Chinese culture, art showcased at London Book Fair

An exhibition of books about Chinese culture and art titled A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains was held as part of the London Book Fair.

The fair, one of the world's largest book-publishing trade events, ran from Tuesday to Thursday and included the exhibition of more than 100 books about ancient and modern Chinese art, designs, and paintings.

The A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains exhibition featured many books about Chinese blue-green landscape paintings, which are distinctive because of their blue and green mineral or plant dyes.

At the center of the exhibition, a high-definition duplicate of the finest example of Chinese blue-green landscape painting was featured. The painting, called A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, shows mountains rising and falling between the sky and rivers that ripple through villages. The piece attracted strong interest from visitors and publishers at the exhibition, with many expressing a strong interest in traditional Chinese art.

"The work has an appeal in many ways. It has very attuned colors, and it was extremely well painted, which has given me some interest," said Klaus Erik Krogh, chief executive officer of 2K/Denmark, a graphic design company. "I have put a Chinese painting on my wall … and I also bought Chinese calligraphy."

Richard Charkin, the president of Bloomsbury China, a transnational publishing house, said he found the piece unlike Western art in many ways.

"I discovered the beauty, the power, and the foreverness of this art … it expresses the world in a way that I could never express it … If I see this style of mountains, trees, rivers, and the sky, I know that is Chinese art," he said.

The painting is one of the most famous in China's history, for its sweeping scale, rich colors, and vivid details.

Measuring 51.5 centimeters by 11.2 meters, the masterpiece is the only surviving piece by Wang Ximeng, who created it at the age of 17 during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). The era witnessed the flowering of literature and art and has left many poems and paintings that have been passed down through the ages.

Wang's work has also inspired many modern cultural creative products, including Only Blue and Green, a dance drama that has been popular on Chinese social media.

Zhang Jun, the deputy chief editor of China Youth Press International, the publisher that staged the exhibition, said she chose A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains as the centerpiece not only because of its fame but because of the historical stories behind Wang's composition.

"At the time of Wang's creation, which is the Northern Song period (960-1127), the state was in a poor status, as enemy troops were trying to take over the territory and the throne. However, a 17-year-old boy managed to draw his country's vast landscape, which represents Northern Song's wellbeing when the dynasty was actually about to fall. For me, this is a kind of a mindset that can only come from youth.

"I am always deeply moved by Chinese art and the historical contexts behind every piece of work. I'd love to dedicate myself to introducing these to the world, and let the world have a taste of our civilization."

Zheng Wanyin contributed to this story.