Expressing Belarus' beauty and soul

Paintings loaned from Belarus' national art museum,  Nikodim Silvanovich's Soldier with a Boy, on show in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Speaking about this show, the center's director Natalia Sharangovich said that no one is better than an artist to express a country's beauty and its soul.

It is the same idea that is demonstrated at the current exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, which also celebrates the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Belarusian diplomatic ties this year.

The exhibition took two years to prepare, says Wu Weishan, director of the National Art Museum of China, and it is grounded in the variety of collections, from historic iconographies to modern works, at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus.

Wu says the exhibition traces the evolution of Belarusian art since the 19th century to the present day, with a selection of portraits, landscapes, still lifes and genre paintings which "hail the majestic expanses and clear, blue sky of the land and its people's desire for a peaceful, free life".

The exhibition starts with the paintings of 19th-century Russian artists largely belonging to the artists' collective Peredvizhniki, or The Wanderers.