Traditional Chinese arts introduced to Athens Acropolis Museum

Two artists from the Shanghai Museum initiated visitors to the Acropolis Museum in Athens into the traditional Chinese arts of calligraphy and painting.

Calligrapher and exhibition designer and associate curator Yuan Qiming and painter and assistant curator of painting and calligraphy Dr. Yan Xiaojun worked before visitors, as if they were in their own private studios.

The Athens Acropolis Museum hosted a four-day workshop from March 22-25 in the context of a memorandum of cooperation signed between the two museums and the 2017 Greece-China Year of Cultural Exchanges and Cooperation in Creative Industries.

"I think visitors are very interested in the Chinese techniques of calligraphy and painting," President of the Acropolis Museum Professor Dimitris Pantermalis told Xinhua.

In the framework of cooperation between the two museums, two treasures from Shanghai Museum are on display at the Acropolis Museum for an exhibition which will last until April 30.

The two masterpieces are the bronze pan of Zi Zhong Jiang which dates back to the 7th century B.C. (Early Spring and Autumn Period), and the handscroll painting Travelling along the Clear River created by artist Wu Hong in the 17th century (the Qing dynasty).

"We have brought to the Acropolis museum two pieces of exhibits that is a bronze pan and a handscroll of Chinese painting that represent the ancient Chinese art. We are going to paint a landscape and I will show you the calligraphy of Chinese in ancient times, the clerical script of Chinese," Yuan said.

He presented major script types of Chinese calligraphy, one of the trademarks of Chinese culture.