Visitors at the National Art Museum of China exhibition, Glorious Path, Grand Picture, can view more than 300 artworks created between 1938 and 2011. Photos by Jiang Dong / China Daily

Three exhibitions in Beijing that celebrate 90 years of the Communist Party of China have been drawing crowds. Zhu Linyong reports.

While the "red" - themed film Beginning of the Great Revival has made most of the headlines over the past weeks, three red art exhibitions running at Beijing's major museums have also drawn crowds. The exhibitions are being displayed simultaneously at the National Museum of China, the National Art Museum of China and the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution. "We are trying to turn a politically charged art exhibition into a visual feast that is also thought-provoking," National Art Museum dean Fan Di'an says.

His museum has teamed up with more than 10 provincial and municipal museums and galleries to stage Glorious Path, Grand Picture, a comprehensive art show featuring more than 300 ink works, oil paintings, watercolors, sculptures, woodblock prints, New Year pictures and picture-story books created between 1938 and 2011.

The newly refurbished National Museum of China is showing 74 State-commissioned masterpieces by artists from between 1951 and 1972 to mark the Party's 90th birthday.

Divided into three parts, the exhibition illustrates the rise of the Communist Party of China (CPC) between 1921 and 1949, the trying and eventful years between 1949 and 1978, and the new era since China's opening-up and reform spearheaded by CPC leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping.

Adults will be familiar with many of the exhibits through textbooks and posters as they have become critically acclaimed classics, says Fan, who hopes the exhibition can "bring viewers into the context of the tumultuous history of the CPC in an artistic fashion".

Among the best-known works are Autumn Harvest Uprising, Torches in Yan'an, marble relief pieces for the Monument to People's Heroes, the best-selling picture-story book Red Ribbon on the Earth, stone sculpture Hard Times and ink portrait Premier Zhou Enlai and the People.

Other eye-catching showpieces include oil portraits of American journalist Edgar Snow (1905-1972), who made the earliest exclusive interview of Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1936; Canadian Norman Bethune (1890-1939) who fought against Japanese invaders along with the Eighth Route Army in North China; and a woodblock print that depicts illiterate peasants in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, attending a democratic election using beans as votes.

Besides the works from artists from previous generations, there are also more than 20 large-scale creations from younger artists, with financial support from a national art project that kicked off in 2004, encouraging artists to create works about key events and figures of historical significance.

So far, at least 1,000 artists from across the country have engaged in this project in which the central government invested about 100 million yuan ($15.47 million), according to the Ministry of Culture.

"The production of numerous State-commissioned artworks with revolutionary themes has long been a unique phenomenon in the history of Chinese art", points out Chen Lusheng, National Museum of China deputy director and curator of the ongoing Exhibition of Modern Revolutionary Classic Art.

The newly refurbished museum is showing 74 State-commissioned masterpieces by artists from between 1951 and 1972, to mark the Party's 90th founding anniversary.

The subjects of these works include CPC founders, such as Li Dazhao, Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Zhou Enlai, war heroes and heroines, and ordinary Chinese who fought for freedom and democracy in the first half of the 20th century.

Many of the red classics have limitations for various reasons, Chen admits.

For example, most of the portrayals of revolutionary figures are larger than life and look like gods instead of humans. They are rendered with exaggerated bright red tones to express their enthusiasm for revolution and hopes for a better society.

Some artists were forced to change the original versions of their works for political reasons.

In 1953, master oil painter Dong Xiwen (1932-1973) created a grand work depicting the moment when Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People's Republic on Oct 1, 1949, on the Tian'anmen Rostrum.

He was told to erase former Chinese leader Gao Gang from the painting in 1954 and to take out former Chinese leader Liu Shaoqi from the work in 1972, during the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976).

The work regained its original look only in 1979 when CPC leaders led Chinese people into a new era of opening-up and reform, and began taking a more liberal and tolerant approach to artistic creations.

"Even so, these red art classics have become an integral part of our history and are sources of strength and inspiration for people today," says Wang Yanni, daughter of master painter Wang Shikuo (1911-1973).

In her view, the older generations of artists, including her father, "were expressing in their works their heartfelt appreciation and admiration of the New China led by the CPC".

To create the critically acclaimed Blood Stained Clothes - a huge pencil drawing that depicts a scene during the land reform process in the 1940s - her father made countless field research trips to rural areas. He produced 370,000 sketches of peasants from 1950 to 1953.

The hardworking artist died of a heart attack when doing a sketch of a peasant in 1973, in Gongxian county, Henan province. The sketch was for an oil version of his masterpiece Blood Stained Clothes, commissioned in 1972 by the National Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History (now known as the National Museum of China).

"Young and middle-aged artists are following the example of their predecessors, such as Wang Shikuo, in creating new works that eulogize the unprecedented achievements China has achieved over the past decades under CPC leadership," Chinese Artists Association chairman Liu Dawei said at the opening of a group show at the Military Museum on June 27.

Over the past years, many artists have paid visits to sites associated with the CPC's early history to gain inspiration. They include Jinggang Mountain in Jiangxi province, where Mao Zedong formed the Red Army; and Xibaipo in Hebei province, where CPC leaders, such as Mao and Zhu De, guided the People's Liberation Army in major battles against the Kuomintang army from 1947 to 1949.

The Chinese Artists Association also organized several red tours for artists to historical sites from May to September last year, Liu says.

"It's like a pilgrimage to the mecca of Chinese revolution," recalls Li Qingke, an artist from Sichuan province who visited a string of revolutionary sites in Hunan province before creating his ink work Long March, which he submitted for the exhibition at the Military Museum.

"Through field study, I have readjusted my viewpoint of Chinese revolutionary history and feel connected to its traditions," he says, adding he has injected his feelings into his vivid portrayal of Red Army soldiers on the Long March in the 1930s.

"I believe the exhibition may help viewers, especially young people, understand how the CPC has come a long way against all difficulties and embarked on a new quest for China's great revival," Liu Dawei says.

The permanent exhibition on CPC history at the National Museum of China runs daily all year, while the other two shows end on July 18.