Exploring Song Dynasty paintings: An immersive artistic journey with CGTN Art Series

During the Song Dynasty, Chinese landscape painting underwent significant advancements, with artists vividly portraying peaks, mountains, streams and river valleys. These landscapes often captured the artists' emotions and thoughts, reflecting a deep connection with nature.

Building on this rich artistic legacy, "The Song, Painted," a multimedia immersive and interactive virtual exhibition launched by CGTN Art Series, has rolled out its second season, "The Song, Painted – Nature." CGTN Art Series is a multimedia project launched by the China Media Group in 2022. The second season showcases the exquisite landscapes and flower-and-bird paintings of the Song Dynasty, representing the pinnacle of artistic expression in ancient Chinese painting. It aims to bring these masterpieces to a global audience, offering a unique window into the deep artistry of the Song Dynasty.

The website hosting the digital exhibition has curated six major categories: Nature, Fantasy, Joy, Flowers, Birds and Spirituality. Each category, distinct in design and narrative, showcases masterpieces such as "Travelers among Mountains and Streams" by Chinese landscape painter Fan Kuan and "Early Spring" by Guo Xi, a royal painter of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Other paintings include "Four Seasons," "Misty River and Layered Peaks," "Auspicious Cranes,""Double Magpies," "Red and White Cotton Rosemallow" and "Flowers and Insects." These celebrated Song Dynasty works, encompassing landscapes, flowers, and birds, are presented with vivid detail, allowing their artistic aesthetics and cultural significance to be fully appreciated and understood.

Complementing these visual displays, the website's "Insight" section, a 22-episode short video series, features interviews with a diverse group of esteemed guests. These include experts in ancient calligraphy and painting, philosophy scholars, traditional Chinese landscape and flower-and-bird painters, writers, naturalists, professors specializing in Chinese art history and multimedia artists. The guests hail from a wide geographical spread, representing cities and regions such as Beijing, Taiwan, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Sichuan in China, as well as international locales like San Francisco and Boston in the United States and Tokyo and Osaka in Japan.

Additionally, the website offers a high-definition image appreciation page, "Gallery," allowing viewers to closely appreciate these paintings from the comfort of their homes.

The digital exhibition showcases over 300 Song Dynasty masterpieces featuring landscapes, flowers and birds, sourced from 24 museums and art institutions worldwide. Highlights include prominent collections from Chinese museums such as the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Palace Museum in Taipei, the Shanghai Museum and the Liaoning Provincial Museum. There are also works from Japanese institutions like the Tokyo National Museum, the Kyoto National Museum, the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts and the MOA Museum of Art. Additionally, esteemed American museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, have also contributed.

Among these, 156 high-definition, large-scale images have been specially selected for the digital exhibition. Each artwork is accompanied by bilingual descriptions in both Chinese and English, making them accessible to a global audience and helping to interpret the Chinese philosophy and insights ingrained in these classic artworks.

Employing advanced technological methods, the digital exhibition brings these ancient paintings to life. Techniques like two-dimensional animation restoration, 4K high-definition visuals, 3D animated recreation, naked-eye 3D and AI-generated content are utilized to create a dynamic viewing experience. Complementing this technological marvel, seven meticulously selected pieces of Chinese-style music are integrated, guiding the global audience through a uniquely immersive and artistic journey.

The first season of the exhibition, "The Song, Painted – People," was launched by CGTN Art Series in January 2023. Currently in its second season, "The Song, Painted – Nature," employs a variety of formats, including bilingual Chinese and English immersive interactive web pages, in-depth interviews with experts from around the globe, high-definition showcases of paintings, social media posts and short video challenges. Together, the two seasons create an unparalleled and comprehensive digital exhibition of Song Dynasty painting art. This collection is among the most exclusive and complete representations of Song Dynasty paintings available worldwide.

To connect with a worldwide audience interested in Chinese art and history, the second season of "The Song, Painted" will be promoted across CGTN's social media platforms, both domestically and internationally, including Weibo, WeChat, Bilibili, Facebook, YouTube and the Yangshipin video app. This digital exhibition invites global viewers to embark on a journey back to the imperial splendor of a millennium past, providing a richly immersive experience of the artistic heritage from that era.

Click here to explore the second season, "The Song, Painted – Nature."

You can also access the first season, "The Song, Painted – People," by clicking here.