Remains of the day

观众参观等比例高保真数字化3D打印复制的安岳石窟毗卢洞“紫竹_110553.jpg

A visitor captures a 3D-printed replica of the Buddha statue from one of the Anyue Grottoes in Sichuan Province. The original site features more than 18,500 such statues
People inspect every meter of the exhibition's digital replica of A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, twice the size of the original masterpiece
A visitor takes a closer look at prints of paintings from China's imperial past
Visitors flip through the book A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings, on which the exhibit is based
Visitors soak up the painting experience inside the exhibit's immersive art space

The fine arts of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) remain irresistible to people to this very day, its paintings still proving a particular hit with history and art buffs. One famous example here is A Panorama of Rivers and Mountains, the roughly 12-meter-long scroll painted by Wang Ximeng, a teenage prodigy who studied landscape painting at the Imperial Painting Academy and was taught personally by Emperor Huizong (1082-1135).

The National Museum of China in Beijing now offers visitors a glimpse of this masterpiece in the form of a digital replica twice the size of the original.

This reproduction is one of the highlights of the long-term Compilation of Classics in the Flourishing Age exhibition based on the book A Comprehensive Collection of Ancient Chinese Paintings.

This undertaking, which first got underway in 2005, catalogues over 12,400 classic paintings, created primarily on paper, silk or linen, which are in the collections of 263 museums, galleries and other cultural institutions in and outside of China.

The ongoing exhibit displays the high-quality prints and digital images of more than 1,700 works featured in the book.

(Text and photos by Wei Yao)

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

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