The National Art Museum of China held the collection exhibition from the Macao Museum of Art entitled “Confluence” this March as the first cooperation of the two museums. The show presented the history of the Macao artistic development under the circumstance of the fusion between the Chinese and the Western cultures in the past century.
In order to promote the exchange with the Macao counterpart, the National Art Museum of China selected a total of 99 oil paintings from its collection in a bid to present the artistic development since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. The exhibits comprise a number of important works in the history of the Chinese art and reflect the social life then and the historical situations in different periods.
The oil paintings were introduced from Europe to China with the first stop of Macao. With the theme of oil paintings, the exhibition held in Macao is of historical significance. In 1579, Michele Ruggieri, an Italian missionary, brought a number of exquisite icon oil paintings with Renaissance style to Macao first and then Guangdong province. Introduction of the oil paintings into China has a history of more than 400 years so far.
In the 1920s and the 1930s, inspired by the art of the Dunhuang frescoes, a number of artists integrated several elements of the Chinese paintings into the oil paintings such as threads and decorative colors and gained some fresh experiences. Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, the cultural condition made the notable development of oil paintings possible. The artists not only reflected the colorful realistic life through the oil painting language, but also integrated the Chinese conception and aesthetic pursuit through the forms and techniques of the oil paintings.
The exhibition provides an overview for the visitors of the historical evolution of the Chinese oil paintings since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
