Modern touch

The lingering charm of an animated world under Wang's brushstrokes is the center of Vitality and Joy, an exhibition at Beijing's National Museum of China until June 30.

The gathering of collections from the National Museum, Beijing Fine Art Academy and the Wang Xuetao Memorial in Jinan is dedicated to Wang's lifelong endeavor to usher the longstanding tradition of flower-and-bird paintings into 20th-century China.

During Wang's years at the Beijing Fine Arts School, oil paintings and watercolors were gaining widespread popularity. In that same period, classical Chinese art was losing touch due to its confinement to rigid rules throughout the centuries.

Wang, who majored in oil painting, also took courses by great ink painters like Qi and Wang Mengbai. He was drawn to the beauty and poetry sense of the classical art and gradually established fame in the realm of Chinese paintings.

Wang revived the art by preserving the best of it while adopting elements of Western art.

"His brushwork is alive and clean. He was able to capture the lively moments of an animal, or a flower. It is as if these subjects became animated on paper," says Liu Wanming, deputy director of the National Museum of China and curator of Vitality and Joy.

"We can see from these works that Wang loved life and all things in the universe. His paintings present an atmosphere, a high spirit-above all figurative depictions-which is considered superior in Chinese paintings."

Wang learned a great deal from several master painters of ancient China. Zhu Da, also known by his pseudonym Bada Shanren, was one painter he admired greatly.