Revived newspaper gears up to fill culture gap

Art News of China, the first national newspaper in Chinese focusing on fine art, was reborn in Beijing on Saturday after being closed for about 15 years.

The weekly publication will be distributed every Monday by the China National Academy of Painting under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture.

In 1985, Art News of China was founded in Beijing by the Chinese National Academy of Arts. It closed in 1990 due to financial problems.

Before 1985, there was no publication featuring paintings, sculptures, installations and the like in China except some art magazines and periodicals.

Now, as some of China's newspapers and magazines are struggling and are on the verge of closing down, reviving a publication focused on fine art is seen as "bucking the trend". It shows China's efforts to improve its art after President Xi Jinping made a speech promoting that goal at a cultural seminar last year in Beijing.

"Fine art is important parts of China's culture. It helps enhance the national art taste. We should make more efforts to keep in touch with the central government's investment in cultural development," Vice-Minister of Culture Dong Wei says of Art News of China.

Besides art news, the weekly publication has columns on the appreciation of masterpieces of traditional Chinese art.

For the first issue, it featured four pages on Along the River During the Qingming Festival, a scroll painting from the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

It is dubbed "China's Mona Lisa" and attracted big crowds when it was shown to the public for the first time in the Palace Museum earlier this year.

"I think Chinese art is ready for its best time. It's also the best time for a cultural renaissance, " says Liu Dawei, president of the Chinese Artists Association.

Liu is a painter of traditional Chinese ink-and-water art. The sales of his works at auction houses totaled nearly 250 million yuan ($39.68 million) in 2014, according to the Hurun Art List 2015 of the top 100 Chinese artists alive today.

On the Hurun Art List and other similar art lists issued by art agents in China, painters of traditional Chinese paintings win many more seats in the top 10 ranking than oil painters.

At the beginning of the year, another newspaper focusing on Chinese calligraphy was founded.

"Since last year, the art environment has changed a lot. Artists seem to be more focused on the creation of art instead of producing works catering to the market," says Zhang Xiaoling, chief editor of Art News of China.

He says the mission of the newspaper is to promote China's artistic spirit. It took his team five years to win approval from the government for the paper's publication.

To celebrate the newspaper's re-establishment, a painting exhibition of more than 100 artists' works opened the same day at the art museum of the China National Academy of Painting. It will run through Jan 28.