SOME of the best works of ancient Chinese art are on display at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) until May 13.

Martha Bleshman, a resident in the San Francisco Bay Area, the United States, spent quite some time examining a painting of lotuses at the exhibition.

She said she was impressed. “When I look at paintings of lotuses, I mostly see flowers, but in this one I see mostly leaves,” she said.

“The Lotus in Ink” by Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) master Shi Tao depicts the plant in an abstract and eccentric manner.

Also on display are 10 other works of art by Chinese artists and connoisseurs of the 17th century.

The exhibition offers U.S. audiences a glimpse into the cultural world during the turbulent times when China was in transition from Ming to Qing (1644-1910) dynasties.

“As a child, we went to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and looked at the Chinese landscape paintings. I would imagine myself in the mountains,” said Bleshman.

“The sense of the vastness of the space and the people being little within it — I think it is represented beautifully through the distinguished style,” she said.

To Judith Berling, a professor of Chinese and comparative religion at Graduate Theological Union, the lack of Chinese knowledge does not prevent a viewer from appreciating the traditional Chinese paintings.

“It’s a lovely exhibit. It shows the life of the Ming Dynasty city of Nanjing,” said Berling, while guiding a group of three friends through the exhibition Tuesday.

A similar exhibition, which concluded January at BAMPFA, focused on Chen Hongshou, one of the best fine-brush artists in the 17th century.

(Xinhua)