What's on

Dunhuang blossoms

A decade ago, Chang Shana, an esteemed scholar of Dunhuang art, started a touring exhibition called Everlasting Beauty of Dunhuang, which shows her drawings of the murals and statues inside the Dunhuang caves in Gansu province and designs in which she incorporates motifs from Dunhuang. Chang, who's 93 years old, is also a former head of the Academy of Arts and Design of Tsinghua University. She spent her early teenage years in Dunhuang with her father, Chang Shuhong, the first director of the Dunhuang Academy. She was fascinated by the cave art and made copies of it.

Since then, the exhibition has traveled to many cities across the country to ignite people's interest in Dunhuang's art and how to carry on this heritage. It has come to the Chinese Traditional Culture Museum, where it will run until Oct 27. It navigates eight decades in which Chang Shana has lived up to her father's words and has blazed a trail to keep alive the artistry of Dunhuang. That is, by employing those patterns that have been impressed in her mind since her teens and which she has seen on designs in architecture, State gifts, costumes and other decorative items. She says Everlasting Beauty of Dunhuang is one of her ways to fulfill the wishes of her father to protect Dunhuang's heritage and show its importance to as many people as possible, and to nourish their hearts and minds.

9 am-5 pm, closed on Mondays. 16 Hujing Donglu, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-8799-1766/1866.

Eternal classics

Late French sculptor Jean Cardot left an oeuvre that graces both museum spaces and public places, including a statue of Charles de Gaulle seated on the Champs-Elysees in Paris and Bull Under the Sun as part of a long-term display of sculptures in the compound of the National Art Museum of China in Beijing.

In his work, Cardot continued to celebrate the diverse beauty of forms. By presenting the uniqueness of texture, he created an intriguing atmosphere surrounding the works and the audience.

The work and research into the world of art of Cardot is introduced at The Eternal Classic, an exhibition running through May 19 at Qingdao Sculpture Art Museum in the coastal city in Shandong province. On show are 81 works and drawings, as well as the tools of sculpture, books, photos, cameras and radios that re-enact the scenes of life and work of Cardot in his studios in Paris and southern France.

Several works featuring bull motifs are on display. Cardot revisited the images of bulls — ready to jump, in stillness and on the battleground — and a decline in details renders in his works the beauty of simplicity.

9:30 am-4 pm, closed on Mondays.66 Songhai Donglu, Laoshan district, Qingdao, Shandong province.0532-6886-8777.

Uncommon flowers

In the work of Swiss-born artist Lucienne Fontannaz, floral bouquets are not depicted as the still-life subjects as they are portrayed in classical paintings. Rather, they express her feelings of the changing landscapes, issues concerning women, the relations between human history and mythology, and the universe.

Her current exhibition in Beijing, The Symbolism of Bouquets, shares her explorations of adding philosophical and humanitarian dimensions to the depictions of flowers. Her method is similar to that of a collage painting, in which she puts together the images of floral bouquets, scenes of great artworks in history and even elements of Chinese landscape paintings, inspired by her trips to the country in recent years. By doing so, she has created semi-real, semi-surreal scenes to present curiosity, uncertainty, fear and benevolence.

For her, the bouquets serve as a channel to bring the audience back to the past and to the future. Her paintings are on show at the Ici Labas gallery through to May 26.

10:30 am-6 pm, closed on Mondays. D10, 798 Dongjie, Jiuxianqiao Lu, 798 Art Zone, Chaoyang district, Beijing. 130-0117-0598.

China Daily