During the 2019 Spring Festival, 29 art museums in Shanghai received a total of 140,000 visits. Among all the exhibitions, the Rising Tides: An Exhibition Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of China's reform and opening-up held at the China Art Museum attracted over 60,000 visits alone. As of today, the exhibition has received nearly 500,000 visits since its opening.

A visitor with her child at the exhibition

At 10:00am this morning, when China Art Museum had just opened its door to visitors, our reporter met Wang Zhen’an, one of the early-bird visitors and his family. Wang lingered before some of the paintings and immersed himself in thought from time to time. He told the reporter that he settled down in Anhui at a young age (following the sending-down policy to redistribute excess urban population after the Great Chinese Famine and the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s) and he would record his life with a paint brush in his spare time. “The paintings and sculptures of the exhibition present the rural life at that time as well as the urban development over the last 40 years in an easily perceivable way and even my little grandson can understand that,” commented Wang Zhen’an.

The Rising Tides exhibition, which kicked off in October last year, focuses on the changes of the Yangtze Delta region over the 40 years. The exhibition is jointly presented by four art museums from the Yangtze Delta region. They've brought together a total of 120 pieces of work including paintings, sculptures, prints and picture book manuscripts - all of which were created from 1978 onward.

Oil Painting "Oriental Pearl"

"Shanghai and the neighboring provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui share the same root of culture that has nurtured the art scene. The artists, too, have also nourished and inspired each other," said Li Lei, executive director of the China Art Museum.

The painting named Imagination·Huangpu River opens the first chapter of the exhibition and depicts a moment when Deng Xiaoping was in a state of contemplation beside the Huangpu River. Other topics like China's home-built airliner C919, China's aircraft carrier, the Belt and Road Initiative, Shanghai’s support of Xinjiang, Pudong’s development, smart cities and cultural innovation parks, have also been selected as the themes for art creation.

Pupils imitating the paintings

Around noon, a group of pupils led by their teacher visited the exhibition to learn how to paint. They soon spread to every corner to choose their favorite piece of work to imitate.

Pupils imitating a painting themed on China's aircraft carrier　

Oil Painting "Shanghai Workers" by Li Gen

In 2018, the exhibition From Shikumen to Tiananmen attracted a record number of a million visitors. Spending a weekend or even a long holiday visiting art museums has been a regular choice for many citizens in the city. Despite the growing popularity of art museums and cultural exhibitions, many doubt that this great number of visitors truly understand art. “It’s true that professionals only represent a small part of visitors, but it is still a great thing if those artworks can stir up the emotions of ordinary people,” said Li Lei.