Agony in bronze

Victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre are featured in a sculpture exhibition at the National Museum of China. Twenty-one figures comprise the 10 bronze works.[Photo by Jiang Dong and Wang Zhuangfei/China Daily]

To Flee is one of the four sets that Wu produced for the Memorial Hall of the Victims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders located in Nanjing. The other three are Shattered Family, Cries of the Wronged and Victorious Wall.

The display at the National Museum of China also includes Wu's 11.5-meter-high sculpture, Shattered Family. An anguished mother holds her dead son while screaming toward the sky. It's a symbol of countless mothers who lost their children in the slaughter.

"Wu's sculptures combine his own feeling with the universal feeling of human beings. The way he molded the sculptures is bold and creative, using both realism from the West and xieyi, a freehand style from traditional Chinese art," says Wang Wenzhang, president of the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Wu did a lot of research and read a lot to complete his sculptures in honor of the victims. Wu has lived in Nanjing for 30 years. He graduated from Nanjing Normal University and later taught at Nanjing University. Wu's years of living in the city makes him "familiar with its history, its people and its past anguish".

Wu says the sculptures in the National Museum of China echo those at the Massacre Memorial Hall in Nanjing.

The sculpture series has toured New York, Rome and Pohang, South Korea, in the past two years. This year, small-sized copies of the artworks were given as national gifts to the city of Jerusalem.

If you go:

9 am-5 pm, daily except for Mondays. The National Museum of China, 16 East Chang'an Avenue, Dongcheng district, Beijing. 010-6511-6400.