'Three-thousand-year Yungang in the moonlight', an arts exhibition, will be on show in the Yungang Grottoes, in Datong, North China's Shanxi province, from Sept 7 to Nov 7. It will exhibit hundreds of traditional-style Chinese paintings and calligraphic works, including a 325-square-meter portrait of the Yungang Buddha.
The exhibition, organized by Hong Qisong, a renowned Zen scholar who is internationally recognized and hosted by the administration of Yungang Grottoes, is designed as a special gift for the guests from home and abroad to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Hong has brought most of his own calligraphy works, and a series of art works for the 'Three-thousand-year Yungang in the moonlight' exhibition. He has also brought to the exhibition the Thousand Hand Guanyin, a huge canvas painting, and other paintings about Buddhism this year. The work that has the highest art value in the collection is a painting of the complete view of the Yungang Grottoes, which is 25 meters in length and 13 meters in width.
During last year's Mid-Autumn Festival, Hong led a team of more than 80 Taiwan renowned people to Datong. They and the Datong artists made a stone carving of the Yungang Grottoes in the moonlight, on the wall of the research institute of Yungang Grottoes. They also held cultural activities to celebrate the festival, exchange cultures across the Taiwan Straits, enjoyed concerts, and tasted tea and traditional Chinese pastries at the festival.
Through such cultural events, Hong wants to advocate traditional Chinese culture as well as world peace. Hong has had a great interest in Zen since his teenage years, and has almost 200 academic papers or books on it that have won him huge fame.