Seeing China through Tuscan eyes

The Tree by Domenico Monteforte. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Artists from Tuscany in Italy have used brushes, colors and even a shuttlecock to portray their impressions of China.

The exhibition, New Ways of Seeing, at the Shaw Hall of Nanjing University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, will display their work.

At the event, which runs from Friday through Nov 30, seven artists will showcase their creations based on a month-long stay at the Fangshan Art Zone of Nanjing.

The artists represent the full spectrum of Italian art, from landscape to abstract, but none of them has been to China before.

During their stay in Nanjing, they were introduced to traditional Chinese culture and the arts, says Zhou Xian, co-curator of the exhibition and dean of Art Institute of Nanjing University.

This year marks the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Italy and 35 years of the sister-city ties between Nanjing and Florence, the capital of Tuscany and birthplace of the Renaissance.

Art Institute of Nanjing University and the local municipal authorities jointly hosted the Jinling-Artist-in-Residence Program aiming to enhance artistic and cultural exchanges between China and Italy.

Among the works is a combination of Western and Chinese elements in Painting and Model by Agostino Cancogni.

The artist put himself in the painting in which he draws a Chinese woman standing in front of a painting of a temple.

While the woman's clothes and the temple represent typical Chinese elements, his presence in the painting represents his stay in China, says Cancogni.