Paintings from 1950s China on show

Visitors at the National Art Museum of China.?[Photo by Jiang Dong/China Daily]

Five ink paintings that portray socialist constructions in the country in the 1950s are displayed at an ongoing exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. In the lengthy scrolls, their artists show manual landscapes of grandeur while keeping the composition and lining techniques of classic Chinese paintings in place.

A New Scene of Lanzhou, for instance, captures the dramatic changes in the ancient city. The painting is inspired by the travels of artists Jin Lang and Li Zhenjian in 1954 to Dunhuang, another cultural draw of Gansu province in Northwest China.

In Spring of Jiangpu, artist Lin Sanzhi documents how residents of the county in East China's Jiangsu province, built dykes when the Yangtze River Delta area was flooded in 1954. Other artist, Li Xiongcai, shows preparations for the floods in Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, in his 28-meter scroll two years later.

Guan Shanyue's Great Leap of Villages shows workers in the mountainous areas of Hubei, from 1958 to 1961. Another work — The Capital's Spring — a joint effort of five painters, presents a panoramic view of Beijing on scroll that is 46 meters long.

The Beijing exhibition runs through Wednesday.

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