-rounded experience of how Guan created his works in the early years of the founding of New China.

    Guan, a native of Yangjiang in Guangdong Province, was a prominent representative of the Lingnan School of Chinese painting. He was best known for paintings of landscape and flowers, especially plum blossoms. In 1993, Guan donated 813 pieces of his work to Shenzhen. The exhibition is also being staged as a program to showcase the excellent fine arts in the museum’s collection. It was well-received when it premiered in Beijing in August.

    Dates: Through March 2015

    Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Mondays

    Venue: Guan Shanyue Art Museum (关山月美术馆)

    Add: 6026 Hongli Road, Futian District (福田区红荔路6026号)

    Buses: 10, 14, 25, 34, 105, 111, 215, 228, 238, 322, 350, 371

    Metro: Children’s Palace Station (少年宫站), Exit B